← B. Alan Wallace

Four Immeasurables Retreat with B. Alan Wallace - Sydney 2014 (part 5)

B. Alan Wallace · 2014 · 1 h 3 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 8:23

    And doing something so passive as simply attending to the sensations of the breath, she would sometimes experience, she told me, really intense pain throughout the entire body, just really gripping, attention-catching pain. But it wasn't just chronic, like every time she'd lie down, she'd be wracked with pain, sometimes be pretty serene, pretty calm, peaceful, and then waves of pain would come up, and then they would subside, and then another kind of discomfort would come up.

  • 10:08

    The first-person perspective of the body with the chakras, the flow of energy or prāṇa, you're familiar with this somewhat, yeah? Well, those are as real as anything else. I'm actually very confident. The energy centers like the heart chakra, there's one in navel and so forth, the flows of energy, they're as real as emotions. Emotions can't be measured scientifically, but they certainly exist. And these promise, these energy flows, subtle energies, vital energies, they are...

  • 11:19

    And what turns out to occur in many cases, now this is no panacea, it's not a medical procedure, but those blockages, the constrictions and so forth, they often work themselves out. They start to unravel. There's a nice word in Tibetan, self-release, is, there's some kind of a knot, a constriction, a tightness in the flow of energy in the body, and when you just create a wide open, and you mentioned the word, Adani mentioned last night the word vulnerability, there you're lying on your back, you that's about as vulnerable as it gets, and you're going into total relaxation, your eyes are closed, so, I mean, that's kind of physically vulnerable, man or woman, right?

  • 25:22

    A long, long time. And the term that I've used is sacred tension. Sacred tension. And I'm really speaking now from the, how do you say, the school of Buddhism, the tradition, the lineage of Buddhism that I feel very much at home with and I feel much part of. It's Mahāyāna Buddhism. Within Mahāyāna Buddhism, I have a resonance with Tibetan Buddhism. Within that, with Vajrayana. And then above all, Dzogchen.

  • 35:11

    And just taking that day by day. And taking it like art. The Buddha said, as the potter shapes the pot and the fletcher shapes the arrow, so does the wise man shape himself. So that was no answer and it was a total answer. But there's two really good things here. And if you just have your heart open and calling out to the universe, see whether the reality rises up to meet you. Because this is good. That's good. This is living in accordance with reality. And I have really deep faith here.

0:15 So please find a comfortable position. We will have two back-to-back 24-minute sessions. A little break in between if you'd like to stretch. These will be silent meditations. There's been plenty of talk, a lot of instruction over the day. So now time just to assimilate. One possibility in our two sessions would be to have the first session just going into shamatha, into mindfulness of breathing. Report an error

0:40 The second session, venturing into... Mettā Bhavana or cultivation of loving kindness but also you could, if you wish in one of the sessions, just take the notes and then be reflecting upon those, meditating you could go to the Mettā Sutta the Buddhist Discord So my simple suggestion to you is spend the time in the most meaningful way you can. So I'll just be the timekeeper and we'll pick up conversation, dialogue in about 50 minutes or so. Report an error

· · ·

2:08 Are there questions or comments? And we'll begin with people who have not had a hand up yet. So yeah, let's start here, please. Your name first? Brandon. Brandon, yes. How are you? I'm well, thank you. I have a question. Yesterday you mentioned how health can improve your attention. Ill health. Report an error

2:27 I'm missing that. Sorry. Ill health. You mentioned yesterday. Ill health. Ill health can improve your attention. Report an error

2:56 A bit slower. I think it's just the accent. A bit slower and a clearer articulate. I really want to understand every word. Report an error

3:06 want to do my best, I want to do my best in my position. My health seems to be a lot more clearer. Your health seems clearer? No, sorry, worse. Worse. Yes. Report an error

3:31 Yeah, understood. Report an error

3:39 Yeah, yeah. Report an error

3:48 I'm just missing that. Yeah. My name is Synonymous. If is going through the old age or... Right. I don't see it as much. If someone's name actually is... How do you get that? Report an error

