James Low - Dzogchen and Buddhist Teachings

Explore emptiness and Dzogchen through Vairocana’s “Song of the Cuckoo.” The teachings examine thought, duality, identity, suffering, and the constructed self, alongside meditation, rigpa, primordial purity, and innate completeness. Reflections on consumerism, ethical action, uncertainty, and responding directly to life reveal a path beyond rigid concepts and control.

A wide-ranging teaching on patience, non-duality, and meeting provocation without reactivity. It explores how beliefs, labels, prejudice, and power construct a seemingly solid world of separate selves. Themes include emptiness, karmic patterns, shifting identity, meditation, compassion, and the shared openness in which self and other continually arise together.

A teaching on patience and non-duality in a turbulent world. It explores how ego creates friends and enemies, how projections and inherited beliefs shape reality, and how subject and object arise together. The discussion turns to emptiness, shifting identity, the eight worldly concerns, and meeting provocation through openness rather than fixed positions.

James Low, a Dzogchen teacher and translator in the Byangter and Khordong lineages, explores patience and non-duality as ways to meet provocation. He examines how ego, prejudice, language, and social hierarchies shape a seemingly solid world. The teaching considers emptiness, the fluid nature of self and other, and how presence can loosen the grip of hostile words, fixed identities, and reactive responses.

A wide-ranging exploration of patience, non-duality, and staying steady amid provocation. The talk examines how preferences, fear, identity, and inherited prejudice create divisions between self and other. It also explores emptiness, fluid personhood, and transforming hostile words into sound, inviting a more open way of meeting changing circumstances.

A wide-ranging teaching on patience, provocation, and the liberating view of non-duality. It explores how fixed identities, preferences, language, and social conditioning create fear, prejudice, hierarchy, and conflict. The discussion turns to emptiness, the fluid nature of self, and how relaxing into the open field of experience can loosen reactivity and imposed definitions.

Dzogchen meets psychotherapy in a wide-ranging exploration of presence, attachment, trauma, and the shifting construction of self. The talk examines cultural shadows in Buddhism, family roles, dissociation, compassion without enmeshment, and ethical power dynamics. Along the way, metaphors of mirrors, channels, and theatrical stages illuminate awareness, interdependence, and the freedom of meeting others openly.

James Low's Dzogchen retreat "Approaching Non-Duality" took place 23rd-26th April 2026 in Todtmoos, Germany. James Low writes: "The traditional structure of Buddhist teachings is that each level or vehicle has its own View, Meditation, Activity and Result. Over the years I have focused on making the various views and meditations as clear as possible. I feel that our retreats now need to have increasing emphasis on your activity and proactive learning." He continues: "We all have a lot of life experience and so how can we mobilise this experience to become an ally on our path instead of an obstacle? Rather than relying on our habitual assumptions and conclusions, our practice is to investigate how our subjectivity arises in different situations. We aim to locate the ground (or basis) for our subjective thoughts, feelings and actions in our simple presence within the ever-open here and now." The retreat featured morning teachings by James Low, with afternoon small group activities led by experienced sangha members. The aim in Dzogchen is to see the self-vanishing of each moment by ripening our presence without engaging in dualistic reificatory judgement. Organiser and German translation: Robert JaroslawskiCover art: Jari Lobo (Pexels.com) More information: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/approaching-non-duality-todtmoos-april-2026/ Watch the original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vE2tZ5MsTI Chapters 00:00 Form is Emptiness: The Heart Sutra and Non-Duality 07:54 The Five Poisons and Self-Deception 16:07 Wisdom and Compassion Flowing from Emptiness 29:25 Death Comes from Concepts 37:16 Two Paths from One Ground 45:08 The Three Kayas in Tantric Practice 52:35 Sambhogakaya: Enjoyment of Sensory Arising 1:00:36 The Eight Consciousnesses as Empty Forms 1:10:05 The Dzogchen View: Already Complete 1:16:59 The Delusion of Taking Becoming to Be Being 1:21:34 Critique of Self-Existent Phenomena 1:26:33 Clear Perception and Responding to Suffering 1:30:01 The Three Statements of Garab Dorje 1:34:19 Ngotro: Introduction to Your Own Face 1:38:19 Following the Stream to Its Source 1:45:04 Samsara and Nirvana: No Fundamental Difference 1:48:43 Guru Yoga of Machig Labdrön 1:55:06 Five Questions on the Nature of Mind 2:01:51 The Two Obscurations 2:07:58 Impermanence and the Vulnerability of Form 2:18:08 Twelve Metaphors for Emptiness and Form 2:22:40 Wandering Without Identity: The Sadhu Practice 2:29:09 The First Unawareness: Condensation from the Flow 2:42:06 The Third Unawareness: Conceptual Fixation and Naming 2:47:19 The Fourth Unawareness: Karma and Its Four Stages 2:57:06 Interdependence and the environment as inseparable support 3:06:19 Openness to experience beyond ego judgment 3:14:31 Emptiness as openness beyond fixed essence 3:22:15 Self-Deception and the Illusion of Fixed Identity 3:29:51 The three aspects of energy: dang, rolpa and tsal 3:38:35 Rolpa: The Mirror and the Play of Experience 3:44:24 Tsal: The Crystal and Manifesting Diversity 3:50:05 The Cuckoo's Cry: non-duality of experience and nature

James Low, a Dzogchen teacher and translator rooted in the Byangter and Khordong lineages, discusses identity as temporary clothing and the five skandhas as patterning. He contrasts Mahayana and Theravada views, links emptiness with imagination and tantra, and offers practical instructions on open, nondoing meditation and ethics arising from openness.

How to cultivate mental health in a world on fire? A conversation between Lama Padma Samten and James Low, with consecutive translation to Portuguese.In this conversation, James Low joins Lama Padma Samten to explore mental health, meditation and Buddhist wisdom in the face of the uncertainty, conflict and complexity of contemporary life.Invited by Lama Padma Samten, James Low reflects on how our habitual ways of seeing ourselves and the world shape our experience, and how awareness, presence and a deeper understanding of the nature of mind can open a different way of relating to suffering, confusion and change.Drawing from the Buddhist tradition and their many years of teaching and practice, they offer perspectives on how we can meet a troubled world without becoming overwhelmed by it, cultivating clarity, compassion and inner freedom.Lama Padma Samten is a Brazilian Buddhist teacher and founder of the Centro de Estudos Budistas Bodisatva (CEBB).Lama Padma Samten:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lamapadmasamtenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lamapadmasamten/Website: https://cebb.org.br/James Low:Instagram: instagram.com/simplybeingsanghaPodcasts: simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/Events: simplybeing.co.uk/eventsWatch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4pWqcK_jjAChapters00:00 The delusion of a fixed self and poor mental health02:42 Identity as construction and the obstacle of thingness08:28 Impermanence and the instability of identity14:07 Finding stability through meditation and presence25:25 Working with depression and letting go of conclusions