The continuous display that true nature enacts always appears in the context of time and space. True nature is timeless and spaceless, but manifests everything in time and space. It forms the ground and essence of all manifestation, but as we saw in our example of Jack’s dream, this ground is one and indivisible. The ground true nature is one unified field that underlies and constitutes all existence. In itself true nature has no dimensions, no spatial or temporal extensions. Yet because all forms manifest within true nature, we will experience it as a boundless, infinite field of coemergent presence. We perceive the presence of true nature as an infinite field of awareness or consciousness, unbounded and unlimited. True nature in manifestation appears, then, to be omnipresent. It is everywhere, as the indivisible field of presence forming the ground and substance of everything. In self-realization, the soul will experience that she is everywhere, she is everything, she is infinite, she is boundless. In other words, dimensionless true nature will appear in manifestation to possess infinite and endless extension in space. Its original spacelessness appears in manifestation as infinite space. True nature has no distance but it is all the distances in manifestation.  

True nature, similarly, transcends time because it is outside of our time. It contains all time, yet it possesses no temporal extension, no duration. We cannot look at it within the concept of time for time is its creation, its product. It is ontologically prior to time just as it is ontologically prior to space. This is what we mean when we say true nature is timeless. However, actually experiencing this timelessness—knowing one’s own mind and nature from this perspective—is a far cry from recognizing it conceptually. It is paradoxical, as we described Jackie’s experience in the dream, and it is just as miraculous and mind-blowing. 

The openness of true nature is its fourth characteristic. Openness means an infinite number of possibilities—open to be anything, open to manifest as anything, unlimited in its potential. This is the indeterminacy and inexhaustibility that we discussed in the last chapter. Reality is always changing because its true nature is completely open. This is the space dimension of our Being: When you recognize true nature, you find it to be spacious. In other words, spaciousness is inherent in the presence that is true nature. The whole universe is a deep mysterious nothingness, openness, lightness, and complete absence of any heaviness. And this very mysterious, delicate spaciousness has a luminosity inherent in it, a glimmer, a radiance that gives it awareness of itself. This radiance appears in the various colors and forms we see as the many objects of discrimination. But it’s a unified radiance—one field of light that is in dynamic flow and constant change. This fourth characteristic is related to the Buddhist notion of the “wisdom of the reality field,” also called dharma-dhatu, one of the awarenesses of the Buddha. 

The way True Nature approaches all questions is by being open with full awareness and understanding of the particular reality that a person is operating in. For example, if a person embraces reality as nondual, as having no separating boundaries, True Nature is very open to that and will respond accordingly. Whatever beliefs, assumptions, and limitations a person has, True Nature is open to see those without trying to change them. If an experience is limited, True Nature sees it in its limitation and doesn’t try to make it be different. True Nature really has no preferences. So, one thing we can learn from True Nature is to have no preference, no choice; we don’t need to choose what to experience. Our experience always simply happens. If we try to choose and say, “This is good, this is bad, this situation should include this and not that,” we are already separating ourselves from True Nature; we are already not practicing. 

These are the qualities of Buddha nature, true nature before differentiation into dimensions or aspects. They are its inseparable qualities. They are the timeless qualities of nondifferentiated and ultimate true nature. In other words, using the conceptualization of the Diamond Approach, they are not related to any of the five boundless dimensions or the many essential aspects; for the former are the differentiation of true nature into dimensions, and the latter into explicit and discernable qualities. In the Diamond Approach, the spiritual qualities are aspects of essence, the way true nature appears in the experience of the soul in a differentiated and discriminated way, a way that is relevant for both the inner path and everyday life. The Buddhist logos does not include this kind of differentiation of true nature, in contrast to its importance in the logos of the Diamond Approach. The logos of the Diamond Approach includes the understanding that true nature is originally nondifferentiated, which includes in an implicit and undifferentiated manner various perfections. These are qualities of its presence, its being, and its truth, that become instrumental in manifest reality when they arise in a differentiated and explicit manner. In other words, these are qualities of manifest true nature, one of the primary ways it appears in manifestation. They appear in an explicit, differentiated, and even discriminated way; they are capable of being experienced individually and known for what they are. True nature is like white light, and the essential aspects are like the rainbow colors that are its prismatic differentiations.   

