Questioner
What is the point of this teaching if it claims there is nobody to awaken and nothing to awaken?
Jonathan
For me, this may be the source of the seemingly immense power of this nondual teaching. As Peter Fenner stated “The central issue is how do you transmit a teaching that presents itself as having no content whatever”
You may accurately say this teaching is utterly pointless, that it has no point whatever. That there is absolutely nothing to teach or to learn. That there is nothing whatever to remember.
But if you forget this, you may be in trouble.
What happens happens. Nothing else ever happens. This is just so. It is unlearnable since it contains no information, method, way of thought, philosophy or idea of any kind. Things just are. As they are.
The student
When someone comes to learn this work, usually in order to end some form of stress, suffering or tension, they usually believe there is something they need which they can get from the teacher. So for a student at the beginning there is very much a point. He or she wants something and believes the teacher has it. This feeling, this sensation that there is something missing from your life, itself constitutes the apparent problem.
The teacher
The teacher clearly recognizes this, often very painful, need. It is undeniable. He/she is simultaneously aware that this perceived need flows from confusion, from the belief that reality is deficient. So the student experiences some form of distress. This is also undeniable.
There is no conflict between these, just different ways of seeing the same situation. Using problem oriented therapies such as western psychotherapy, the distress may be alleviated. However, this answer is still only partial.
By helping the student expose the very nature of his/her confusion between what is and what you think, all distress, which shares one basis, is alleviated, including perceived problems in the future. As Lao Tzu explained: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Understanding
As the student begins to understand and to deeply internalize that If there is i reality nobody to awaken and nothing to awaken, that this teaching is actually a non-teaching, by this appreciation the immense power of this nondual teaching is expressed with the potential to generate deep peace and the natural happiness that expresses the absence of anything that can trouble you.