Afflictive Emotions (1 February 2008)

0:00 I didn't record that sentence, but everything else from now on. I don't need to wear this stuff. Yes, you do. I talk pretty loud. It's okay. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:19 My day job is a telemarketer. You can handle some of that. Can people hear him okay? I talk pretty loud. I don't probably even need the PA. Volume? I'm still getting a volume in the back. So, I think you do need them. Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:44 Say something else. Hello? Emily, where are you? Is it okay now? Say again. Report an error in the passage at 0:44 Highlight the passage at 0:44

0:54 I know, I just told her to say hello and then I looked at her and she didn't do anything. Emily, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. Really? I'll talk louder. Okay. So I'm sorry about the mechanical stuff. Okay. It's a little bit low. Really? Report an error in the passage at 0:54 Highlight the passage at 0:54

1:31 then you just have to wing it you know I could do it without this Report an error in the passage at 1:31 Highlight the passage at 1:31

1:43 all tuned in, too. We were like, what's he going to show? It's an icebreaker. Report an error in the passage at 1:43 Highlight the passage at 1:43

2:11 coming and also I'm very honored to be here because I love coming. Up to this center, I'm from Santa Cruz. How many people have been to Lama Medicine Buddha? Yeah? Okay. I live right around the corner from there. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

2:25 Right around the corner from her. And also honored because this is my absolutely favorite topic to talk about. A little bit about my background. I think that... Um... Report an error in the passage at 2:25 Highlight the passage at 2:25

2:39 Tenzin Choki asked, you recently got this idea. I'm Lo San Choki. I'm Lo San Choki, yeah. Tenzin Choki's down there. When did you first get this idea? Last fall. It was actually last summer, kind of. You were the first. I was the first. So I was lucky, or I'm lucky, because I was asked to kick this off, which means I can tell you anything, right? Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

2:58 It's that people follow me, that I have a problem. And also I was asked, well, other than an overview of Buddhist psychology, what could be... Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:08 Something specific that I could draw into relevancy in terms of Western psychology and that would be, I think I was asked, I suggested to talk a little bit about depression. What I'd like to do is, usually something, a topic of Buddhist psychology takes weeks and weeks and weeks. Report an error in the passage at 3:08 Highlight the passage at 3:08

3:29 So I'd like, rather, for me what I'd like to do is just be able to share my thinking with you. So those of you who are Report an error in the passage at 3:29 Highlight the passage at 3:29

3:47 work. I am a psychotherapist. I have a... That's the next slide, by the way. Report an error in the passage at 3:47 Highlight the passage at 3:47

3:55 See how it works? What I'm trying to say is that what I want to do is give people who are... Now, I know it's kind of embarrassing to ask this question, but are there people here who have... Never listened much to any Buddhist theory or philosophy. Great. Okay, good. Because that's the challenge. I know that people who do teach, the challenge is always, you know, where do you teach to? And for me personally, I just like to have some kind of dialogue, also feel that we're having a dialogue. Report an error in the passage at 3:55 Highlight the passage at 3:55

4:26 I know it's harder in a bigger group. But I like the interaction because I'm still trying to learn about this topic. Actually, my story helps to situate what it is that I do. I usually talk about my biography as my birth beginning in 1975. Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:47 That's not when I was born. That's when I moved to Nepal. I had one of those kind of students that hated school, but made a promise to my parents that I would go to college. Did anyone else do that? No one else did this, only me. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:05 Where'd you end up? Graduating two years ago. Report an error in the passage at 5:05 Highlight the passage at 5:05

5:11 Okay, so I didn't mean to. Anyway, so I was very, very fortunate. The college I went to was, in those days, one of like two that were alternative type colleges in the grades, but it was a legitimate college. And the funny thing was, I was involved in yoga and Hindu studies. There wasn't much Buddhism back then, just a little bit. And And, um... Report an error in the passage at 5:11 Highlight the passage at 5:11

5:55 India from there. And so, anyway, so I went... Once, for that year, I brought from a great program, learned Nepalese language and, you know, this sort of emergent thing, living in villages and stuff like that. And I went originally to study, see what was Hinduism really in its native place, right? And that's a little bit like coming to study America. When you come to America, I want to study America. You know, it's like Hinduism, it's just what they do, it's their culture. Report an error in the passage at 5:55 Highlight the passage at 5:55

6:24 It's way too broad, too ambitious. And I wasn't that interested in it anyway. I just had to come up with a topic, right? Because I was going to do this program. Anyway, subsequently I became involved in a Buddhist institution there called Pokwan Monastery. And so that year abroad stretched out to 12 years. So it was 12 years over a period of 14. Report an error in the passage at 6:24 Highlight the passage at 6:24

6:50 I was back in the States for a year and a half because I had to figure out a way to stay another 11 years in Nepal. It was difficult to stay there for more than three months. But you could stay as a student. So that's my foundation. And while I was there, I really didn't want to leave. I met my wife who's from Australia. Two of our three kids were born there. And during that time, I lived in this monastery where we built a house and other people in this room have been there. Report an error in the passage at 6:50 Highlight the passage at 6:50

7:19 And some of the time, I ended up teaching English for the American Library and things like that. In 1988, I returned to the States and that was a funny thing because my main teacher, Lama Tutu Yashi, who some people... It's right behind you and I'll take care of you. Right here. And I have many stories about him I'll share with you. Not too many stories. As many as I can. And he is, he... Report an error in the passage at 7:19 Highlight the passage at 7:19

7:46 So I have to say that my training under him, Judith knew him very, very well as well. We lived in Nepal together for some time. My training under Lama Yeshe was, he was very, very, very unique. I think all Lamas are unique, so I don't want to say he's better or more unique. But he did something different. He was much more committed to a translation of these ideas into modern culture. Report an error in the passage at 7:46 Highlight the passage at 7:46

8:13 That's what I would say Lama Yeshe's mission was. And that's very unusual, very, very unusual for those days. Now there are some Tibetan teachers who, of course, are very committed to that as well. Report an error in the passage at 8:13 Highlight the passage at 8:13

8:26 But Lama Yeshe gave up all sense of culture and he really came to whatever level that the student was at. He was really committed to helping a person understand why these principles of Buddhist ideas are actually universal principles. And that's where we need to try and understand. That's the big breakthrough that I think is beginning to seep out into modern culture today. Report an error in the passage at 8:26 Highlight the passage at 8:26

8:54 I think that's the result of Good publicity, His Holiness the Dalai Lama traveling, you know, just a sort of immersion, an opposite immersion here of lots of teachings going on, people truly studying. And I, so my personal mission, which I'm, this is just, I feel very thankful to you because you're helping me fulfill my mission, which is to help people know that when we talk about, it's really hard to say Buddhism, but when we talk about Buddhism, we're talking about principles that are universal. Report an error in the passage at 8:54 Highlight the passage at 8:54

9:22 At least I'm concerned about that. Okay, we'll talk a little bit more in a minute. Next slide. So that's my story. I'm sorry. So 1988, Lama Zopa Rinpoche had come to the States for a meeting and he had taken over the reins of this movement, the FPMT, of which this is one of the 130, 40 centers. Lama Zopa Rinpoche became the, you know, spiritual director handed down from Lama Yeshe, who passed away in 1984. And he said to me, this is funny, Report an error in the passage at 9:22 Highlight the passage at 9:22

9:55 He just came up to me and said, I think it's time. And I was like, what? He said, I think it's time. And I didn't know what he was saying. He said, well, come on up to lunch. So I went up to lunch. And I'm going up and I'm standing there and I said, I have some news for you. Maybe sit down. Maybe sit down. Report an error in the passage at 9:55 Highlight the passage at 9:55

10:13 And I said, so I'm really getting nervous at this point. And he said, again, I think it's time. I said, okay, Rinpoche, time for what? Lunch? And so he said, I think it's time to move back. We had asked for some years, thinking we had worn out our welcome in Nepal, because most of Lama Yeshe's students wouldn't keep a long time in Asia, in those days, because Lama Yeshe particularly felt that people got too lost in touch. Report an error in the passage at 10:13 Highlight the passage at 10:13

10:41 It was good for a couple of years, and then he, is that right Judith, he would then send you back, because Lama Yeshe was committed, you're Americans, you're European, whatever you were, that's what you are, don't become a Tibetan monk. Or a Milarepa meditator, a yogi in a cave, that's not you. So he was really, that was really scary because a lot of us wanted to be that. And he said, you know, no, no, no, go back and work. Report an error in the passage at 10:41 Highlight the passage at 10:41

11:06 Seriously. And we'll talk about that more later as we go on, maybe. There's so much to talk about. So Lama Zopa said, 1988, moved back. I said, what do I do? I've been in Nepal all these years. I've been working with these young monks. Doing some study. Mostly I was working. That was my lot, so to speak. And he said, well, maybe look into psychology, which is an absolutely normal, perfect fit for someone who is very interested and committed to Buddhist ideas. Report an error in the passage at 11:06 Highlight the passage at 11:06

11:41 It's one of the areas. There's other areas. But it's natural, which is so funny because I'm sure everyone here is more educated than I was then, but back then it was more like... Buddhism was like, you talked about Buddhism, you talked about Catholicism, you talked about Christianity, you talked about Islam, you talked, you know, there's all kind of, all the isms. Report an error in the passage at 11:41 Highlight the passage at 11:41

12:00 So it wouldn't make sense why Buddhism is psychology. But I hope, for those who don't know, I hope I can impart to you why that's an absolutely, completely, totally logical, seamless transition. Well, not seamless. We're doing it now. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:18 So Lama Yeshe was one I heard him say to become your own therapist. This is a quote of his. To become your own psychologist, you don't have to learn some big philosophy. All you have to do is examine your own mind every day. Report an error in the passage at 12:18 Highlight the passage at 12:18

12:35 You already examine material things every day. Every morning you check out the food in your kitchen, but you never investigate your mind. Checking your mind is much more important. I mean, it's a radical idea, actually. Maybe not today. But, you know, this is, I don't know, a date, but remember, he passed away in 1984. Report an error in the passage at 12:35 Highlight the passage at 12:35