What really matters is that we as individual human beings are this mysterious philosophers’ stone. As we explore it, it reveals itself to us because it is our nature, the nature of reality. It reveals to us the secrets of reality—what we are, what reality is, what the meaning of life is. True nature is the answer to our deepest questions: “What are we? Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing?” We can know the answers to these questions even if we cannot write them down or speak them aloud. Although we are talking about what is holy and sacred, what we revere and love, true nature is also us; it is every thing. What makes it fun is that even though it is everything, it is nothing. It is none of it and, at the same time, it is all of it. It is you when there is no you. It is you completely. When you realize true nature, you realize that is what you are, but there is nothing and nobody there. So what does it mean, then, that that is what you are? And you are certain you are completely being yourself, and people look at you and say, “This guy is really there,” but your experience is that there is nothing and nobody there.  

But recognizing true nature as a timeless now is only the beginning. We can delve more deeply into our experience of time and space. The more we are this true nature that we have always been but haven’t fully recognized, the more we understand what it means that it is beyond time and space. It’s not only that true nature is everything, but because it is outside of everything at the same time as it is everything, it makes possible certain kinds of unexpected relationships between things.  

Of course, most of us have ideas about when we will be able to rest. Many of us have very elaborate and specific conditions that we feel must be satisfied before we can have peace. Even when those conditions are fulfilled, we rarely allow ourselves to rest anyway; usually we just set new conditions. Most of the time, the conditions cannot be fulfilled. But these conditions are actually redundant. Since our true nature is peace and love and full of pleasure, why are we putting conditions on it? If we really engage in our work here, if we engage in the practice of inquiry we will see that the activity of seeking is actually the source of our pain and suffering. If we do not see that, but continue to believe that the seeking is what is going to take us to happiness, we will just get more frustrated. Even if you acquire or achieve something that you have believed will make you happy, you will not feel satisfied, you will not be fulfilled, because the activity of seeking is in itself pure suffering.  

All of the qualities of Essence color the field of the soul in their own likeness when they touch it. In fact, the soul transforms into the very quality that touches her. So when the Black Essence touches the manifestations of the soul, it brings them back to its own nature, which is peacefulness, and the Peace of true nature is a sense of stillness in which nothing stirs. It is total stillness, which, when precisely understood, turns out to be one hundred percent annihilation. It is an intense sensitivity, but the sensitivity has become so intense that it is absolute, for absolutely nothing stirs.  

We see here two kinds of differentiation, making up two levels of manifestation. The first is the differentiation of true nature into its own qualities, aspects, and forms of essence. True nature is perfect in all ways, but it has special perfections that are eternally present in it in an implicit way, the way white light inherently contains the colors of the rainbow. These are the perfections of love, truth, compassion, contentment, peace and so on, the diamond vehicles and other essential forms and dimensions. Being timeless qualities, they are independent of human mind, history, and culture. True nature presents these depending on historical situations, but the qualities themselves are timeless and primordial. True nature manifests them by differentiating its own field into the forms, colors, and flavors implicitly inherent in its pure presence. Such level of differentiation is purely spiritual forming the objective and true universal realm, and hence hidden to the physical senses.  

We have already explored the individual soul and how it is an organ of perception, action, and realization for Living Being to manifest its possibilities. Living Being is a dynamic, intelligent, alive, and totally pure enlightenment. It is because the enlightenment drive embodies and expresses the dynamism of Living Being that it reveals endless illumination and enlightenment. When we recognize this, we can see that Living Being is constantly evolving—not in the sense of what it is, but in terms of how it experiences itself. In other words, Living Being is constantly evolving its organs of perception in order to perceive itself more completely. You are, as an individual, its organ of perception and realization. And we are all, as individuals, the organs through which Living Being gets to know itself, gets to perceive itself, and gets to recognize its enlightenment. The situation is subtle because it interweaves many views, many perspectives, and many dimensions at the same time. If we are in the condition of true nature, everything is beautiful, everything is pure, everything is free and always has been and can’t be otherwise. At the same time, we know that not everybody has that experience. So most teachings say that when enlightenment happens, we realize that it is the natural condition, that reality has always been enlightened and we simply haven’t seen it. The enlightened condition is always present; it is primordial. And true nature is perfect without beginning, and it has always been perfect.  

We refer to this manifestation as Brilliancy. When we experience Brilliancy, we experience perfection and completeness explicitly because our true nature is manifesting to us in a form characterized by perfection and completeness. By inquiring into Brilliancy, we recognize it as intelligence. It is the presence of pure radiance, pure brilliance. The brilliance, the radiance, is like white light that contains all the colors of the spectrum. Clear light does not manifest the prismatic colors, nor does black light. More precisely, the clarity and the blackness have all the colors in an implicit way, not explicitly. In Brilliancy, they are explicit but not differentiated, not discriminated yet. That’s why when we experience manifestation directly out of the Absolute, we always see it as a radiance, as a brilliance, as illumination.  

