Mind as dynamic display, and liberation as non-fabricated knowing
1. Dullness as the Veil of Conceptual Habit
Sangharakshita begins by addressing the staleness of spiritual life. In Mahāmudrā, this corresponds to the obscuration of appearance by habitual mind—when attention is seized by routine, awareness collapses into dull conceptual filters.
Mahāmudrā sees this as nyam—a flat experience where clarity is present but unrecognized.
He gestures toward a release of attention into the vividness of the moment, which echoes pointing-out instructions: even dishwashing can be a portal, if you drop the filter of sameness.
2. Entering the Dimension of Inconceivability
The call to “take the plunge” is Mahamudrā in tone, even if not in language.
“We must enter the unknown… not what we already know, but what we don’t know.”
This is the core of spontaneous presence (lhun grub) in Mahāmudrā: awareness is not cultivated, it is unveiled. Conceptuality cannot reach it. It is a non-manufactured freedom, a release into the nature of mind (sem nyid), which is, as Sangharakshita says, inconceivable.
3. The Nature of Appearances: Like Magic
In Mahāmudrā, appearances are not denied—they are known as mind’s dynamic display (rang tsal). They are like illusions, not because they don’t exist, but because they are dependently arisen, momentary, and luminous.
Sangharakshita’s magician conjuring an elephant echoes Mahāmudrā’s metaphors:
- dreams, reflections, mirages—vivid yet ungraspable.
- Appearance without essence.
- Display without duality.
In Mahāmudrā, this is tsal, the energy of knowing arising as world.
His statement that “existence is inconceivable” is a direct reflection of Mahāmudrā’s view that any appearance, when truly seen, dissolves into dharmatā—the unbounded expanse of knowing.
4. Emancipation as the Collapse of View
Sangharakshita outlines levels of emancipation—moving from psychological freedom to the formless absorptions, and finally to “perfect cessation.”
Mahāmudrā would recognize these as stages of deepening non-fabrication—but would also add:
The moment of true knowing is not built—it is recognized.
The Inconceivable Emancipation (acintya-vimokṣa) is the Mahāmudrā moment where mind realizes itself—beyond seer and seen, beyond object and subject.
“Emancipation is always from the known into the unknown.”
This is the collapse of dualistic mind into the unconditioned. It’s not a path you walk—it’s a collapse of the illusion that there is a walker.
5. Dharma Beyond Words
His insistence that the Buddhas do not teach with words but demonstrate aligns beautifully with pointing-out instruction:
Words cannot grasp the nature of mind.
The teacher embodies the recognition.
Realization is caught, not taught.
In Mahāmudrā, the greatest instruction is direct transmission—often in silence. The thunderous silence of Vimalakīrti could be a mind-seal moment.
6. Form Is Emptiness, Emptiness Is Form
The “magical” display is not illusion—it is the dynamic radiance of emptiness.
Sangharakshita’s take: reality is not absolutely real, but neither is it unreal—it is magically real, dependently arisen and empty. This is the twofold truth in dynamic unity.
Mahāmudrā does not dismiss the world—it rests as awareness within appearances, undistracted.
✦ Final Thoughts: The Mahāmudrā Body of the Lecture
If we were to draw this talk in Mahāmudrā language:
- Ground (gzhi): Mind is luminous, self-knowing, yet obscured by conceptual dullness.
- Path (lam): We are invited to drop views, pierce appearances, and release into wonder.
- Fruition (’bras bu): Acintyavimokṣa—the non-conceptual knowing of mind as it is.
Sangharakshita does not use Dzogchen or Mahāmudrā vocabulary, but the dynamic intuition is fully present. In fact, this lecture might be seen as a prelude to pointing-out—a poetic nudge toward the threshold of mind’s nature.