12:53 Maybe even today it's radical. This actually serves as the foundation for Buddhist thought, Buddhist ideas. It's funny, isn't it? Go on. Any questions about it? Any kind of arguments you want to debate? Agreements? Agree on agree? Report an error in the passage at 12:53 Highlight the passage at 12:53

13:14 So there I am, 1988, 1989 actually, when I started my studies in clinical psychology down there in San Jose. And, um, when you think about psychology, it's kind of, it's really a very loaded word, isn't it? When you look at it broken down. Report an error in the passage at 13:14 Highlight the passage at 13:14

13:37 Anybody here are psychologists or therapists or social workers? I'm studying. Studying. Who else? Anyone else? Yeah? Yeah? Okay. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

13:50 Uh, how many times have you given your degree in psychology? Yeah. So, I have a master's in Clinical psychology. I'm a psychotherapist. What's your degree? Same thing. Okay. So when you were studying, did you ever receive a definition of the word psych? Report an error in the passage at 13:50 Highlight the passage at 13:50

14:13 Since we're psychologists. You did. What was the definition? Human soul spirit. So what's the explanation of the mind? This is something interesting. I won't put you on the spot. I'll just make my point. Report an error in the passage at 14:13 Highlight the passage at 14:13

14:26 Do you want me to put you on the slide? Anyone want to be on the slide? I study feminist therapy. Feminist, that's smart, actually. Here's my point. It's dangerous, wait, it's going under me. Here's my point. When I study, okay, so there I was, studying psychology, psych and hymn, soul, spirit, and I took this out of the dictionary, by the way, ology, the study thereof, right? Report an error in the passage at 14:26 Highlight the passage at 14:26

14:53 So if I'm a psychologist, which actually technically I'm not, I mean legally I'm not, legally I'm a therapist, but let's say I'm a psychologist, I like to study the mind. So I'm a studier of the mind, correct? According to my degree. Report an error in the passage at 14:53 Highlight the passage at 14:53

15:13 I think that's really weird. I don't know about you guys. I never, until today even, even today, have received a definition of what, I know what study of means. I can define that. But I never received a definition of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 15:13 Highlight the passage at 15:13

15:36 so not to have a definition or understand Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

16:05 They would allude to it. They would say this theory, object relations theory, and they'd talk a little bit. In the theory that I was most and have been most engaged with, what they say is, we don't care. Report an error in the passage at 16:05 Highlight the passage at 16:05

16:19 We don't talk about the mind. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

16:25 It's constructivist theory. Or systems theory also, they don't talk about it. A lot of the work that's done today, family therapy, most of the systemic therapy is all based, it's not even based on the nature of the mind, really. It's about nature of interaction. And yet, we're able to say we're psychologists if we do that. And so you ask those people. Report an error in the passage at 16:25 Highlight the passage at 16:25

16:47 Next time, if you have a therapist, ask them. I'm going to be troubling them. If you have a therapist, ask them, oh, by the way, what's the definition of the mind? You know, this thing that you work with to help people with? Maybe it's just me. Does anyone else find that strange? I think, yeah? I think, I mean, if you're going to become a student of car and mechanic, I think you should You could tell what I'm on. Anyway, I think I'm going. Yeah. So I have, I just tell you, that's one of my soapbox issues. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 16:47 Highlight the passage at 16:47

17:19 I think it's actually embarrassing. Now, well, I'll get to that in a second. I just put, you know, I have hundreds of slides. I haven't decided which one I'm going to use for tonight. So this is the same thing, but therapy is the treatment or disease of, okay, so just so that we're clear, what a psychotherapist is, someone who treats that. Report an error in the passage at 17:19 Highlight the passage at 17:19

17:42 Okay? Report an error in the passage at 17:42 Highlight the passage at 17:42

17:45 So how do you treat something that you don't know? Well, it's not 100 % true that you have to understand the definition of the mind to treat it, but I think it would help. Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

17:59 I think it would help. I have other issues, but we'll get to those later. Issues. So we get to a Buddhist idea. And by the way, I'm hoping for the day when we don't use the word Buddhist. I don't know why we really have to... issues. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:20 I don't use Sanskrit terms. I still do, but it is kind of funny. I mean, in Tibet, in Tibet, they're a Buddhist country. They don't say, we're Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 18:20 Highlight the passage at 18:20

18:32 They have a Tibetan word for it. In the Tibetan word, one of the references is used, Emily's way in the back there. She's fluent in Tibetan. It's Nangpa, right? You're not fluent in Tibetan, but you know Tibetan, right? Nangpa's used or not? It's one of the labels for Buddhist. It's a Tibetan word. I like it because I think nampa really captures what it means to be Buddhist. Nampa means, the word nang is the, I can't remember the term, it's like a case mark, nang means inside, or in, I-N. Report an error in the passage at 18:32 Highlight the passage at 18:32

19:09 Pa, so what you do is pa is like a, what do you call these things, like an article that describes a being, B-E-I-N-G, a being, okay, as opposed to a thing. So a pa, a non-pa is a what? An inner being. That's much nicer to turn, you know, I'd rather be called, I mean, rather, but it's a better word than being called a Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 19:09 Highlight the passage at 19:09

19:38 It describes, why do they have that, why do they, why do they choose, why inner being? Report an error in the passage at 19:38 Highlight the passage at 19:38

19:47 I shouldn't have all the description up there, should I? Instead of a word. Why an inner being? That's really fascinating. I think it's fascinating. Now this isn't, I'm not saying that what I'm telling you now is, For a complete definition, you'd have to talk to Geshe-la upstairs. These things are all defined. But I'm just talking about my reflections on it and my impressions of it. Report an error in the passage at 19:47 Highlight the passage at 19:47

20:05 So, an inner being to me is someone who views the world from an internal stance looking outward. Now, it is a really different way to look at the world. Report an error in the passage at 20:05 Highlight the passage at 20:05

20:18 Maybe everyone in this room does that. But in general, in the world, right? In the world, when we say, say When we look at problems or situations or struggles or difficulties, we tend to look at solving the problem out there, correct? Report an error in the passage at 20:18 Highlight the passage at 20:18

20:38 That's the whole nature of science. And I'm not putting it down, by the way. I'm just making a distinction. I don't think we should not have that approach. But there's problems with that approach that we'll get into in a few minutes. And that is where this idea of nangpa, inner being, is someone whose default mode... Report an error in the passage at 20:38 Highlight the passage at 20:38

20:58 If I think about, you know, my son is failing in school or failing at class. I mean, generally speaking, you know, where's the fault, right? We look for a fault. Maybe some of you don't like that word, fault. I don't do any blaming. I do a lot of blaming, so I'm always blaming something. I am. The teacher doesn't understand my son. Report an error in the passage at 20:58 Highlight the passage at 20:58

21:27 The school teaches to 40 kids when they should be teaching to 15 in the classroom. The books are antiquated. This topic is stupid. It's boring. He has to get on a bus. He's tired. He's lazy. He can't do it. You kind of get this blame thing. It's really very hard without a methodology or without an understanding to not do that. Report an error in the passage at 21:27 Highlight the passage at 21:27

21:58 That's what we have to do when we don't have an understanding of psychology, actually. In this context, the problems are starting from the inside out. It doesn't mean that if there's hunger that we don't look at how we bring more food to people. And I'm not trying to say that, don't take these ideas and go extreme with them because that's the other thing you do. Report an error in the passage at 21:58 Highlight the passage at 21:58

22:20 But it's like, what's your default mode? When you come out to your car tonight and you see that someone scraped the side of it, Where do you go? The police. You know? Pissed off. Huh? Report an error in the passage at 22:20 Highlight the passage at 22:20

22:40 Pissed off. Pissed off. Yeah. At the person who did it. Yeah, that's right. Now, I've met people that don't do that. It's really weird. I mean, it's inspiring, but it's weird. Have you met people who don't do that? Who else has met people who don't do that? Anyone? Yeah. It's amazing. Just, it's not about not, you know, who don't automatically go, who the hell did that? And what, yeah, oh, I see. Report an error in the passage at 22:40 Highlight the passage at 22:40

23:15 I'm talking opposite, yeah. You know, what a, who, you know, so, you know, problem is there, right? You could do it differently. Some people do different things, like there's a crummy paint job. There's a good paint job, like, I mean, just got that coating thing that you're supposed to get. I paid for that when I got my last car. I was really dumb. I paid $700 for that. Report an error in the passage at 23:15 Highlight the passage at 23:15

23:34 But I live in SoCal down in Santa Cruz, but I bought the car in Redwood City because I had a friend who will remain unnamed. Report an error in the passage at 23:34 Highlight the passage at 23:34

23:45 And so I was too lazy to ever take it back. So I have to figure out that $700 and talk to you later. Okay, so this whole theory, so this is interesting. So problems are arising from within or without. This is a huge shift. It is not easy, by the way. Report an error in the passage at 23:45 Highlight the passage at 23:45

24:03 It's actually not easy and you know what? I almost think you shouldn't hear this. It's a curse. I'm not joking. Well, I'm kind of joking. But it is also a curse. You can't unlearn this stuff once you learn it. Even if you don't know it. You know why? You know what's a curse? Because you investigate and you think, you shouldn't accept the famous saying, don't accept it just because I'm telling you. Report an error in the passage at 24:03 Highlight the passage at 24:03

24:23 Let's have a dialogue. It's hard to have a dialogue with everyone. But have an internal dialogue with yourself about whether or not this is true. I just want you to do that. That's all I'm asking, not to agree. Just kind of think about this stuff. Now the problem is, once we begin to get some little inkling, oh yeah, it's like my reaction to that. Report an error in the passage at 24:23 Highlight the passage at 24:23

24:42 Okay, I get that. You know the problem with the car? The scraping thing? Hmm. Yeah, well, number one problem is unreacting to it. That's weird, unreacting. I'm so upset. Why am I so upset? Okay. But from Buddhist psychology, that's a good step. It's a huge step. But when you start doing a little more, that's where the curse comes. So you start learning a little bit more about the way the mind functions. Report an error in the passage at 24:42 Highlight the passage at 24:42