4:08 backpacking brought something out, sort of the in-between focus and all that, and you don't get the gold for the problem is, yeah. Report an error

4:18 Okay, I didn't understand all, I was doing my best. No, no, nothing to apologize for, it's just that I sometimes just don't quite get the accent. it's accented. Report an error

4:30 I'll try to respond and then you can tell me whether the arrow strikes the target, okay? It's actually not uncommon that people, if they have injuries or there's simply abnormalities in the body, a lot of people have problems with the spine, it's very common, the back problems and so on. And it's not at all uncommon when people are meditating that they actually feel the symptoms, the discomfort and so forth more evidently. Report an error

4:58 ...than when they're just out and about with their attention drawn elsewhere. Activities of the world, conversations, entertainment, work and so forth. Part of that's kind of obvious. And that is we have kind of a finite amount of attention at any given time. And if we're really focusing elsewhere, work, entertainment, social engagements and so forth, there's not so much left over to be attending to the discomforts, the aches and pains and so forth of the body. Report an error

5:24 So that's kind of just kind of commonsensical. Report an error

5:41 kind of macho, you know, like that. That actually might suppress a bit. can suppress. Report an error

6:03 That's where you may actually experience discomfort. Yeah. Well, that's actually a good thing. It's actually a good thing. Not that it's pleasant, but when I say good, I don't mean necessarily pleasant. What's happening there, and again I speak with no medical expertise whatsoever, so that's not where I'm coming from, and no pretense that I have some medical diagnosis, I have none. Report an error

6:28 But meditation, I do have some background. And so when you go into a very deep state of relaxation, and essentially giving your full attention, as much as you possibly can, giving your full attention to the body, the somatic feelings arising. throughout the sensations, feelings and so forth arising throughout the entire body then whatever is there is going to come up loud and clear and the fact that you're relaxed the fact that you're really loose and relaxed I'll give an example of this, a woman considerably older than you are, years ago, gosh it was many years ago, 14, about 14 years ago. Report an error

7:11 I went into a solitary retreat and I was hosted by an elderly woman. I think she was about 70 at the time. She had a large house, a large cottage, let's say, cabin for herself. She had a little cottage. She let me move into that and she cooked me a meal every day. And then I just left me alone. I was in total solitude. But she did ask for meditation instruction and I was happy to give it. Report an error

7:32 What can I do? And so I taught her basic mindfulness of breathing, essentially what I taught today and I'll teach tomorrow. And she had a number of, she was, I mean, somewhat elderly, not really old, but definitely 70 as a senior citizen. And just coming with that aches and pains and just kind of the discomforts of old age that had become chronic. Report an error

7:55 And over the course of the six months that I was in quite intensive retreat, solitary retreat, she wound up practicing, having a lot of time on her hands, she wound up practicing three, four, five hours a day. And she was in a supine position. Well, interesting, I can't say I was surprised, but I was interested. Because we would meet once every two weeks or so and discuss her practice. Report an error

8:16 I'd give a bit of guidance as needed. And while she'd be lying there, just, you know, total relaxation. And doing something so passive as simply attending to the sensations of the breath, she would sometimes experience, she told me, really intense pain throughout the entire body, just really gripping, attention-catching pain. Report an error

8:37 But it wasn't just chronic, like every time she'd lie down, she'd be wracked with pain, sometimes be pretty serene, pretty calm, peaceful, and then waves of pain would come up, and then they would subside, and then another kind of discomfort would come up. And then that would subside, and then another one would come up and subside. Well, she stuck to it. She was practicing, again, maybe four hours a day for six months while I was doing my more intensive retreat. Report an error

9:02 But what was remarkable, and again I didn't find it surprising because I've been doing this for a long time, is by the time I was finished with my retreat, six months, and then she finished for that rather intensive time, at the end, it was quite obvious just looking at her, but also by her own verbal report, her body was actually much healthier. Report an error

