The Secret of the Golden Flower - Fifth Talk by Tim Burkett

In his fifth talk on The Secret of the Golden Flower, Tim begins by reviewing the central teachings developed through the first four talks before moving into Chapters 11 and 12. The main theme throughout is the gradual movement from deliberately turning the light inward to a more natural, formless awareness that no longer depends upon meditation techniques, special states, or separation from ordinary life.

Turning the Light Around

Tim begins with the foundational teaching of The Secret of the Golden Flower: turning the light around, or reversing the ordinary outward direction of attention.

Normally, our attention, vitality, and spiritual energy are continually dispersed through the senses—including thought, which Tim describes as the sixth sense. We react to sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions, desires, and circumstances until our energy becomes scattered.

Meditation begins to reverse this process. Instead of continually following experience outward, we turn attention inward and allow the scattered light to gather and condense.

Tim returns to his example of meditating near the Minnesota Zen Center after a stop sign was installed outside. At first, the changing sounds of traffic became an irritation. Eventually, however, he learned to use each sound as an opportunity to turn inward. What had been a distraction became part of the meditation.

Big Mind and the Small Self

Tim reviews his earlier discussion of the tension between the small self and what he calls big mind, big heart-mind, God, or the Tao.

The small self is reactive and preoccupied with personal concerns, physical desires, emotional turbulence, the past, the future, and continual mental activity. Through practice, however, we begin to experience something larger—an open, spacious, interconnected awareness.

This can create an internal struggle because the small self begins wanting more of that openness. The deeper possibility of practice is not simply to have occasional experiences of big mind, but for big mind to become the “governor” of the small self.

Oblivion, Distraction, and the Breath

Tim also reviews the two major obstacles to meditation discussed previously: oblivion and distraction.

Oblivion is dullness, lethargy, sleepiness, or blankness. Distraction is the opposite extreme—the racing activity of thought and mental chatter.

Rhythmic, soundless breathing provides a middle way between these extremes. Tim describes the breath as an organic metronome that can anchor awareness without allowing the practitioner to fall into either dullness or excessive mental activity.

Meditation and Everyday Life

Another central theme is carrying meditative awareness into ordinary life. Tim describes formal meditation as a kind of dress rehearsal; the real stage is everyday life.

He illustrates this with the story of a friend who traveled from San Francisco to Japan expecting to spend much of his time practicing shikantaza, or “just sitting.” Instead, because it was tourist season, he was required to serve guests, wash dishes, sweep floors, and perform other tasks.

When he complained, his teacher explained that he had misunderstood shikan. It did not mean only “just sitting.” It also meant just sweeping, just serving guests, just washing dishes—giving oneself completely to whatever activity is happening.

The lesson is that practice does not have to stop when formal meditation ends. Ordinary activity itself becomes a way of gathering rather than dispersing the light.

Internal Alchemy and the Formation of the Elixir

Turning specifically to Chapters 11 and 12, Tim describes The Secret of the Golden Flower as a text concerned with internal alchemy.

When the light is continuously turned around and scattered spirit and vitality begin to condense, transformation occurs. As the mind becomes quiet and spirit becomes unified, the text describes the elixir forming naturally.

Tim connects this with the image of gathering scattered threads of attention back toward their source. Awareness becomes less fragmented and increasingly stable. This is associated with images such as the mystical pearl and the golden flower blooming.

Importantly, this transformation is not something that can simply be forced into existence. Practice prepares the conditions, but eventually something begins to happen naturally.

Dropping the Map

One of Tim’s strongest cautions is against turning spiritual teachings into another set of concepts.

He tells the story of a student who became very knowledgeable about meditation and constructed an elaborate mental map of what non-conceptual awareness and big mind should feel like. The problem was that she continually compared her actual experience with that map.

Even the concept of “non-conceptual awareness” can become another concept to which we cling.

Tim therefore says that eventually we must drop the map. Teachings and concepts are useful, but at some point the practitioner has to step directly into the territory itself—the openness and spaciousness of being.

From the Framed Mirror to the Open Sky

Tim develops this further through the image of a mirror.

Early meditation can resemble cleaning a mirror contained within a frame. We continually work on ourselves, trying to clear away disturbances and improve the condition of the mind.

But eventually Tim asks what happens if the mirror has no frame at all—if awareness is more like an open sky without boundary or fixed location.

Rather than experiencing oneself as a physical body containing an observer who looks outward at the world, the distinction between observer and world begins to soften. Spaciousness is no longer something outside the body. The body, room, sensations, sounds, and awareness can all be experienced within one larger field.

This is Tim’s way of describing the movement toward formless, boundaryless spirit.

The Danger of Clinging to Spiritual Experience

The next danger is becoming attached to this openness.

The small self can quietly return and begin trying to possess the spiritual experience: my calmness, my enlightenment, my opening. Once that happens, the experience has again become something that the ego is attempting to acquire.

Tim emphasizes that original nature is already luminous and free. What constricts it is clinging—to thoughts, emotions, bodily identity, concepts, techniques, and even genuine spiritual openings.

The practitioner therefore has to learn not only how to enter stillness, but also how not to grasp it.

Do Not Remain on the Mountain Peak

Tim uses another image from the text: sitting on the peak of the mountain and refusing to move.

Deep meditation can feel like reaching a beautiful mountaintop above the noisy valley of ordinary life. The danger is wanting to remain there permanently.