25:09 We learn a little bit more. I'm not saying that I know more than you, but when we learn a little bit more, you get more and more curious. That's the curse. Right? It's kind of a curse, isn't it? When I say curse, it's because our knowledge expands, but not necessarily a repertoire of technique or intervention. Report an error in the passage at 25:09 Highlight the passage at 25:09

25:33 Right? We don't, we're not as sophisticated with, we know how to call the police. We know how to take care of that way of dealing with the problem. When we talk about the obsessed mind, the mind that's obsessed with the who that, do that to my car. Brand new car. Who could do that? We have more of a repertoire of methodology to deal with it outwardly, right? Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

25:56 We know how to call the car dealer and explain it. We know how to call the insurance company. We know how to call the police. But, Dealing with the internal thing is not that easy, right? And that's one silly little example. Those things happen all the time. So what Lama Yeshe said, by the way, in his quote, to train your own psychology, you don't have to learn some big philosophy. Report an error in the passage at 25:56 Highlight the passage at 25:56

26:18 All you have to do is examine your own mind every day because the fourth bullet point is know thyself. So our goal, not our goal, Buddhist goal, some people don't like Buddhist ideas for another reason. Report an error in the passage at 26:18 Highlight the passage at 26:18

26:33 Have you ever come across the idea that Buddhism is a little bit hard. Report an error in the passage at 26:33 Highlight the passage at 26:33

26:41 It's a little bit, it's not so, what's the word? Soft and fuzzy, yeah. Warm and fuzzy. It's not. It's hard. You know why? It's because they spent so much time thinking about these ideas. 2,500 years and plus. They've been thinking about this. And their determination is, a word for special. Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

27:08 We want permanent answers, permanent solutions. That's not what everybody wants. And that's probably not what... Well, everyone needs it, of course. But you know, that's not easy. That's not easy. Because maybe if we're struggling with something and we apply a Buddhist psychological intervention to it, that problem might not get resolved right away. Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:38 Because maybe the resolution takes time. Report an error in the passage at 27:38 Highlight the passage at 27:38

28:00 Sometimes Western therapy works. But often the problem comes up again in a different way. You notice that? mean, that's my experience. It's not easy to change. Report an error in the passage at 28:00 Highlight the passage at 28:00

28:11 very, very hard, I believe. It's very hard to change. To change something so it's permanent change is even harder in some ways, but in the long run it's shorter. It's just that you don't get the warm and fuzzy in the beginning often. And often it gets kind of harder, discouraging, because we're not that good at it too. Report an error in the passage at 28:11 Highlight the passage at 28:11

28:39 These six distinctions, I don't know, I probably shouldn't have left this slide, but you know, when in other talks I've given or classes, I was thinking about what are the areas we should talk about when we talk about psychology, okay? Report an error in the passage at 28:39 Highlight the passage at 28:39

28:54 So we're not going to get through all six of these. We don't have time. But just to share, really we need to talk about the mind and then mental disorders. So this is a discipline I put upon myself. I was thinking as a Western psychotherapist, what did I need to do? And then what's the crossover? How can I find a link or a parallel in Buddhist psychology? Report an error in the passage at 28:54 Highlight the passage at 28:54

29:16 It's kind of interesting. I'm still doing it, by the way. It's not like I've got the answer. That's sort of the approach or the challenge, sorry. So the challenge would be looking at how Western psychology deals with the mind and looking at how Buddhist psychology talks about the mind. Looking at mental disorders, that's a Western psychological term. What is Buddhist, how do they deal with that? What's the goal? Report an error in the passage at 29:16 Highlight the passage at 29:16

29:40 Why do people go to therapy? I have a question for the people who are therapists. In Western In the Western model, a lot of it is about diagnosis, right? You don't have to, but tend to. Often have to do diagnosis. Has anyone seen the book for giving you half? How big is it? The TSM? Yeah. How many pages is it? Report an error in the passage at 29:40 Highlight the passage at 29:40

30:12 Yeah, it's over 600 pages. It might be seven. But then they've got the big index in the back. Anyway, 600 pages. Have you ever studied it? In class, right? Is there anywhere in there that tells you what mental health is? Report an error in the passage at 30:12 Highlight the passage at 30:12

30:29 Okay, I have to say, I've looked for it. I couldn't find it. What are you supposed to do with those mental disorders? Compared to what? Report an error in the passage at 30:29 Highlight the passage at 30:29

30:40 Right? Are you with me? My job is not just to slam Western society. I don't mean that because I use it. But I've got to share this. This is my soapbox. I'm going to just share this with you. I think people should be disturbed. Report an error in the passage at 30:40 Highlight the passage at 30:40

30:55 Compared to what? There's lots of theories. You mentioned feminist theory. The DSM, for example, this diagnostic book is very anti-feminist, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 30:55 Highlight the passage at 30:55

31:07 It's anti a lot of things. Certain cultures. The point is, if you're saying what a disorder is, you have to be saying then what a non-disorder is. What is mental health? There's no shared agreement on that, by the way, you guys. Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:26 Not having the disorders. That's pretty much what it is. But then that has to be defined, what not having the disorder is. Right? What does that look like? Well, not to them. Okay. Then we've got to look at the causes. Okay? Don't you? Report an error in the passage at 31:26 Highlight the passage at 31:26

31:46 Don't you? If you're obsessive-compulsive, do you have to know the causes or not to get rid of it? Some schools of Western psychology say no, by the way. You don't need to know the causes. Report an error in the passage at 31:46 Highlight the passage at 31:46

31:59 You the patient or you the psychologist? You the patient. And the psychologist in some way. Well, yeah. But you develop a theory anyway. But no, there's many times once you graduate and you're licensed, you can do what you want. And if you're not into causes, there's models of intervention and therapy that you don't have to look at causes in any particular way. It's a little scary. Report an error in the passage at 31:59 Highlight the passage at 31:59

32:22 In fact, there's some school, actually it has some value. In some constructivist theories or like narrative therapy, for example, Narrative therapy, which I very much have a great respect for, but they absolutely refuse to look at causes. You know why? Because they looked at the politicization of psychology in the West, or in the modern world, and they reacted to the whole idea of causal. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:50 Because the causes that were defined as the cause of mental disorders were often linked to one's mother or parents. so they felt there was a lot of mother blaming, which is true. But then they threw out the whole thing of causes. What they should have done is looked at maybe those are the wrong causes, and there's something else causing it, but they didn't do that. Report an error in the passage at 32:50 Highlight the passage at 32:50

33:11 Okay? Then we're talking about intervention or therapy, and then the helpers are all, we're not going to do all this. The mind. Report an error in the passage at 33:11 Highlight the passage at 33:11

33:24 In theory, If I'm a Western therapist or psychologist, I should have a working definition of the mind, I believe. Never got one. But the interesting thing is, now we're going as Buddhist psychologists, we're going into this inner beings, okay? We're taking this new approach. If you take the new approach, this is what's so fascinating, and I challenge all my old, my Buddhist friends. My challenge to you is, is everything that we study or we engaged in, in Buddhist thought, in Buddhist philosophy, Is it all designed to heal the mind? Yes or no? It's a rhetorical question. Jack, is everything designed to heal the mind or not? Report an error in the passage at 33:24 Highlight the passage at 33:24

34:11 See? Who's a new student? Is it or not? Is it to work with the mind or not? Mentally directed. Focus. Yeah. And I think we have a challenge. Yes? Report an error in the passage at 34:11 Highlight the passage at 34:11

34:29 Oh, you're going to go there, Robert. Original sin? Report an error in the passage at 34:29 Highlight the passage at 34:29

34:35 Ah, well, that's a question whether it is or not. The question was, why do you have to heal the mind? Is it really sick? Right? Yeah. I'll get to that. I promise. In 45 minutes. There's another promise. Report an error in the passage at 34:35 Highlight the passage at 34:35

34:50 I'll repeat his question. Okay. You want to permanently heal the mind. Permanently heal the mind, right. If it holds that possibility. Yes. Which in the West is unheard of. Yeah, permanently hold. That's interesting. Permanent healing. Permanent healing. So in the West... I don't think there have been very many schools in the West that have held that promise. Report an error in the passage at 34:50 Highlight the passage at 34:50

35:38 The point about Do we need to heal the mayas, the minds, you know, all that sort of thing? We'll get to that in a second. It's also a good question. Where was I? Oh, so yeah. So this is interesting because you sit in here and we have these paintings. They look pretty religious. Report an error in the passage at 35:38 Highlight the passage at 35:38

36:02 We have water bowls. What's this water? Saffron. Right? What other things? Trappings. Right? I will make a commitment to you. Karuṇā. Yeah. How about a large throne? A large throne. Large. Yeah. Statues. Statues. Now, personally, I've grown up with these things. But I want to tell you, I'll make a challenge. Report an error in the passage at 36:02 Highlight the passage at 36:02

36:29 All of these are designed to heal the mind, train the mind, help the mind. But it doesn't mean that that form we might not resonate with. It might not be helpful for us today, or directly helpful. But that's also one of the beauties I want to just share with those who don't know much about Buddhist thought, is that one of the challenges or difficulties with Tibetan Buddhist approach is there's so much ritual, there's so much, so many interventions, so many different techniques, so many different texts, so many different... Report an error in the passage at 36:29 Highlight the passage at 36:29

37:09 Well, I want to turn that around for you and say that's great because you can choose what you want. There's no demand you choose all that stuff. Okay? Depends on our level. Depends what's going on for us today. Today, you know, I might be struggling with, you know, I'm upset with my son so, you know, I really find the breathing meditation or mindfulness meditation is very helpful. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:31 Tomorrow I'm upset with my daughter and I find that one of these practices is helpful. That's fine. You take that if it's helpful. If not, you don't take it. And that is an actual, I would say, value within Buddhist thinking. It just gets really overwhelming when we're new. It's just so much. So I want to take, you know, for those who feel it's a lot, don't worry, but maybe no one feels that here. Report an error in the passage at 37:31 Highlight the passage at 37:31

37:57 But if you do, it's like, take your time, don't worry about it. So the source of all goodness is the source of all pain. Report an error in the passage at 37:57 Highlight the passage at 37:57