9:22 Lighter, buoyant, and a lot of the old chronic discomforts, contractions, constrictions and so forth were gone. And I've seen her, she visited my wife and me about a year ago, maybe at our home, and there was still that lightness there that I hadn't seen before. So I don't think that's an anomaly. If that were just isolated, then why even bother to mention it? But when we go into the supine position, and especially for this practice, this mindfulness of breathing, where you're really bringing this awareness to the body in a benevolent way, It's a very gentle, very loving way. What I found many, many times, and I've experienced this to some extent myself, is I'm going to speak now from first-person physiology, which is not in competition at all with the medical understanding of the body, but it is a perspective that I take very seriously. Report an error

10:08 The first-person perspective of the body with the chakras, the flow of energy or prāṇa, you're familiar with this somewhat, yeah? Well, those are as real as anything else. I'm actually very confident. The energy centers like the heart chakra, there's one in navel and so forth, the flows of energy, they're as real as emotions. Report an error

10:28 Emotions can't be measured scientifically, but they certainly exist. And these promise, these energy flows, subtle energies, vital energies, they are... perceived from a first-person perspective. These energies, continuing to speak, this is very core to India, it's also core to traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Tibetan medicine and the meditative traditions throughout all of Asia. Report an error

10:49 It's commonplace. There are blockages through injury, through illness, through just getting old, wear and tear. There are blockages, constrictions and so forth in the flow of energy throughout the body. And that just gives rise to chronic discomfort. Well, here you are, you're going into complete meltdown, just total relaxation. And then hour after hour, you're just being very gently, very gently, lovingly present with the ebb and flow of the breath. Report an error

11:19 And what turns out to occur in many cases, now this is no panacea, it's not a medical procedure, but those blockages, the constrictions and so forth, they often work themselves out. They start to unravel. There's a nice word in Tibetan, Report an error

11:38 self-release, is, there's some kind of a knot, a constriction, a tightness in the flow of energy in the body, and when you just create a wide open, and you mentioned the word, Adani mentioned last night the word vulnerability, there you're lying on your back, you that's about as vulnerable as it gets, and you're going into total relaxation, your eyes are closed, so, I mean, that's kind of physically vulnerable, man or woman, right? Report an error

12:03 So there you are in this position of total vulnerability and then the breathing turns out to be crucial. This settling of the breathing, it is a skill, it's not likely one masters it at first attempt, but that mode of breathing where you're just totally releasing, surrender is a nice word, you're surrendering the breath, giving up all control, all regulation, all preference and just allowing the breathing to flow but mindfully attending to it. Report an error

12:33 He said, I found this to be the most therapeutic of any type of meditation I know. And when I'm leading long retreats, like eight-week retreats, three-month retreats, or when I'm guiding people who are spending years in retreat, about 30 of them right now, in the course of the meditation, if they start getting tense, uptight, anxious, depressed or what have you, my first response to them is go to what I call the infirmary, and it's just a shorthand. Report an error

13:04 If you persist in the practice, then you may find that it releases itself. Now, final word is, if it's a medical condition, Then you should go to a doctor if it's a medical condition. But there's a whole category of kind of, they're called anomalous, transient experiences, psychological, somatic, that are catalyzed by proper meditation. Report an error

13:45 In other words, you're not doing anything wrong. They're called nyam, N-Y-A-M. And when these come up, then just going into an infirmary, doing this type of practice is quite often quite sufficient enough. enough to let them unravel themselves and you wind up being better off than you were when you came in. ahead. Hi, you're welcome. Report an error

14:07 Yes, please. We'll go here. Over here, please. Report an error

14:21 Thank you for spelling and I have an image. Report an error

· · ·

15:16 think in particular hood. Report an error

15:22 of the hurts and struggles of her experience, I would call a struggle. Report an error

· · ·

16:19 century. Yeah, got it. Report an error

16:26 I really withdrew and so I'm going to go back to that. Yes, Report an error

· · ·

17:35 exactly. The distant enemy of empathetic joy, which is diametrically post-empathetic joy. Report an error

