In connection with Lama Ole Nydahl’s upcoming teachings in London on death and rebirth we reproduce here the following transcript from a lecture given in Australia in the mid 1990’s. It is also held on the Buddhanet website.
Lama Ole Nydahl (photo: Marcin Muchalski)
The Tibetan Buddhist teachings on death and rebirth are unique and very complete. They usually interest everybody who gets them. In order to understand about death and rebirth, it’s important to begin by observing the nature of our mind. Looking at the mind we often think that there are two things. There is something seeing and there is something being seen. There is a mirror there, the picture is in the mirror. There is that which observes and that which is being observed. But if we look for true duality this cannot be found. Where does every thought and feeling and experience come from? It comes from the open clear space of the mind. Who knows it? The open clear space of the mind. Where does it change? It changes inside that open clear space and it also returns to it again. So, if we look for the mind we see that it’s not two things, the seer and the things seen, the experiencer and the experienced. They are not two, but one totality manifesting in two ways. There is the timeless aspect, which is like the ocean, and there is the changing aspect inside time, which is like the waves coming and going in the ocean. And we cannot say that the things either are or are not the thoughts and feelings, either are or are not the mind. They appear there, they are known by it. They disappear there again. Of course they are felt to be different and they are experienced as different. We see them as something apart.
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