38:09 Dharmapada states, everything has mind in the lead, has mind in the forefront, is made by mind. If one speaks or acts with a corrupt mind, misery will follow as the wheel of a cart follows the foot of an ox, of the ox. Okay, you know what's funny about this quote? There's a lot of people when I have this up there say, oh yeah, I agree with that. But what do you do? If you agree with that, how do we behave though? Report an error in the passage at 38:09 Highlight the passage at 38:09

38:35 Well maybe I should talk about myself. I forget that. I don't think we probably... are we talking about Buddhism? See, I think it's interesting. No one, you know, really questioned, why are we all sitting here? It's amazing, Buddhist psychology. You know, I don't think we'd probably Forgive me because I don't really know, but I don't know if I'd sit in a class on Jewish psychology, right? Report an error in the passage at 38:35 Highlight the passage at 38:35

39:16 I just don't think that, I think of just different, but isn't it funny? So that's why I think His Holiness the Dalai Lama so often calls it mind science. That seems to be a synonym for psychology. It's funny, isn't it? His Holiness is good. He knows it. So mind science. He likes to talk about science. Report an error in the passage at 39:16 Highlight the passage at 39:16

39:37 He doesn't talk about religion. It's interesting. And I'm not saying there's not faith-oriented practices and ideas that we do have in Buddhist thinking. Faith is used. But it's used somewhat differently. It's like conscious faith or open faith. I don't know what to say. We could have that discussion later. I think it's interesting. Blind faith happens in Buddhist thinking too, but I don't think it's really supposed to. I think it happens because of how we're constructed. Report an error in the passage at 39:37 Highlight the passage at 39:37

40:12 The nature of people. Of course, the human mind has both positive and negative sides, but the negative is transient and very temporary. Your up and down motions are like clouds in the sky. Beyond them, the real, basic human nature is clear and pure. Report an error in the passage at 40:12 Highlight the passage at 40:12

40:42 So, again, it doesn't talk about God. You know, some outside entity. It does talk about, in the Lama Yeshe here, it does talk about something that's extremely enticing and beautiful, as if we're talking about God. You know, in this tradition, there's books, thick, thick, thick books, chapters written on that part where he says the real basic human nature is clear and pure. Report an error in the passage at 40:42 Highlight the passage at 40:42

41:12 I mean, there are books written on this, right? When you read some of the descriptions, it's extremely inspiring. It's not meant to be dry. This is what sometimes I think everyone's pointing at, all the religions are pointing toward. It's just very hard to describe. I mean, not that this is the end result, but this is pretty good. Report an error in the passage at 41:12 Highlight the passage at 41:12

41:44 This is a definition of mine, but I put a few extra little points in here. Okay, so the point is to become your own psychologist. In this tradition, you have to become your own psychologist. No one's going to do it for you. And that's what I was saying about how it's a rough, it's kind of a tough, tough path. Because I know how I am. Report an error in the passage at 41:44 Highlight the passage at 41:44

42:02 I really felt, I don't know if I learned it or if it's sort of inborn, but I thought someone was going to save me. I really thought if I prayed enough. I don't know where I got it because I wasn't raised with any religion. Do any people have that? Maybe it's learned or you're born with it. Report an error in the passage at 42:02 Highlight the passage at 42:02

42:26 Western religion Report an error in the passage at 42:26 Highlight the passage at 42:26

42:32 has ingrained it in society that religion or God is outside of yourself so when you're seeking to to heal you look to god and and then all of a sudden you trip and go to outside of yourself rather than oh god's within me i can go again so i see it that's how i see it Report an error in the passage at 42:32 Highlight the passage at 42:32

43:08 I don't think it's just Western religion. I think it's just because it's easier. It is learned or it's kind of innate? I think it's kind of our innate laziness. Report an error in the passage at 43:08 Highlight the passage at 43:08

43:23 Oh, innate laziness. That means laziness is innate. But the fear that religions have put in us, you know, governments and things like that, I mean, well, it's a power thing. I'm just assuming that. So it's pretty widespread. I haven't thought about it. That's good. Think about it. Because I like these. This should be provocative. Did you want to say something? Well, yeah. I think I'm looking at it maybe in a little different way. Report an error in the passage at 43:23 Highlight the passage at 43:23

44:01 I don't think we have to blame ourselves. I don't think we have to blame anybody else. Bad government, bad this, bad that. To me it makes sense because you start out as a little kid, right? And you're a tiny infant. Report an error in the passage at 44:01 Highlight the passage at 44:01

44:38 doesn't seem crazy to me to think, mean, you know, we... That's how our lives start out, is we're being helped by other people. Okay, so we get trained that way. I'm not saying that there isn't a way to move beyond that, but I don't think we have to say that's necessarily lazy or there's something wrong with making that. Report an error in the passage at 44:38 Highlight the passage at 44:38

44:59 Okay, one more and then we'll move on. By the way, remember my question was, I was just trying to understand if that was something learned or innate. That was my question. in a means like you're born with it with it That could happen. Report an error in the passage at 44:59 Highlight the passage at 44:59

45:42 But what do you think? Do you think you're born with that concept? Or is it something you have to learn? that could happen Report an error in the passage at 45:42 Highlight the passage at 45:42

45:48 everybody has it, it's just that sometimes... Sometimes you have to learn what you've got. Yeah, we do learn what you've got. Okay, we'll leave it at that for now. Can we go on? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 45:48 Highlight the passage at 45:48

46:05 I just want to say one thing. I think it's curious. I'm just curious. I'm just curious where that comes from, the idea. Because a lot of the religions have that idea, right? That your salvation will come from outside into you. You think you learned it? Okay. Yeah, because I think other cultures have it. Right. Report an error in the passage at 46:05 Highlight the passage at 46:05

46:24 Because they depend on... Right. And some communities don't have the idea that salvation comes from outside. Yeah. So maybe it's learned. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 46:24 Highlight the passage at 46:24

46:41 Okay, so the mind itself... Okay, now there's not... I'm not going to do this. Report an error in the passage at 46:41 Highlight the passage at 46:41

46:52 Isn't it odd? I think it's odd. How many people write... You know... My experience is that most people don't know what the mind is. I don't want to say about this audience. I make generalizations all the time. That's the way I do this. But I found in my amateur research that most people don't know their own mind, what their mind is. Report an error in the passage at 46:52 Highlight the passage at 46:52

47:28 In other words, what I try to say is, if I say, tell me what your hand looks like, most people describe their hand. through your eyes or color of your eyes right What does your body look like? Overweight, underweight, long, short, thin, two legs, two arms, right? You kind of get an idea. I have a long neck, I have a short neck. But you ask someone, what does your mind look like? I don't get the same answers. Report an error in the passage at 47:28 Highlight the passage at 47:28

48:01 And I think that's weird. What do you guys think? You know what I'm trying to say is, okay, for example, what color is your mind? What shape is it? Report an error in the passage at 48:01 Highlight the passage at 48:01

48:26 If you ask your dad, if he's around, generally speaking, people cannot. it? Well, I see a vision arising, a memory, and the memory Report an error in the passage at 48:26 Highlight the passage at 48:26

48:38 They don't really know what they know. They talk in those kind of terms, but if you start asking more questions like, well, where is it located? What shape is it? Is it a shape or is it not? Is it form or is it not form? Is it atomic? Is it non-atomic? Does it reside in your brain or is it outside your brain? Report an error in the passage at 48:38 Highlight the passage at 48:38

49:04 I'm sorry, I'll jump to the conclusion. They haven't been taught Vipassanā. No, right. Well, that's right. Vipassanā being reflecting on the mind. of the mind is why don't we know when we know we've got Report an error in the passage at 49:04 Highlight the passage at 49:04

49:17 generally how many hands and fingers we got. We even know if we have some warts, we know what our ears look like. But, you know, it is kind of disturbing, let's put it that way, that we have never been really investigative of at least 50 % of our being, I think 50%, 50 % being our body and our form, and the other 50 % maybe being our mind. Report an error in the passage at 49:17 Highlight the passage at 49:17

49:41 will say The only, I mean, only evaluation of the mind really when people really start to look at it is when they see somebody like talking to themselves on the street or kind of that nutso or some, maybe we end up observing somebody else. But still we have no really shared definition, do we, of the mind. I'm going to go on now. I'm going to go through that. At the end we'll bring the mic up back again because I want to get, I always have that problem. Report an error in the passage at 49:41 Highlight the passage at 49:41

50:10 I like to talk with you. And then there's content, so I apologize. Don't mean to offend anybody. Maybe if I ask questions right now, they're not rhetorical, just think about them. Because I'm thinking about them. So generally, if you go to any Buddhist country, now it's really interesting because what happened was this Buddhist thinking started in India, right? Report an error in the passage at 50:10 Highlight the passage at 50:10

50:33 And in India, what did it look like 2,500 plus years ago? And then it went down to Sri Lanka, which is a somewhat different culture. It went up as far north as southern Russia, right? It went as far west as Afghanistan, maybe further. As far east as Sumatra and Indonesia. And northeast into Japan and China, Korea, Vietnam, Report an error in the passage at 50:33 Highlight the passage at 50:33

51:02 Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma. Report an error in the passage at 51:02 Highlight the passage at 51:02

51:09 And all those... Buddhism went to all those countries and morphed into the culture. You notice that? It's really interesting to travel. It morphed into the culture. And I don't want to go into the details, but I think it's very fascinating what Chinese culture was like when it went. And then you look at the Buddhism of China, it's kind of like fixed. Report an error in the passage at 51:09 Highlight the passage at 51:09

51:30 There's a Taoist thing, whatever the culture, whatever they had in order. And then in India, it was Shantideva, Nepal. Nepali got this really interesting mix of Buddhism there. You know, and Tibet was a very animistic society from what I understand. And then this thing came in. No wonder that this tantric teachings could merge and morph so easily with it. It's not surprising to me. So that's where we're at, you guys. That's where we're at right now. Report an error in the passage at 51:30 Highlight the passage at 51:30

51:57 So what is our culture? Don't ask about that. You know, our culture is, one of the things about our culture is we're scientific, you know, have a scientific mindset. Report an error in the passage at 51:57 Highlight the passage at 51:57