17:49 I understand. Report an error

18:06 various other reasons. Buddhism itself seems quite confusing. I've only been studying it for a few months, but I have no reason to fully go on and say it all the way. It is the same as the environment talked about by Buddhism when it comes to the Mahāyāna. I see a kind of dominant discourse from a certain Manjaka, Noho Jr. and a great legend, which is the way I handle it. Report an error

18:38 I really want to take refuge in Buddhism, so I do. I really love it. Report an error

· · ·

20:36 studying Buddhism in 1970, when there were maybe, actually there weren't even a half dozen books on Tibetan Buddhism that were worth reading. now there are literally hundreds that are worth reading. that's just for Tibetan Buddhism. Terawada, enormous literature. Zen, Chan. If one, kind of on one's own, goes to Amazon.com or goes to your bookstore or what have you and just says, you know, starts picking out books, man, that'd be confusing. Report an error

21:05 That would be like trying to study physics and having in your library Aristotle and Ptolemy and Einstein and Newton and Galileo and that being all mixed up. I just don't quite see how Aristotle works with Einstein. They seem to be incompatible. And just not seeing the bigger picture because you haven't had actually step-by-step methodical training in physics so you know that almost everything of Aristotle is completely ridiculous. Report an error

21:34 So we just have to be aware that that is a close analogy because Buddhism is 2,500 years old and it's branched off into multiple schools. And these are not just sectarian rivalry. A lot of it is very positive. That is, Japanese Buddhism is very Japanese, as it should be. And now we're finding this new kind of mutation of Buddhism. Report an error

21:53 I can't call it Western Buddhism so much because it's really everywhere. Once again, the West is all the way around. But this is definitely a mutation as well. So it's mutated into Tibetan Buddhism, this wild iconography and the rituals and all of that. And then Theravāda, rather austere, strict monks, never smiling. The Tibetan is always smiling. Report an error

22:15 And the Zen, pretty intense, especially the Rinzai. Oh man, the Rinzai, because it comes from the samurai. The Rinzai, I think, come from the samurai. They're all warriors, you know. The Soto is more for the peasants, you know, the gentler, softer. But that's it. This is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing any more than it's bad that there's Greek Orthodox and there's Pentecostals in there and so forth. It's not a bad thing. It's not bad at all. Report an error

22:42 Because in the richest sense, Dharma's medicine is not a doctrine to conform to. Dharma's medicine to heal us, to bring us greater eudaimonia, greater meaning to our lives. And people are different. Japanese are very different from Tibetans and they're very different from Sri Lankans. And so, so the diversity. So confusing. Yes, it certainly can be. Report an error

23:07 And this is why if one really is very intent to become a well-informed student of Buddhism, a follower of Buddhism, it really saves a lot of time to find a teacher. So I was with the Dalai Lama in 1989 when he got the word that he'd won the Nobel Prize, Nobel Peace Prize. And he was interviewed by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The interviewer flew right down to California where he was at the time. And he asked the Dalai Lama, is it necessary to have a guru to achieve enlightenment? Report an error

23:35 And anybody who studied Buddhism, you know the right answer, right? You know the right answer. He didn't give the right answer. He thought about it and he said, but it can save you a lot of time. Report an error

23:49 And I thought that was a really wonderful answer because it's totally non-dogmatic and it's totally pragmatic and it's true. And so if you follow, if you find a teacher, whoever it may be, Whether by reading, the Dalai Lama has this wonderful array of books that he's written over the years, many of them are transcribed, edited from his teachings, there's a lot, you'll find coherence there. Report an error

24:09 Now whether it's the school you want to follow, the approach you want to follow, that's your choice, but will you see that it's, will it be confusing if you read this book and then that book by the Dalai Lama? I don't think so, because that's one mind that's very coherent and it really hasn't gone off into... Report an error

24:23 wild gyrations over the last 50, 60 years. Very coherent. And you say, whoa, that's quite rich. And then you'd see in that context, Nagarjuna's actually pretty okay. Report an error

24:37 I'm really drawn to, let's say, Zen, or I just like the purity of just straight mindfulness. I like the Masi Sayadaw approach. And you'll find coherence. If you follow Masi Sayadaw, you won't find it confusing. It's very coherent. Or Thich Nhat Hanh. Read his writings. Lots and lots of writings. Many, many. It's coherent. There's nothing confusing about it. Now, if you try to just pick these and then see how they all fit together, then you would need some of the... Report an error