Through our experience of living, we have developed the potential of True Nature to know, but True Nature is itself beyond that; it is pre-knowing, more primordial than knowing. It is just the “simply being there”—the awareness of being there without the awareness of being there meaning anything. The experience is: “I am aware of being here, but there is nothing in the mind that says I am aware of being here. There is no recognition of being here; I am just being here.” Sometimes you see this in babies who are looking at you in a certain way. They are very present, but you can tell that they are not reflecting on themselves; they are not thinking that they are being there or that they are looking at you. Although they have a very present, focused attention, there is no thinking about themselves or recognizing anything—only bare awareness. When that happens, there is no responding, no reacting on their part; they are just there perceiving. And that happens usually when they are in a state of relaxation or satisfaction. The same is true with animals. When they are satisfied or relaxed, and no threat is present, there is just the bare awareness of and sensitivity to, what is.  

Essence is always pure, eternally immaculate, everlastingly perfect. This is the reason why many wisdom traditions speak of realization as recognizing the inherent perfection of Reality. Our true nature is primordially pure, complete; it does not need to develop or be clarified. This can lead, and has led, to much confusion about the inner journey, whether it is the discovery of a primordial perfection or the process of perfection. This also resulted in the conceptual dichotomy of gradual and sudden paths of enlightenment. Understanding soul and essence, and the relation between them, clarifies such confusion. Soul grows and develops. She does this by actualizing her potential. The central potential she needs to actualize is her essence. Realizing her essential nature she is enlightened. Her essence is her deepest and most central potential, but it is a particular potential, one of the elements that constitute her potential. Essence does not have potential, for it is the ground of all potential, the ultimate nature. Realizing essence we recognize we are primordially and fundamentally immaculate and complete. The soul develops, and her spiritual development is the actualization and realization of essence. But in the state of self-realization, development does not make sense, for we are then essence, which is perfection and completeness itself.  

True Nature does nothing, but it is naturally aware because it is pure awareness. If we just let things be—if we don’t control them or try to direct them—we are naturally, simply aware. And in this awareness, we are present to whatever is happening. True Nature is so loving, so kind—infinite in its kindness and compassion and intelligence—that it relates to each condition exactly according to what that condition needs. And it doesn’t give you an instruction that you cannot relate to. It doesn’t try to tell you to practice something you cannot practice. In our work, we discover that True Nature responds to our limitations—our stuckness, our lack of development, our reactivity—appropriately and with attunement and kindness.  

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.  

Such freedom and spontaneity will normally arouse one’s fears of being inappropriate or making mistakes. But this simply demonstrates the remnants of inner conflicts, possibly some self-images or suppressed aggression. We then have the opportunity to see these limitations and understand them, which is necessary if we are going to integrate the realization of the absolute in daily life. Only when we have no more unconscious reasons to be afraid of spontaneity can we integrate such realization. But such realization will also require the integration of the understanding that true nature is pure intelligence and love, and that being it will only mean we will act with these undefiled qualities of Being. We are not discussing the various issues and structures that we encounter in the inner journey as we discover and realize the absolute, but this does not mean they do not exist. We are simply focusing on exploring the absolute itself and how it affects our experience, but we need to remember that the issues and obscurations in the way of such realization are the deepest and the subtlest. The absolute challenges our deepest held beliefs and positions about ourselves and reality.  

So we will explore in detail who the prime mover is, who the illuminator is, and what is responsible for realization. What is responsible for the arising of clarity, understanding, and spiritual experience? Every time we have a spiritual experience, it is nothing but the philosophers’ stone appearing in one form or another. It is nothing but true nature manifesting itself. The philosophers’ stone or true nature is pure spirit, but we will see as we go on that spirit is also everything. It is every single thing and all things. It is every single thing among all other single things, and it is all things as the unity of the collection of every single thing. And it is also every single thing as all things. This gets very interesting and is part of what I mean by the secrets of existence.     

When we experience true nature, whether it is as a quality or dimension of being or a vision, we realize that it is far different from our ordinary experience. It is from the perspective of conventional experience that true nature appears as radically other. I am not saying that true nature is absolutely other. In realization, in awakened experience, we realize it is not other. So to say that true nature is absolutely other would be to say that it is always other and that it can never be anything else. But that is not the case; it only appears so when we are not realized. When we have a clear encounter of the third kind, we recognize the radical otherness of true nature. This recognition is important because without it we would think that true nature is part of what we have already known ourselves to be. We would assume that true nature is part of the conventional world. We wouldn’t see that it is from another world.  

