The radiance of the blind spot

Phenomenology of non-dual awareness in everyday life – from the “zero-person perspective” of a practitioner of the Karma Kagyu tradition

Abstract

This article investigates the phenomenon of “awakening,” understood as the transformative outcome of advanced contemplative practice. It draws on previously unpublished excerpts from a conversation with the Tibetan Buddhist lama Tilmann Lhündrup Borghardt (TLB), in which he describes an experience devoid of any sense of self, yet fully preserving perception, action, and communication. Using a conceptual framework based on the notion of minimal phenomenal experience (MPE), this phenomenon can be described without importing any metaphysical or culture-specific assumptions. The analysis identifies two constitutive features: first, the complete absence of phenomenal self-centeredness; and second, an undiminished and indeed deepened participation in sensory experiences and social activity. Thus, “awakening” reveals itself not as a withdrawal or mere stabilization of a meditative state, but as a radically open, non-centered mode of being-in-the-world. The article concludes by arguing that such phenomenological accounts should be treated as important sources for interdisciplinary consciousness research in order to open up avenues to an empirically grounded phenomenology informed by the experience of “awakening”.