25:05 It'd be good to have some guidance there because that can be very confusing. So that's the bigger picture. But now we come back to the real core issue. And there's a term that I've coined just because I find it useful for myself and it's been with me for a long time. A long, long time. And the term that I've used is sacred tension. Sacred tension. Report an error

25:31 And I'm really speaking now from the, how do you say, the school of Buddhism, the tradition, the lineage of Buddhism that I feel very much at home with and I feel much part of. It's Mahāyāna Buddhism. Within Mahāyāna Buddhism, I have a resonance with Tibetan Buddhism. Within that, with Vajrayana. And then above all, Dzogchen. Report an error

25:50 Dzogchen, the great perfection. That really goes right to the nucleus of my heart. But within that context, where the Bodhisattva ideal is very, very prominent. The sacred tension is a tug, it's a tension like a taut rope between two poles, but it's not good and evil, better and worse or anything like that, it's a tug between two really good things. Report an error

26:14 And I've had this for a very long time, this tension, it really kind of defines my life in many, many ways. And the tension is very simple, and that is seeing the amount of misery, the evil, the corruption, the vice. Report an error

26:29 Wanton destruction and needless suffering. Our species, not the chimpanzees and the alligators and the cockroaches. Our species, where our intelligence so far transcends our nearest neighbors. I mean, there's no comparison between chimpanzees and human beings. Up to the age of four, okay, yeah. But beyond that, forget about it. I mean, we're off to the stars and the chimpanzees are looking for fresh bananas. Report an error

26:52 There's no comparison. And so talk about horsepower that we don't need. And the chimpanzees have not damaged the environment at all. They're just eating their bananas and it's all organic. They're recycled. So they're doing okay. They're getting, you know, decimated, I suppose, with the other species. But we're the ones. And so I'm seeing all of this. But I felt this when I was a teenager. Report an error

27:15 Ecology, wildlife biology, love of nature. And I would just look wherever human beings had touched and pretty much we screw up everything. Wherever we go. Human beings, oh yeah, there's your trash, there's your dump, there's your toxic water, there you foul the air. Where are you going next? Oh, and I've come to, oh, you did the same thing, didn't you? Report an error

27:32 No other species does that. They just poop and then the poop goes into the soil and creates fertilizer. We poop and it's toxic waste dump. So I felt that, I felt that really quite strongly. I just wanted to go off in the mountains and photograph animals, live with wolves. You know, they have a nice clean kill and they eat the whole animal pretty much. Report an error

27:52 And so I really get that. So part of the pull of a sacred tension that I experienced from the time I was a teenager and I carried right through my monastic years and it carries through right now to this moment is a real yearning just to go into complete simplicity. Stop teaching. Stop writing. Stop translating. Stop conferences. Stop it all. Just give it a break. I'm almost 65 next year. That's retirement age, isn't it? Report an error

28:15 I can retire, can't I? And I have a little cabin. I can just pull the cord, close the shutters and say, I'm finished. Finished. I'm just going to tend to my own garden now, try to cultivate my mind before. Man, that's a strong appeal. That's really, really strong. Because there's so much work to be done. Report an error

28:32 If I were a finished product, I'd say, oh, I don't need that, I'll just be out there for everybody all the time. I'm really drastically not a finished product. Work in progress. But that's not a bad thing, to want to go into solitude, simplicity. The ideal of Thoreau, of John Muir, of Milarepa, and there are many in the Buddhist tradition, actually can be quite noble, if you're not just withdrawing because you don't like people. Report an error

28:54 I bet when you come home, I bet your kids will be happy to see you, won't they? Your wife too, I bet you. It's nice to make people happy, isn't it? Report an error

29:33 We could do it better, couldn't we? Report an error

29:37 Whether it's being a loving father, I think that's a noble profession. Loving mother, really noble. Right up there with school teachers, really, really something. I Report an error