Sometimes we experience ourselves in a dimension of True Nature that is unchanging. But even though the ground of True Nature is unchanging, that ground is not separate from all that manifests in it, and all of those manifestations are constantly changing. True Nature is rich with possibilities; its potential is immense and it never ceases to disclose its treasures. It is always revealing its potential, displaying all the forms possible. We are learning here about the relationship of True Nature to the various manifestations. Part of our ignorance is in not understanding clearly what the relationship of True Nature is to everything else. Everything else is just a form that True Nature takes. Or you could say that True Nature manifests itself in its various forms. But it is still True Nature. So although it is always changing in its manifestations, we are not being something else. We are being ourselves. The ego creates a sense of being oneself as a fixed, unchanging self. True Nature doesn’t need that kind of stability.  

And the realizations of nonhierarchy keep expanding the more we investigate our experience. I’m sure when I talk about the many faces of true nature, some people assume that there is something there that has different faces. But true nature is its faces. There is no true nature apart from its faces. Now what does that mean? “You mean even true nature is not the ultimate I’ve been looking for! Can we at least say there is an ultimate but it is unknowable?” That is one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that true nature is always and only its face. If there is a way it is manifesting, that’s true nature. This is what I mean when I say that true nature is self-creating, its self-creative dynamism forever igniting new possibilities that are always nothing but itself.  

But the fourth turning of the wheel reveals more about the creative dynamism of true nature. We see that it is not as if there is a true nature, one of whose properties is creative dynamism. We come close to understanding the indefinable truth of true nature when we understand that it is self-creative. So, for example, when essential strength arises, essential strength is creating itself. Something else is not creating it. It is not as if there is a Godhead someplace that is creating essential strength in the moment. Rather, the quality is self-creating. It does not have a source outside of itself. There is no true nature separate from essential strength that is creating this quality. Essential strength is true nature creating itself as essential strength. This goes for all spiritual manifestations. When pure awareness arises as the luminosity that makes up everything, true nature is creating itself as that. It is not as if true nature is over here and is creating pure awareness over there. Pure awareness is self-creating; pure awareness is true nature creating itself as pure awareness. 

The primary insight in the logos of the Diamond Approach is that our true nature is the truth. Second, that true nature is self-revealing; it automatically, spontaneously, and naturally has a tendency to reveal its truth. And it reveals this truth in all situations, at all times, in all ways, in everything we experience. Since our nature is self-revealing truth, then if we are not seeing or being our true nature, it is because we are stuck in what we think we know. We believe that we understand when we don’t. We believe that we see the truth when we are not seeing the truth. This not seeing the truth and believing we see it is the unconscious unclarity, the unconscious obscuration, the omnipresent dullness of the ego-personality. The ego-self constantly recites to itself: “Truth is whatever I happen to be thinking.” Inquiry is a way of actively challenging this smug comfort of believing that what we experience and know is the truth. In doing so, it opens up a space for Being to naturally reveal its truth.  

So this is where we can see how our orientation, our attitude, about time can become an obstacle, an obscuration, to being our True Nature. If we have the attitude of future orientation, we miss the moment. We are dissociated from the presence of the moment, and we can’t be in the moment. The truth is that our True Nature is similar to the nature of light, which is timeless and which we can experience in the moment as the now-ness of the moment. But if we are oriented toward the future, we are not allowing ourselves to be where we are, which is now, and we are also leaving, dissociating from, the moment. Our nature is light, pure now-ness, so to operate from the perspective of a future that can get better or worse means that we are dissociating ourselves from our True Nature. How am I going to be myself if I do that? How am I going to be where I am? In other words, the orientation of hope—hoping for something in the future —disconnects you from who you really are. The orientation of expectation or of having a goal to accomplish does the same thing. For example, you may be thinking that one of these days, you are going to be enlightened, so you are working at it now. Light would never think that way; it doesn’t posit an end state in which everything is going to be wonderful, and it doesn’t say that we have to practice now in order to get to that goal. For light, that is completely nonsensical; there is just now. Now is just wonderful the way it is, and now is all that we have.  