52:08 And I noticed when I lived in Nepal those years, I saw things differently than my Nepali friends. I don't know why. No idea why it's really interesting. But we saw things differently. When we just approach a task, we see the task from completely different angles. Report an error in the passage at 52:08 Highlight the passage at 52:08

52:24 Our culture, whatever you want to say. But our mindsets were somewhat different. Right, Judith? Judith worked with the little boys in our monastery. And, you know, just the way they view things, it's like... Report an error in the passage at 52:24 Highlight the passage at 52:24

52:43 Just forget it. But the point is that here we are here. Buddhism can morph to this culture. We don't need to change the culture to Buddhism. That's beautiful. We take what fits. And I think that's why Buddhist psychology is going to be huge here. Because I think psychology and the sciences are a lot about how we think and how we approach the world. Report an error in the passage at 52:43 Highlight the passage at 52:43

53:06 When I say we, it's a very big generalization. I apologize for that. Because a lot of us don't. I, for one, am not that scientific. No rational-minded word I'm going to say. But the mind, so let's just get this out of the way. The mind is generally, so this definition, my point was, you go to any country, any Buddhist country, and you ask a scholar there, oh, by the way, can I ask you the definition of the mind? Report an error in the passage at 53:06 Highlight the passage at 53:06

53:24 He'll give you the same definition as the guy in Sri Lanka, a Burmese guy, a scholar, excuse me, non-gender related. Isn't that interesting? Whereas I went to school in my clinical psych program, I couldn't get the same definition even in that school with different professors. Well, they didn't have a definition, a lot of them, most of them. Report an error in the passage at 53:24 Highlight the passage at 53:24

53:47 So this is interesting, that you can go and you can have a conversation, in theory, have a conversation with any Buddhist scholar in any of those countries and talk and they'll have a conversation about the mind. The definition generally is described as its entity is clear and it cognizes or experiences or knows. Report an error in the passage at 53:47 Highlight the passage at 53:47

54:08 I like experiences, I never saw that written. I should ask Emily again. Does it ever say clear and experiences? Have you ever heard that defined that way? Neither have I. I made it up. But it kind of captures, because you say clear and cognizes, right? It's clear and cognizes. But sometimes I think about experiences. Report an error in the passage at 54:08 Highlight the passage at 54:08

54:28 I like experiences because it's kind of broader. Cognizing kind of means no. It's defined as no. But, you know, in the West, I think no means you actually know something. But the mind is cognizing in when we're asleep. In theory, or in vernacular, when we're sleeping, we kind of don't know anything, right? Report an error in the passage at 54:28 Highlight the passage at 54:28

54:45 We're not knowing anything. Again, we tend to think. But we are experiencing something. So that's why I sometimes say clear and experienced. Now, the other thing about the mind, the good news is that... See, if I asked you, we were talking about the mind before. Is it permanent or impermanent? You know because you're a passionate meditator, right? Report an error in the passage at 54:45 Highlight the passage at 54:45

55:05 Is the mind permanent or impermanent? Maybe I'm wrong up here. If I asked you that, can you answer? Can regular people answer that? I don't know what it is. What do you mean permanent and impermanent? And then they say, well, who cares? It's very important. This is an extremely important point. The mind being impermanent. Why? Report an error in the passage at 55:05 Highlight the passage at 55:05

55:32 Why is it important? Huh? Let's say one thing here. Is the mind impermanent or not? What is it? Report an error in the passage at 55:32 Highlight the passage at 55:32

55:39 Do we continue on after we die? Okay, one idea why that's important is we can continue on after we die. What's another important reason? That's one. If it's impermanent, it can be healed. Exactly. Let's not even use the word healed because we don't know if it's sick yet, right? Report an error in the passage at 55:39 Highlight the passage at 55:39

55:54 But if it's impermanent, it can change. I was supposed to talk a little bit about depression and I'm trying to get the depression slides. If the mind were not impermanent and you are depressed, you would never be able to not be depressed. That's bad news. It's very bad news. Yeah? I have a question about your definition of mind. Report an error in the passage at 55:54 Highlight the passage at 55:54

56:23 Yeah. My definition, yeah. Well, I have to clarify. The technical definition is only bullet one and bullet two. Okay. Technical definition. So the definition of mind is this clarity. So if one... Not just clarity. Clarity and cognizing. Okay. Because space is clear. It doesn't cognize. Okay. But if it's the first two bullet points, they sound like two positive things. So is mental illness a sort of a misperception of mind or is it like the physical brain that's damaged? Report an error in the passage at 56:23 Highlight the passage at 56:23

57:02 Can I get to that? He was asking about what is mental illness then. I'm going there. Thank you. You remind me to keep going. Report an error in the passage at 57:02 Highlight the passage at 57:02

57:10 Okay, so this is just a technical slide. Don't worry about this. I just have this up here because I like the guy in the corner. Okay, a living being. Just so we're clear, a living being, because we don't think about that much. This is just one scheme. This is not like an absolute truth. This is one way to talk about what a living being is. We are living beings. Animals are living beings. Report an error in the passage at 57:10 Highlight the passage at 57:10

57:30 Fish are living beings. Mosquitoes are living beings. There's lots of different kinds of living beings. Okay? Right? Lots of living beings. Report an error in the passage at 57:30 Highlight the passage at 57:30

57:41 Maybe spirits are living beings. Maybe ghosts are living beings. Maybe angels are living beings. Okay? If they're living beings, what we tend to say, let's talk about people now. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this. But I felt like this is on Buddhist psychology. I don't know who's coming next to me. Oh, John? Your dad's coming next to you. But it might be good to know that when we're taught, okay, so let's just be living beings. Report an error in the passage at 57:41 Highlight the passage at 57:41

58:03 We're all living beings. And what we have is we have two things to us. We have a form, which we call a body. And we have a mind. Report an error in the passage at 58:03 Highlight the passage at 58:03

58:17 And sometimes the mind, and this is just one schematic, one map, the mind is sometimes divided into these four areas. Not the mind, excuse me, the person of being divided into feeling, discrimination, these what we call mental factors, and then consciousness. I don't want you to get hung up on this. I'm not going to go into this detail. I do do this when I do longer classes. Just to get a sense that there's consciousness and then mental factors. Report an error in the passage at 58:17 Highlight the passage at 58:17

58:45 So what does that mean by that? So the mental factors are all that stuff, like thoughts, feelings, concepts, right? So that's what a living being is made up of, a body and a mind, or a body and a consciousness. But at this point, the mind, its nature is clear. Like the sky, this is often the typical metaphor. Report an error in the passage at 58:45 Highlight the passage at 58:45

59:16 But then there's things that are going on, and those are the answers to your question. What are all these mental disorders? There are some things you refer to as afflictions, delusions, mental disorders, or like clouds in the mind that are sifting through. So when we talk about depression, it's a cloud in this metaphor. Depression is a cloud in this description. Report an error in the passage at 59:16 Highlight the passage at 59:16

59:43 Anxiety is a different kind of cloud. It's still a cloud. Report an error in the passage at 59:43 Highlight the passage at 59:43

1:00:10 all clouds are, by definition, bad. in compassion as a cloud. Love is a cloud. Peacefulness is a cloud. These things are also clouds. But they're less disturbing clouds, and that's what's interesting. So, when you look at depression, In general, Report an error in the passage at 1:00:10 Highlight the passage at 1:00:10

1:00:44 depression is like fog. Depression is like... everyone in this room can relate. I'm using the word depression in a general way. I don't want to go into the definition of the DSM and that whole thing. Let's just accept that we kind of have a feeling for what that is. There's many gradations and variations of it. But in general... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:44 Highlight the passage at 1:00:44

1:00:54 The fog in my area is in La Selva Beach, down in Aptos. Where's the really thick fog here? I mean, it's everywhere. If you choose not to live in one place because it's foggy, where would that be? Sunset. Down by the ocean, right? So sunset. So that kind of fog is like depression. So it's very interesting. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:54 Highlight the passage at 1:00:54

1:01:23 This psychology becomes very interesting. Isn't it interesting? I have a friend. Okay, how many people would agree with me that the smell that skunks emit is a bad smell? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:23 Highlight the passage at 1:01:23

1:01:35 Not everyone, huh? Interesting. Some people like it. Yeah. How many people agree with me that fog is kind of depressing? You wouldn't choose to live in fog. How many would choose to live in fog? Because of the price of the... I'm just joking. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:35 Highlight the passage at 1:01:35

1:01:54 You know what I mean? So this is the whole essence of Buddhist psychology when you talk about depression. You captured it. Is depression bad or good? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:54 Highlight the passage at 1:01:54

1:02:08 You might have missed what I said. We've just got to use a label right now. You're jumping ahead. No. Just in general. Why is it bad for people? Why do people not want to be depressed? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:08 Highlight the passage at 1:02:08

1:02:27 Now the thing that's interesting, here's the challenge. Remember I told you this was a curse? Remember the curse thing? Yeah. The curse thing is the same as, what's your name? Edward? Edwin. Edwin, just an example, you know. He chooses to live in the fog. He likes the fog. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:27 Highlight the passage at 1:02:27

1:02:47 So if the fog was inherently bad, all of us would not like to live in the fog except for Edwin. I mean, including Edwin. So is depression inherently bad or not? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:47 Highlight the passage at 1:02:47

1:03:01 Yes? I've been there, I can tell you. I know you've been there. I don't know you've been there, but I mean, yeah. I have lots of clients. Do you know? Yes, not necessarily, I said inherently bad, absolutely bad. If it was inherently and absolutely bad, then a friend of mine who came to me for counseling, he's a Buddhist, long time Buddhist, and he had a major depressive episode, clinical depressive episode. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:01 Highlight the passage at 1:03:01

1:03:28 Do you know what he told me before when we finished therapy, which actually didn't last that long with him? He said to me, I hope I don't completely lose this. I don't want to get completely undepressed, he said. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:28 Highlight the passage at 1:03:28