29:51 need to be of service in a world that's very troubled, where there are a lot of good souls out there, a lot of altruistic, benevolent, hardworking, idealistic, compassionate, creative, energetic people. There's a lot of them. You have to look for them, but if you look for them, you do find them. And a lot of them like to network. They're not just lone rangers heading off doing their own little trip. They like to organize. They like to network. They like to work in collaboration. Report an error

30:21 And they need help. They can always use more help by like-minded people who see all the troubles, but they also see the possibility of really benevolent, meaningful change. Report an error

30:33 And so there's a pull there to be out there and be as much service as we possibly can. And then when you see that you've touched a life, Even one person. The Dalai Lama said, if you can help one person, your life's meaningful. Two of them, twice as meaningful. If you can do something for the environment, where we've spoiled so much. Report an error

30:53 But, you know, I learned this because I studied ecology for some time, planning on a career on it. And this is a nice metaphor. You can take a stream that's just been really polluted, just toxic waste flowing down, killing everything in the streams. You look at it, it's like a sewer. And even the banks are, you know, they're just poisoned. You go, well, that's total. Report an error

31:14 That's really tragic. He's totaled that whole stream because of that factory upstream. But then you turn off, just get them to stop. One way or another, legislature, probably do it in a non-violent way, but make it stop. And the water keeps on flowing. That's the amazing thing about streams. They rejuvenate themselves. Just stop polluting them. Report an error

31:35 And it's like the conversation with you. Just stop torquing your body. Just stop. Stop damaging the body. Stop doing things that are throwing the body out of whack, out of balance, reinforcing the constrictions by our attitudes, our behavior, our posture, our activities. Stop doing that which is harming. And lo and behold, the body starts to heal itself and lo and behold, the stream starts to rejuvenate and the vegetation starts coming back and then the animals, the fauna starts coming back. Report an error

32:08 And lo and behold, give it enough time. And then you've got a sparkling, clear, healthy stream integrated into the ecosphere and it's restored itself, son of a gun. You'd think that would be hopeless, but it's just stopped polluting it and actually can spring back. So there's the tension. I'm going on with a lot of words, but these are two really good things. The people who are really willing to make major sacrifices, total devotion to really doing as much good in the world, as much service as they possibly can, and being out there on the front lines, the people who right now are helping the refugees from Syria. Report an error

32:41 They are delivering food. They're giving education to the children. They're right there where it's needed. Man, that's heroic. Really heroic. And those yogis that I know who are spending 20, 30 years in retreat, heroic. And that's my view. I'm not asking other people to accept that. A lot of people say, forget about it. That guy could be doing some good. He's just sitting there in his cabin meditating. But I actually know what he's doing. Report an error

33:06 And that's heroic. So I'm looking at these and I say, these are two goods. And I'm not going to say one's better. They're two goods. And there's a tension because you can't do both simultaneously. You can't be in total solitude, simplicity and out there on all the messiness of the world and helping people. Report an error

33:20 Some don't want to be helped and some will resist and some want to cut your head off and all kinds of things. And so the other ones will be competitive and they'll be jealous and they'll be backbiting and stabbing you and so forth because they just can't stand it for whatever reason. They don't like your competition. They don't like you getting the notoriety and so forth. And so you're going to get all that messiness. Report an error

33:40 And that's all that simplicity. N equals one. Purify one person, that'd be a good start. Try to help many, that'd be a good start. And so, there it is, sacred tension. We all have our own unique individual ways to proceed with that sacred tension. And for some, it may be out there on the front lines 90 % of the time. One yogi I know, Gyan Lama, he spent about 90 % of his time in solitude. But when he came out, boy, he made waves. Report an error

34:08 We invited him to America years ago. And he really so deeply touched the lives of people when he came out and he was back in again. So this is where I feel very loose, very relaxed. If I see some people spending like 30 years in retreat, I just rejoice. And I see other people spending 30 years up in North Thailand, helping people with HIV and living there, just right there, helping, helping, helping. Report an error