During the course of engaging the spiritual path, it is difficult to practice without a goal and without motivation. But as the practice becomes subtler and deeper, we realize that intention is not necessary, a goal is not necessary, motive is not necessary. Not only are they not necessary, but if they remain, they will obstruct the arising of reality. Recognizing the ways in which our practice is limited by our aims reveals further subtleties of practice. In this teaching, we come to understand, especially in the nondoing practice, that we don’t want to do anything to our experience. It is not only that we don’t orient toward some goal but also that we don’t act on that orientation. To do something to our experience means that we have some idea or hope or desire for something different to happen. We don’t want to do anything to our experience because our true nature is presence, is Being. Being doesn’t do anything to itself—it simply is. So when we recognize that our nature simply is, that our nature doesn’t divide itself such that something does something to another part of itself, we see that to take the position of doing anything to ourselves in order to get someplace contradicts our true nature. When we recognize that contradiction, we see the folly and the misalignment of our normal sense of doing.  

Second, when we think that practice means changing our inner condition instead of letting it change itself, we are taking an orientation toward ourselves that is inherently very different from that of our True Nature. In other words, by siding with this inner activity, we disconnect from our True Nature. Our True Nature is simply there-ness. So, by being internally active, we dissociate, we become something different than what we are, we leave our place of abiding. In some sense, we abandon our self, our nature, to become this active entity that is always trying to change itself. And so we don’t allow our experience to reveal its nature. That’s because we take the view that there is something to accomplish. We think, “Realization is a result dependent on a cause, and that cause is my own effort. If I do such and such, this result will happen.” But that contradicts the reality that realization is what you already are, that you cannot accomplish yourself, you cannot go after yourself. You cannot change what is happening now so that you become yourself. You are already yourself; you just need to relax into it. When that happens, you recognize your True Nature. 

Pure presence is a state of completeness. It is a simple and pure condition that has no excitement, no drama, and makes no big deal about anything. It is the simplicity of fully being oneself. It is being, without any movement out of the completeness and serenity of being. There is no gap in one’s identity, in one’s sense of oneself; in this condition there is no deficiency, no need, no want, no desire, and no fear. This completeness is not arrived at by completing a process or a project; true nature is eternally complete. It is so complete that there is no excitement about the completeness. It is so complete that there is absolutely no seeking, no looking somewhere else, not even an interest in being aware of the completeness. It is so complete that there is no inner gap that would motivate the soul to even look inward to see the completeness. There is no waiting for anything, no anticipation. When the soul is established in the state of completeness, divine love arises spontaneously, as the only action completeness can take. Pure being is so perfectly complete that it does not arise out of itself to do anything. Its implicit contentment manifests as an outflow of divine love with all of its qualities.  

When we first have a close encounter with true nature—where we directly experience its radical otherness—we recognize that it is something miraculous. Even in this beginning experience of true nature as a something among other things, we sense in the experience an inherent purity, an inherent goodness, an inherent magic and power. And the more we learn about it, the more we encounter it, the more we experience the realization and the freedom of true nature, the more we are awestruck by its majesty and beauty. We see that the self-expression of true nature is what makes it possible for us to have any spiritual experience. It is what makes it possible for us to have any insight or understanding.  

True nature is the single element, the elixir, that makes transformation possible. We cannot transform without the interaction between true nature and our life situations, between true nature and our own individual experience. It’s true that human consciousness can transform without the presence of true nature, but that is more of a horizontal transformation: throughout our life, we can increase our knowledge or expand our emotional range or learn new skills. But the individual consciousness cannot grow spiritually, cannot awaken to itself and express that awakening, without the presence of true nature. As the transformer, true nature transforms itself from one guise to another; that is what a transformer does. Sometimes it is the truth, sometimes it is the light, sometimes it is a form, sometimes it is a teacher, and sometimes it is a student. 

Another way we can see the difference between necessary and primary awakening is the distinction that some philosophers and sages make between thatness and whatness, between the that and the what. We can consider the thatness and the whatness of true nature, that it is and what it is. In necessary awakening, we recognize that true nature is, that spirit is. All spiritual teachings agree that there is true nature, there is something spiritual, there is more to human beings and to reality than meets the eye, there is something otherworldly and invisible. This is the that—that true nature is. But what is it then? All the qualities and the dimensions that we work with in this teaching and all the perspectives of the various wisdom teachings answer this question of what true nature is. 

However, the moment you recognize that true nature is such a beauty, such a preciousness, you will do anything for it. No sacrifice is too great to realize that beauty, that radiant, lustrous preciousness. It is difficult to convey verbally the sense of this preciousness, this beauty, and the wonder and magic of it. Physical beauty is a very pale reflection of the beauty of Being, which is the nature of your soul. If you really recognized that the truth of who you are is so beautiful, so precious, so full of value, and so magnificent, you would devote the totality of your life to it. Everything in the universe, from beginning to end, is like dust compared to this magnificence, and every action and situation is expendable for this preciousness.