If the Diamond Guidance is the intellect, then the Diamond Dome is the essential mind that brings about the precise understanding of the levels of knowing. There is the usual learned, discursive knowledge based on memory, which is necessary for functioning in our daily life, but basic knowing – knowing the presence of Being – is not a reflective knowing; it is the knowing of Being, which is knowing by direct experience. True teachings must begin with this undiluted experiential knowing; otherwise, the concepts taught are abstract ideas that are not based in reality beyond subjective mind. When a teaching is grounded in the true felt known, then it's conceptual models are accurate pointers to the realities that underlie the teaching. The knowledge we accrue through education can peacefully coexist with a more basic, essential knowing, but the trick is knowing when and how to use each of them. The Diamond Guidance is an adjunct to our ordinary intellect and can navigate any kind of knowledge. That is what gives it its power. An intellect that can use mental knowledge while also having a foot in the universe of presence can conceptualize all kinds of knowing – whether mental or direct – with exactness.

The diamond dome is basically direct and objective knowledge of true nature; hence it is the wisdom of the path of essence. It demonstrates how each aspect of essence is a particular way of knowing true nature, and shows how the realization of each aspect can be a path on its own. In other words, it shows how the inner journey can be understood, in its totality, in relation to each of the aspects, and how a path can integrate various aspects in its conceptualization, or even the totality of all aspects

The diamond dome is so called because it has the shape of a dome composed of variously colored diamonds. Its descent in the soul appears first in the form of a delicately faceted and transparently clear dome of clear light, of various beautiful colors, crowning the head. Its manifestation is frequently accompanied by a diamond dorje at the forehead. The state has extreme clarity and lightness, with an amazing sharpness and precision in experience and perception. Its central teaching is objectivity in regard to knowledge of true nature in its various essential aspects. Each aspect manifests as a colored diamond, but each diamond is both the presence of the aspect and the wisdom of its epistemological mode, of how to know it. We refer to it then as the diamond body of knowledge, or of noesis, diamond gnosis. It provides the soul with the wisdom of essential knowledge, disclosing how true nature is pure being inseparable from knowing. It is the objective teaching of how essence is true nature as basic knowledge free from ordinary knowledge. Hence, it clarifies the difference between basic knowledge and ordinary knowledge, and therefore between essential experience and egoic experience. We discuss this difference in detail in many of our previous publications; for example, in The Pearl Beyond Price, chapter 2, we address the difference between Being and ego.

A major insight of developmental psychology is that the sense of being an autonomous individual is based on the ego structure of boundaries; at this point the soul may begin to recognize this fact in painful and intimate personal experience. This is the contribution of the diamond dome; it is part of the wisdom of this vehicle that all such inner activity is the expression of ego activity, as the cycle of rejection-hope-desire, and that such activity is inseparable from the sense of being an individual entity. This is the issue of the inner search, as we discussed in chapter 15 in the description of the diamond dome. (A more detailed discussion of the ego activity can be found in The Point of Existence, chapter 8.) The wisdom of the diamond dome brings recognition that the inner hopelessness occurring at this point is objective, that the dilemma is due to this inner activity. The helplessness is due to the fact that such inner activity only entrenches the soul into being the separate individual. More important, the helplessness is objective because no action on the part of the soul can release her from this trap. What is needed is not activity, not a doing of any kind, but a giving up of the struggle. The soul needs to recognize that she actually can do nothing here; she needs to forget about trying to release herself. She needs to forget even about wanting or desiring the release.

The diamond dome embodies the wisdom of the necessity of ego death for the free unfoldment of the soul, and provides knowledge of how essence works toward this death. It reveals that essence is inseparable from knowledge, and ushers the student into the perception that being Being and knowing Being are the same.

Working through the issues of the diamond dome reveals that in contrast, the ego identity subsists through its inner activity, based on rejection, hope, and desire. The soul learns that being her essence is a matter of simply being, and that this essence is recognized by being it. No activity is needed for the soul to be herself. This insight brings about the end of the attitude of seeking that began the inner journey, revealing it as a continuation of the ego activity.

The presence of essential knowing of the Diamond Dome delivered the wisdom that illuminated and dissolved, one by one, the ideations and adhesions of the ego self – for example, the ego’s inflexibility and rejection of self and others, it's fierce grasp on its limited point of view and, of course, it's suffering and ignorance. We also discovered the importance of forgiveness, which was a step into the Diamond Dome. If we do not forgive the past fully, we adhere to it in our minds, and our present awareness is clouded with grudges. We begin to understand that acceptance is a necessary step in order for the ego to surrender to the moment.

The purity of presence itself challenges the ego identity. It is the very not-doing that exposes how the pea is always messing with itself so that it can continue to exist. We discovered that it takes a long time to learn how to let ourselves be. The Diamond Dome’s message that knowing is immediacy of Being brought additional skill to our practice of Inquiry. The more immediate our knowing, the more deftly the blade of truth could penetrate the historical knowledge of the familiar self. As we applied this understanding, the endless cycle of rejection, hope, and desire began to unwind. It was a relief to see it for what it was – but even then, we could do nothing to prevent or completely stop the relentless activity of the ego.