Tim describes this as exchanging one cage for another—a worldly cage for a “golden spiritual cage.”

He tells the story of another student who developed very deep meditation but became dependent upon the protected conditions of retreats and meditation halls. When she returned home, ordinary family interactions quickly disturbed her peace.

Tim therefore asks: Why not allow our own being to become the monastery?

Retreat and silence remain valuable, but genuine transformation cannot depend completely upon ideal conditions. Awareness has to become capable of flowing through quiet and noise, pleasure and discomfort, internal and external experience.

True Non-Seeking

This leads to one of the central teachings of the talk: true non-seeking.

True non-seeking does not mean becoming passive. It means that awareness is no longer continually grasping one state and rejecting another.

If noise arises, let there be noise. If discomfort arises, do not immediately fight it. If the mind is quiet, allow quiet. If it becomes active, allow activity.

The deeper practice is remaining rooted in awareness itself rather than continually manipulating experience.

Tim summarizes this development as a three-stage process:

1. Release the scaffolding. Techniques such as breath regulation, central-cavity focus, or repeated phrases are useful ladders, but eventually the practitioner stops depending upon them.

2. Do not become attached to the mountain peak. Meditative peace should not become another object of craving.

3. Open to formless light. Recognize original spirit as formless, nameless, and not confined by the ordinary boundaries of the individual self.

Guided Meditation: Formless and Unattached Awareness

Tim then leads a guided meditation that directly applies the teachings.

He begins with grounding the body, aligning the spine, relaxing the face and shoulders, and allowing the gaze to settle. Attention is turned inward through both seeing and hearing.

Participants are encouraged not to demand quiet or stillness and not to impose expectations about how meditation should feel. Thoughts, sensations, sounds, feelings, and quietness are all allowed to arise.

Awareness is compared to water flowing around rocks—clinging to nothing and pushing nothing away.

Eventually Tim instructs the group to drop even the effort of turning the light inward. The central-cavity focus and other supports are released so that there is simply being.

The meditation then moves toward the recognition of awareness as formless and nameless. Rather than imagining awareness as something located inside the head looking outward, Tim invites participants to experience the body, room, sounds, and silence as arising within a larger, boundless field of awareness.

The meditation concludes by returning attention to the physical body and room without abandoning this larger awareness—bringing the “formless, unattached light” into ordinary life.

Discussion: The Monastery Within and Attachment to Silence

In the discussion afterward, the idea of having a “monastery within” becomes an important theme. The group reflects on how sanctuary, stillness, and the Golden Flower do not ultimately have to be found somewhere outside ourselves.

The discussion also explores an important tension in Tim’s warning about becoming attached to silence. People may genuinely need periods of quiet, retreat, and meditation, especially in a world filled with stimulation and information. The problem is not silence itself, but the grasping relationship that can develop around it.

Big mind can hold both realities: the genuine need for silence and practice, and the recognition that peace cannot ultimately depend upon escaping everything that disturbs us.

Taoism, Zen, and the Perennial Teaching

The conversation then turns to Tim’s relationship with Taoism and Zen. Tim explains that he began studying Taoism when he was young and that his deeper interest has always been what he calls the perennial philosophy—the underlying nondual teaching that can be found across traditions.

He says that, at their core, Zen and Taoism are not fundamentally different, although their methods, rituals, cultural expressions, and emphases can differ. Taoism gives considerably more attention to the details of internal alchemy, while Zen—particularly in the tradition associated with Dogen—can be suspicious of techniques because practitioners can become attached to them.

Tim connects Dogen’s idea of “taking the backward step” with the Taoist practice of turning the light around. Both point away from continual outward seeking.

The discussion repeatedly returns to the danger of becoming attached to religious identity, ritual, techniques, or spiritual accomplishments. Tim’s response is essentially to simplify and return to the living experience underneath religious categories.

Beginner’s Mind and Not Knowing

Another participant introduces the saying “not knowing is very intimate.”

Tim connects this with the Zen teaching of beginner’s mind. Accumulated knowledge can strengthen the sense of a fixed self—the person who “knows” this or that. Not knowing creates space and possibility.

Tim also connects this openness with Zhuangzi, whose stories repeatedly challenge fixed ideas about who we are, what we should be, and how reality must appear.

This reinforces an earlier teaching from the talk: maps and teachings are valuable, but they should not replace direct experience.

Mindfulness in Ordinary Activity and Giving Energy

The final discussion returns to everyday practice. The group talks about Zen gathas—short phrases used to bring awareness to ordinary activities such as washing hands, cooking, or entering a room—and considers differences between the more structured mindfulness practices found in some Zen traditions and the comparatively free-flowing character associated with Taoist practice.

Tim concludes with the image of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, with many arms and hands available to respond to different beings in different circumstances.

He relates this to the cultivation of energy. Rather than spilling our energy through distraction and reactivity, cultivated energy can be given to others. When the mind is still and open, compassion naturally extends outward. Giving in this way does not necessarily deplete us because it is not based on grasping, codependency, or trying to control another person.

The talk therefore ends where it began—with the question of what happens to our light and energy. At first, practice gathers the light that has been scattered outward. But the goal is not to hoard that light inside ourselves. Through non-clinging, the gathered and stabilized light can move freely into everyday life and become available in our relationships with the world.