1:03:42 Why? If it was absolutely bad, he couldn't say that. Because of the woman who was knitting back then, I think knitting, said, why do we label it that way? That's exactly the point. Now, when we talk about labeling, we're not talking about, this is very, very, very profound and complex. It's not just reframing. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:42 Highlight the passage at 1:03:42

1:04:01 Most labeling in therapy is just reframing. You know, it's like, you know, you're... You know, my wife gets hit by a train, I'm in grief, I go to therapy, she helps me reframe it, or he, and I reframe it, and I say, what kind of good thing, because you've become closer with your kids now. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:01 Highlight the passage at 1:04:01

1:04:21 No, I'm serious. That's reframing, and it's like, well, okay. You know? Now, in Buddhist psychology, the labeling part is transforming. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:21 Highlight the passage at 1:04:21

1:04:30 The way that depression is a problem, and I'm going ahead of my slides, well, I'll get to it in a second, because I know people are going to really argue with me on this. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. One minute. One minute. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:30 Highlight the passage at 1:04:30

1:04:48 Let me try and explain a little more about it. Because this mind, sometimes the mind, see the good news is, is I'm only teaching once. So I can do, I'll stir this up and then I can leave and then you can ask John Landau next week, what did I mean by that? I'm not joking. So sometimes the mind, this consciousness, see, this consciousness, what it does, it perceives, it knows, it experiences, and it experiences things through six different minute. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:48 Highlight the passage at 1:04:48

1:05:13 Those are the senses. So what happens is when we talk about the color of your sweater is green, there's the form green that's kind of bouncing, it's kind of being picked up by my eye organ, this thing. And then what happens is there's an eye, E-Y-E, consciousness. Consciousness. Okay? And that EYE consciousness, this is a way of dividing up the mind, that eye consciousness is something that's formless, going back to that thing, it's formless, it's just clear and knowing. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:13 Highlight the passage at 1:05:13

1:05:48 See, it's clear and cognizing the color. And my nose does that, and my ears do that, and all the six senses, okay? The sixth sense is what we call the mental sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:48 Highlight the passage at 1:05:48

1:05:59 And that's things like when you're asleep at night and you're looking at your dreams, that's the mental sense. Or when you close your eyes and you're thinking about something, you're visualizing, you could say that's the mental sense, acting, enacting. action. Okay? So that's how we experience There's no problem at this point, right? The person, depression, whatever, there's no problem. There's this cognition. This is kind of bare. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:59 Highlight the passage at 1:05:59

1:06:23 There's a point in all of our cognitions that's just bare. It's bare perception. But we don't stay there. Okay? That's the problem. Because what's happening is that, in fact, there's a bare perception, but in my case, I hardly ever see it. don't Report an error in the passage at 1:06:23 Highlight the passage at 1:06:23

1:06:42 The thing that happens instantaneously is interpretation or a reaction. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:42 Highlight the passage at 1:06:42

1:06:53 That's the same thing. What happens with perception is not complex. Everyone knows this. But you have to have three things to have an experience. You have to have your consciousness or your mind. You have to have a sense organ, in this case the mental sense organ. And you need an object. If you don't have those three things, you don't have an experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:53 Highlight the passage at 1:06:53

1:07:19 Out of every experience, there's a sensation. I think that's right, every experience. Let's say 99 % of them. I don't know. Yeah. And then this level of sensation, sometimes it's called feeling, and I don't like that word, because it's not, feeling is too gross. It's merely sensation. Even when I'm just, even a bare, during that moment of bare perception, immediately what follows is sensation. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:19 Highlight the passage at 1:07:19

1:07:48 And that sensation is either one that you would call irritating, irritating. It's not even that strong yet, right? Discomfort, not irritating, or Report an error in the passage at 1:07:48 Highlight the passage at 1:07:48

1:08:02 don't want to say attractive, this is too strong. Anyway, it's something that's a little coarse, or something that's a little smooth sensation, or there's also a neutral sensation, like when you're walking, just the air, if the air is the right temperature, you know, there's just kind of a neutral sensation. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:02 Highlight the passage at 1:08:02

1:08:17 And all of this is being perceived. That's what's amazing. All that's being experienced, but not at our gross level. Those people who are meditators can get their minds quiet enough to watch this process. And then it's very, very, very cool. Then you can interrupt the process. Because what happens next, right? So there's a sensation of looking at your green sweater. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:17 Highlight the passage at 1:08:17

1:08:45 It gives me a sensation. Maybe in my world, for some reason, that sensation is slightly irritating, disturbing. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:45 Highlight the passage at 1:08:45

1:08:55 Irritating is better. What happens then? See? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:55 Highlight the passage at 1:08:55

1:09:03 In this psychology, okay, to cut to the chase, because we're going to get finished. In this psychology, it's a whole different problem. So now, normally, depression, for example, or a problem, is something that's kind of almost random, isn't it? We don't really know how it's created. We have ideas about how it's created. Okay? The idea we have are all kinds of fantastic ideas like, Report an error in the passage at 1:09:03 Highlight the passage at 1:09:03

1:09:34 Let me think why I've been depressed. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:34 Highlight the passage at 1:09:34

1:09:45 Lama Yeshe used to be really mean to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:45 Highlight the passage at 1:09:45

1:09:50 People used to ask him, why are you so mean to Karuṇā? Did you ever ask him that? No, but he was mean to me in front of you, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:50 Highlight the passage at 1:09:50

1:10:01 And so I'd get depressed. Then he'd make fun of me. You know one time, I was standing in the courtyard of the monastery, the temple, and I'm just minding my own business. I don't know why he was going to pick on me. I was minding my own business. And then Lama Yeshe came walking. It was lunchtime, so people were sitting around, you know, this courtyard. We didn't have really a dining room even then, I don't think. And so everyone was sitting around eating their food off these, you know, the metal plates and stuff like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:01 Highlight the passage at 1:10:01

1:10:24 And probably about 15 people sitting around. Lama Yeshe comes walking down, and it's customary to stand up, you know. That's a sign of politeness, right? You stand, you know, you don't just sit there and eat. You know, your Lama's coming outside. So then he goes, Report an error in the passage at 1:10:24 Highlight the passage at 1:10:24

1:10:52 around mocking me because I had a notice as I used to wear shawl right he puts his Xan over his hand he walks around moping around like that you see here's Karuṇā say look everyone look here's Karuṇā and he's moping around walking around walking and that's like I don't know how you feel about public humiliation. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:52 Highlight the passage at 1:10:52

1:11:14 He'd just do that all the time. And you know what? You would never see it coming. So it got to the point that Lama Yeshu would come this way and I would go that way. All the time. Sometimes I'd have to take people up for an appointment with him or I'd have to go do a letter or something like that. And I'd stand outside his door for 10 minutes, 15. I can't go in there. I just know he's going to... Report an error in the passage at 1:11:14 Highlight the passage at 1:11:14

1:11:31 And I'd go in and he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do anything. He'd say, sit down dear. Have some tea. Have some cookies. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:31 Highlight the passage at 1:11:31

1:11:39 I get all, like, confident. He loves me now. I've learned I'm going to be okay. But then the next time, as soon as I drop my guard, he would get it. And I got all kinds of those kinds of things. But, what was my point? Oh, depression. So I used to make me get so depressed. I could not figure out what he was doing. I couldn't figure it out. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:39 Highlight the passage at 1:11:39

1:11:59 This went on for years. What am I missing? He'd say, oh, you're so lazy. You're so lazy. And I was working. Was I working in those days? Okay, thank you. I'm a witness. In hours, I'd work 16 hours. Sometimes I'd be, and I'd be working. You're lazy. I never knew what he meant. I know what he means now, but I'm not going to tell you. The point is now about how things arise, problems arise, is I like this quote from a friend of mine. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:59 Highlight the passage at 1:11:59

1:12:29 Actually, I should say his friend, although he's Geshe. who, a teacher in South Carolina, he says, you know, the problem is we see what isn't there. This is the essence of Buddhist psychology. The essence of Buddhist psychology is we don't see things as they are. We don't see things correctly. So that perception thing, if we go back a few slides, what happens here is this thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:29 Highlight the passage at 1:12:29

1:12:59 This is not the only place problems begin, but it's kind of one of the areas. So what I say is, you know, that green sweater, you know the green sweater? Oh, we can still turn it around. I really love the green sweater. Green, it's made a great sensation. And then what happens? She takes her sweater off and lays it on the chair. And we all go out for a tea break. Except for me. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:59 Highlight the passage at 1:12:59

1:13:25 Right? What's happening? I'm getting agitated, right? My mind is moving. I want that green sweater. And then I steal it. I do all these devices. She comes back in. What's your name? Sandra. Sandra comes back in. I said, Karuṇā, did you see my green sweater? It was there when I went out. See what happened? Now, what's the problem there? The problem is how we now define what mental health is. Who asked me? Someone asked me before. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:25 Highlight the passage at 1:13:25

1:13:54 Define mental health. Let's jump ahead. Okay, we see what's there. We don't see what is there. We do see what is... How do I say it? We see what isn't there and we don't see what is there. It's like that. How many people see a guy standing three stories above the sidewalk? Anybody see that? Yeah. As you know, it's not. What do you call it, two-dimensional? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:54 Highlight the passage at 1:13:54

1:14:27 It's a sidewalk drawing. See the people walking around the blocks? There's no blocks there. It's written flat. That's how we go through life. That's how we go through our experiences. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:27 Highlight the passage at 1:14:27

1:14:44 Now, you don't have to take my word for this, but do a little study about how perception happens. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:44 Highlight the passage at 1:14:44

1:14:56 If we're perceiving... Okay, for example, if everything is moving moment to moment really fast, then if I... This is a small example, but this can apply to any of the senses. And I say... And I criticize you. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:56 Highlight the passage at 1:14:56

1:15:15 And I say, you know, something. Well, you've criticized me. You know, you're really kind of going on kind of long and you're not making any sense. It's not a criticism, it's a fact. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15:15

1:15:28 Did you see what I'm saying? Now, that sound, the choki could say, where is it now? Right? It's gone, right? But where am I? I'm pissed off. I'm hurt. If I saw that experience for what it really was, would I get hurt? That makes sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:28 Highlight the passage at 1:15:28

1:15:48 Would I have the same reaction? Now what I'm sharing with you tonight is not the whole experience, by the way. There's other things that go on. But one thing I definitely miss in our interaction, and there's many, there's other things that are important. One thing I definitely miss is that it's moving moment to moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:48 Highlight the passage at 1:15:48

1:16:09 The way I live, I don't know about you, the way I see the world is in slides. Like a slideshow. Sometimes the slides move faster, sometimes slower. Generally they come slow. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:09 Highlight the passage at 1:16:09

1:16:23 I see things as unchanging. It's really weird. You know, you have to check this yourself. So when Choki says that to me, because I see what isn't there, what isn't there is any fixed. There's nothing fixed, right? In fact, if you've been trying to find the sound, Choki said to me, come on, hurry up. You can't even find the sound, because that sound is also moving moment to moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:23 Highlight the passage at 1:16:23

1:16:57 And it's made up of atoms. So which atom is making up the sound, you see? But we don't see it that way. That's how it is. I'm talking very fast and I'm really going quick, right? But the psychology, I want to get the psychology of it. Psychology is I get hurt and upset by what she said. If I saw what she said to me as it is in reality, would I get upset? Report an error in the passage at 1:16:57 Highlight the passage at 1:16:57

1:17:18 Now, I'm not sharing with you all that's there, but just that one little piece about the movie moment to moment. There's other things involved in my experience that are incorrect as well. But the main thing that happens is I have this experience, she says the words, and those words become solid as if they exist from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:18 Highlight the passage at 1:17:18

1:17:41 Guess what else is happening? Remember that slide I showed you four or five slides ago? There is the sound, the object. There is my ear organ, which does something there. And then there's this consciousness Report an error in the passage at 1:17:41 Highlight the passage at 1:17:41

1:17:57 Knowing it, experiencing it, recognizing it. By the time, do you think that's happening simultaneously or is it slightly, is there a time lapse there? Report an error in the passage at 1:17:57 Highlight the passage at 1:17:57

1:18:07 What do you think? Time lapse or not? Generally a time lapse by the time I react. I mean, the moment I say, what? It's been a while. In nanoseconds. I mean, the universe has gone by, in a sense, even if it's just five seconds. So why, if I, so I'm not even experiencing it for how it is. So you see, I'm seeing something that isn't there. And I don't see what is there. What is there is, and this is just one example. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:07 Highlight the passage at 1:18:07

1:18:41 You know, you're going to have to come to the other classes and see other examples. But one example is, I don't even see that it's moving moment to moment. That's a fact. Scientifically, you can prove that. My mind is moving moment to moment. Her voice is moving moment to moment. And my ear, this thing that's registering, it's also changing moment to moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:41 Highlight the passage at 1:18:41

1:19:01 Right? The atoms are changing constantly. This is very, very important. I have many more slides. I know I won't get to all of them. But this is the crux of it. This is the crux. If that misunderstanding, now I'm pissed off with you. And then even the moment I get angry with her, who am I angry with? Because I don't see that what I'm angry with is an image I'm holding up, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:19:01 Highlight the passage at 1:19:01

1:19:26 Do I even see Choki? I don't even see her. What is her? Moment to moment changing, all kinds of things that I'm not recognizing. I'm not recognizing my mind is shifting moment to moment and that I'm being fooled by it. I'm hallucinating this experience. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. There's something that exists there, right? But it doesn't exist the way it's appearing to me. If I were to see it the way it appears to me, I think I would be really happy. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:26 Highlight the passage at 1:19:26

1:19:56 Peaceful, happy. Now, the definition of mental health in my definition... You have to ask. We're out of time. The way it really is, I should answer that, but it's not a small answer. The way it really is, there's lots of things it really is. I am. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:56 Highlight the passage at 1:19:56

1:20:37 I'm not saying it on that level. By the way, relative and absolute reality, the level that I'm talking about are interrelated. You can't have one without the other. In my description right now. So I'm not trying to say... Report an error in the passage at 1:20:37 Highlight the passage at 1:20:37

1:20:55 You know, to say what it really is, I am saying what it is. To say that it doesn't exist the way it appears is to say that it doesn't exist the way it appears. You want to know how does it appear? How is the true way it should appear, right? I thought that's what you were saying. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:55 Highlight the passage at 1:20:55

1:21:24 That's right. Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:21:24 Highlight the passage at 1:21:24

1:21:31 there's other... Okay, Report an error in the passage at 1:21:31 Highlight the passage at 1:21:31

1:21:37 I understand that. Then we can have that, continue that conversation. That's... That's just one. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:37 Highlight the passage at 1:21:37

1:21:35 be able to live Report an error in the passage at 1:21:35 Highlight the passage at 1:21:35

1:21:42 That's not my experience in myself and how people, and I don't have any attainments, I'm not trying to say I've got, but... No, it doesn't. I didn't say it didn't exist. I didn't say the experience didn't exist, did I? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:42 Highlight the passage at 1:21:42

1:22:00 Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn't say it didn't exist. I say there is something happening. I didn't say she doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:00 Highlight the passage at 1:22:00

1:22:11 My experience is the perceptions, the interactions. interaction. That's the problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:11 Highlight the passage at 1:22:11

1:22:19 sorry, yeah, it's probably my description that I made it sound like therefore she doesn't exist. That's what happens. It's true. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:19 Highlight the passage at 1:22:19

1:22:37 Right. Do you remember I said there's more to the description than just this moving thing? There's other things too, and we don't have time. But let me just finish, because I don't want you to leave with this kind of idea that it doesn't exist. The point is, I wanted to make a point, because this is the first class, is that I believe. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:37 Highlight the passage at 1:22:37

1:22:53 The problem begins to disintegrate. It changes. This is the problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:53 Highlight the passage at 1:22:53

1:23:35 them as they really are. I'm so hoping to get a kernel, an essential of... Report an error in the passage at 1:23:35 Highlight the passage at 1:23:35

1:23:47 psychology and depression? Okay, depression. Out of tonight. Okay, let me just, yeah. And I'd like to hear. That addressed as succinctly as possible before this class is over because that's what I came for. I'm going to try, but I'm not going to promise. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:47 Highlight the passage at 1:23:47

1:24:05 See, I had to skip a bunch of slides. In the Buddhist description of mental disorders, it's really interesting there's not one called depression. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:05 Highlight the passage at 1:24:05

1:24:20 Yeah, there isn't. I don't know of one. promise, Report an error in the passage at 1:24:20 Highlight the passage at 1:24:20

1:24:08 slides. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:08 Highlight the passage at 1:24:08

1:24:24 No. There's also, really funny enough, there's a few like that. Now, the good news is this disturbed me for some years until about a few months ago when Jack sent me, I think it was the recording he sent from Somzak Kensei Rinpoche, or that was his book, where he said, well, there's thousands of afflictions. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:24 Highlight the passage at 1:24:24

1:24:41 Okay, good. which I mean that's from So there's some of these that don't... And unfortunately, depression is... I wish it would. There's another one His Holiness the Dalai Lama often refers to, which is low self-esteem. Never knew what that was. His first contact was in our culture or modern culture. So there's a lot of them like that. So I had to think to myself, what is really depression? Report an error in the passage at 1:24:41 Highlight the passage at 1:24:41

1:25:03 And I don't Report an error in the passage at 1:25:03 Highlight the passage at 1:25:03

1:25:12 have a perfect answer for that, but I've been thinking about it for a long time. Let me just take a second. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:12 Highlight the passage at 1:25:12

1:25:28 Generally speaking, when my experience of working with people with depression and who got themselves out of depression, what happens is there's a, what happens is, this is so complex. Okay, so if we take an example of an event happens. Some depression arises out of an event. They'll say, you know, sometimes it's an event. My husband left me and I've been depressed for six months, two years, whatever it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:28 Highlight the passage at 1:25:28

1:25:55 Well, what happens is that there's a habit of way of thinking. Oh, sorry. So the experience is my husband left me, my wife left me. What happens next is an interpretation of what that event is. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:55 Highlight the passage at 1:25:55

1:26:09 Interpretation would usually is something of a state, and I'm really going, this is a Reader's Digest version. What tends to happen with depression is due to that experience, There is then some kind of interesting dynamic that happens where it's a statement about my own self-identity. And there's just one kind of depression. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:09 Highlight the passage at 1:26:09

1:26:30 I'm going to qualify this a lot, and it's because I feel a little nervous about this. But what happens to the identity, there's an experience, and then there's a sadness, a sense of loss. Usually it's a loss. It's a loss. I lost this. Not always, but I lost this. At the moment of the loss, first of all, so then we begin to engage with that definition. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:30 Highlight the passage at 1:26:30

1:26:57 and it's continues to story that experience and one of the descriptions about mental health is actually restoring it depression is a mental experience I'm gonna say something very radical and people get really angry at me for this okay the cause of Depression is not something physical. The cause of depression is not because my wife left me. Sorry. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:57 Highlight the passage at 1:26:57

1:27:31 It can't be, by the way. I didn't say it wasn't related. I didn't say it wasn't conditional. It is conditional. We need a condition. This doesn't come up on its own typically. It needs a trigger. But it's not the cause. Triggers in this sense I don't mean as causes. The cause, because the experience is mental, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:27:31 Highlight the passage at 1:27:31

1:27:50 Depression is a mental experience. The cause... It has to be mental. So my experience is that when I work with people who broke themselves out of depression, okay, so something happens. Let me continue what happens. So there's an experience and then there's a description or interpretation. Sometimes in Buddhist psychology we say labeling. I don't think labeling is the right word. We do label. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:50 Highlight the passage at 1:27:50

1:28:11 But then there's this kind of repeated labeling. Okay? Repeated labeling. And it's what we all do anyway. We do that without depression. We do that about the 49ers. You know? With bad coaching. Okay? But in this case, what happens is that the difference is that I, during that process of constant, constant dialogue with the experience, it's a negative dialogue, by the way, our own identity gets fused a lot with that dialogue. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:11 Highlight the passage at 1:28:11

1:28:50 Because typically with depression, there's something wrong with me, or I've lost something. It's very strong. I lost this. Or, because I didn't lose it, I can't have it. You know what I mean? Like, if you get really depressed about not being able to achieve something in your career, people get depressed about that too. So it's either not being able to attain something or losing it. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:50 Highlight the passage at 1:28:50

1:29:17 They're kind of similar. Because a lot of times when people get depressed about not attaining something, it's when they finally realize, I'm not going to ever attain it. And therefore I'm doomed. So there's also the sense of permanence. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:17 Highlight the passage at 1:29:17

1:29:30 Eternity. People struggling with depression have a misconception of time. Now, I say that with empathy though, because time really is slow when you're depressed. It's forever. All of that. So what the remedy is, is you have to begin to separate the sense of identity from the experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:30 Highlight the passage at 1:29:30

1:29:57 The opposite is, I am depression. People get so depressed. So depressed that they are depression. Feels like, that's why I like the idea of the fog. It's very hard when you walk in the fog to see you're not in the fog. You're almost not part of the fog. And sometimes that fog is like, you know, those old movies of London, you know, with the werewolves and stuff. So depression, you know, fog has many levels of thickness and depression does too. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:57 Highlight the passage at 1:29:57

1:30:26 It's very, very scary for the person when it's that kind of... thick thick fog is a remedy to it the remedy is it's courageous the remedy is to more and more see that you are separate from the depression depression is coming up in your mind it's one of the clouds Report an error in the passage at 1:30:26 Highlight the passage at 1:30:26

1:30:49 is one of the clouds, so it's not that it's not happening, the way out of it is... strategies and people can do this to unmerge I'm sure there's no word like that unmerge Report an error in the passage at 1:30:49 Highlight the passage at 1:30:49

1:31:11 it gets its power, it gets its life from the degree that it's merged with your identity the moment you say well I'm not really, it's okay depression my mind I don't like you but you know it's okay, I'm doing okay I see you in my mind and I promise you this an actual experience, I'm not just talking theoretically the depression, who do that, the depression begins to dissipate, it's almost as if it is that Report an error in the passage at 1:31:11 Highlight the passage at 1:31:11

1:31:37 came to visit you, the moment that cousin isn't getting, you know, he's in your guest room, he never leaves, moment you don't give him any more attention, he kind of gets bored and leaves. There is some truth, and I don't mean to make depression simplistic, it's a very, very serious thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:37 Highlight the passage at 1:31:37

1:31:53 there's a lot of other things going on with depression, about ideas about what makes me happy, I have, you know, so that's also cultural. You know, I never saw much depression in Asia. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:53 Highlight the passage at 1:31:53

1:32:06 Who knows what karma, whatever you want to say. But I didn't see it. They interact with their, they have maybe different expectations, but that's a bigger topic. But I think there's a lot of depression in modern culture because we are recruited into the idea that we can have everything. We can achieve what we want. And it depends on the person what that thing is they can achieve. But it's almost a sense of entitlement, like I should have that. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:06 Highlight the passage at 1:32:06

1:32:30 And we're told that. You can be anything you want to be. And that's not actually true. It's not that simple. That we can have anything, we can be anything. And then of course around relationships a lot of times depression arises because we are, again, recruiting the idea that happiness comes from a relationship with another person. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:30 Highlight the passage at 1:32:30

1:32:52 And the more we're told that, those are habits, those are mental habits. As long as in Buddhist psychology we have all those imprints, right? So the stronger those, the number almost, how many of those imprints we have in our consciousness and the frequency we put them there and how recently we did it, all those are going to feed into depression. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:52 Highlight the passage at 1:32:52

1:33:11 That's why we talked earlier about the Tibetans who don't have those kind of learnings. They don't have those kind of expectations. It doesn't mean they don't have the potential, some potentials in them, but they don't have that habit, that mental imprint. A lot of it is about habit, mental habit. And some of it is mental DNA. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:11 Highlight the passage at 1:33:11

1:33:39 That's why, anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:39 Highlight the passage at 1:33:39

1:33:45 the DNA, I mean, this is probably another class, but the physiological aspect of your brain chemistry and how that, that come before, I mean, is that a result of your external circumstance? The question was? Brain chemistry. Brain chemistry. The physiology of depression. The physiology of depression. I knew that would come up, and that's, again, important. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:45 Highlight the passage at 1:33:45

1:34:08 Okay, again, I want to say that it's, I think it's useful to be provocative. I'm not being provocative in the sense of provocation. There is chemistry. And they, you know, you can do different, well, there's lots happening with MRIs and, you know, measuring, looking at brains and how they function with depressed people and with all kinds of different people, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:34:08 Highlight the passage at 1:34:08

1:34:28 And they say, see, that's yellow, so they're depressed. Therefore, depression, right? In Buddhist physiology and Buddhist psychology, ultimately, ultimately, Those chemicals are created by the mind, which is formless. Funny, funny. How does something formless create something that's formed? That's that interaction, that interdependency. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:28 Highlight the passage at 1:34:28

1:34:49 But we don't say that the depression is caused by the chemicals. We say the chemicals, in one sense, you could say is caused by the depression. But then it becomes this feedback loop. That's why you have to break it. You can actually change the chemistry of the brain, the chemical reaction of the brain in recent research. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:49 Highlight the passage at 1:34:49

1:35:09 And I'm not a scientist, so I just read that stuff, that neural pathway. So one last thing. The brain is not the mind. The brain is not the mind. Any more than the eye organ is sight. The eye organ is not sight. If it were sight, we could put it on a table and it would see things. It doesn't do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:09 Highlight the passage at 1:35:09

1:35:29 So that's just what people often ask about the brain. It's an organ of the mind, though. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:29 Highlight the passage at 1:35:29

1:35:40 I know we're only going to 830, right? Okay, so people need that. I will be hurt, but it's okay. In Ayurvedic medicine, their psychology is broken down into, you know, your different body types. And just for her, I'm just kind of answering her question, the different body types, the different elementals. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:40 Highlight the passage at 1:35:40

1:35:48 in Ayurvedic medicine. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:48 Highlight the passage at 1:35:48

1:36:05 influence different types of mental instability. Yes, right. And so there is some science to what body types are prone to different types of emotions. Right, right. So, just in that science. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:05 Highlight the passage at 1:36:05

1:36:25 Going down to the basic, all disease is caused by the afflictions, bottom line. But sometimes people misunderstand. They say, well, I see it's all mental. No, it's not all mental. It's not all mental. Everything's not mental. In the sense that when I say cause, it doesn't mean that you don't experience pain in your arm and then there's pain in the arm. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:25 Highlight the passage at 1:36:25

1:36:51 It's not just a mental experience. There's interdependency. All minds have a body for some reason. Okay? Something else? You want to go home? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:51 Highlight the passage at 1:36:51

1:37:14 Yes. I'm merging, yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:14 Highlight the passage at 1:37:14

1:37:26 Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:26 Highlight the passage at 1:37:26

1:37:39 Right, Report an error in the passage at 1:37:39 Highlight the passage at 1:37:39

1:37:47 right. dissipated. Yeah. I'm curious about also an event happens and triggers an interpretation of a repeated wavelength. Yeah. So, Report an error in the passage at 1:37:47 Highlight the passage at 1:37:47

1:37:44 plumped together with a lot of other immersion. right, right. I'm just curious, in your opinion, when a practitioner practices forming that depression into a cloud, do you feel like in your experience that it's more quickly dissipated by the Buddhist strategy versus therapy? therapy where you break things and remove things from all kinds of human beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:44 Highlight the passage at 1:37:44

1:38:22 The question was, do Buddhist interventions of seeing things as, you know, kind of that idea of, that's just one technique, the separating from the depression, that were quicker than other forms of therapy? And my answer is yes and no. You know, it just depends on the person. I have to be very, I never said it, you know, I am a practicing therapist. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:22 Highlight the passage at 1:38:22

1:38:43 90 % and 80 % of my clients here are not, I mean, have no idea of Buddhism. These ideas are universal. I'm testing these as non... I don't want to use the word Buddhist. It's not necessary if they're really valid. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:43 Highlight the passage at 1:38:43

1:38:59 The advantage is that some people don't... People have different capacity. So, you know, if someone's hungry, you don't tell them... They're sad about their hunger. They're starving. I don't talk to them about depression. I give them some food. So we have to learn how to... But, But if someone even opens the door a little bit, then I dive in. Seriously. Because I feel it is the way to eliminate the problem for good. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:59 Highlight the passage at 1:38:59

1:39:31 Because then you give them a tool. Well, here's the beautiful thing. By them doing that, by the person doing that, they've got a tool now. You know, my job is to get myself out of work, I think. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:31 Highlight the passage at 1:39:31

1:39:44 Become your own therapist, right? So that's the biggest difference I've found. Well, not the biggest. That's a big difference. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:44 Highlight the passage at 1:39:44

1:40:11 The question was about what kind of intervention, things like visualization or talk therapy. That's a good question and it's out of the scope of our talk, but what I do... It's kind of funny, you know, being from Buddhist tradition, long meditation, I almost never give meditations, I almost never give visualizations, because my personal attraction in Tibetan Buddhism, in my history, I really love the ideas of debate, I really love the ideas of philosophy, and so in my study, just in my normal studies in clinical psych, there are some Western modalities that have a way of Dialoguing that allowed me to help a client have that experience. So for me it's through talk. It doesn't mean I never do visualization, but I generally don't. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:11 Highlight the passage at 1:40:11

1:41:11 Meditation, all that stuff, I don't do that. It's through the kind of talking. If people know about debate in the Tibetan tradition, it is meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:11 Highlight the passage at 1:41:11

1:41:21 It's a methodology. Good debate gets someone to shift their perspective. That's what I'm looking for, a shift in perspective. That's what I feel my job is. So that's a different topic. We could talk about it someday, but there's a way of having a dialogue, which I think all of our, looking at Wilson Chucky, that all of our monks and nuns should learn that. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:21 Highlight the passage at 1:41:21

1:41:46 Blanket statement. Okay? That's not all, but I'm going to let you go home. Thank you. that Report an error in the passage at 1:41:46 Highlight the passage at 1:41:46