34:34 Women I know say, wow, stand in awe, amazing, such devotion. And then, given those, those two goods, that sacred tension, that's why I call it sacred, then day by day, day by day, okay? How's it going to be for today? Shall I withdraw? Shall I breathe in this morning? Shall I breathe in this morning and say, I'm taking a morning off? And kids, I love you to bits, but I'd like some quiet for the morning. Report an error

35:00 And you know, when I come back, I'm just going to love you all the more. I'm going to breathe in for a while and then breathing out and be out there. And knowing when to breathe in, knowing when to breathe out. And just taking that day by day. And taking it like art. The Buddha said, as the potter shapes the pot and the fletcher shapes the arrow, so does the wise man shape himself. Report an error

35:24 So that was no answer and it was a total answer. But there's two really good things here. And if you just have your heart open and calling out to the universe, see whether the reality rises up to meet you. Because this is good. That's good. This is living in accordance with reality. And I have really deep faith here. Report an error

35:42 That one maintains that kind of motivation to sustain that sacred tension and lead as meaningful a life as one possibly could, whether under the Buddhist rubric, Christian or religious or not religious. To my mind, that's all secondary. Just like the Dalai Lama, kindness is primary. Whether you're a Muslim, Christian or atheist, kindness is still primary. And I'll just stay parallel with that. Report an error

36:03 This, the pursuit of a life of meaning, that's primary. And then see how it plays out and see where the reality rises up to meet you. Report an error

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36:53 There's a phrase from the Kadamba tradition, Kadamba's this really noble, very pure tradition, about a thousand years ago, going back to the great Indian teacher, Atisha, a thousand years ago, one of my great heroes, I mean, just limitless, I would say, reverence for him, and the tradition that flew it out of him. Report an error

37:09 They never got, as far as I know, they never got involved in politics, and that's not by nature a bad thing, but if you don't get involved in politics as a person devoted to a spiritual path, it certainly makes things simpler, because you don't have that. All the stuff that comes with politics. And one of the old phrases of this Kadampa tradition is, now is not the time to tame the minds of others, now is the time to tame your own mind. Report an error

37:34 And so I think of that very often, because I'm out and about a lot, you know, teaching and all that kind of business. But I keep on coming back, okay, but keep it, you're nine hours a day, Alan, you need it. You know, keep on purifying this one. Because it so often happens with revolutionaries. How many, you know, the Bolshevik Revolution. Report an error

37:52 They were revolting things that were really quite awful, like the inequities within the wealth distribution, the serfdom, the manipulation, exploitation. What they were against was something one should be against, right? There was a lot in Tsarist Russia. That was not a very happy society. Report an error

38:12 And so a lot of their ideals were ones that I would embrace. And out of that they got Stalin. So to bring about a revolution is a good thing, but then what are you going to replace it with? And that's where really spending time, cultivating, purifying, developing wisdom and compassion, wisdom and compassion, wisdom and compassion. Report an error

38:34 It's not enough to have good ideals. Work in progress. The question remains. And it's a really good question to start each day with. How today, in this unprecedented day that's just dawning right now, what will be, how will I handle the sacred tension today? And then we grow in wisdom. Report an error

39:01 Jambalaya. Report an error

39:08 and developmental firms that we were Yes, indeed. Report an error

39:31 Yeah, Report an error

39:35 I mean you must have been trained in lamrim, right? Yeah. So lamrim is a whole sequence of discursive meditations. in terms of your assignments, just accumulating the conditions for, like, for example, . Report an error

39:43 Meditation on impermanence, meditation on the nature of suffering, cultivation of loving kindness and right on through. So a lot of discursive meditation involved in it. It's the first type of meditation I was ever trained in in Tibetan Buddhism. Immensely rich. And it's highly developmental. It's very developmental. It's developing motivations you didn't have before. It's refining motivations in which you've not done before. Report an error

40:04 Cultivating the heart in terms of altruism, benevolence and so forth in ways that you had not experienced before. Developing insights. Whether it's through shamatha, developing attention skills you didn't have before, and practicing vipassanā to develop insights you didn't have before, so it's development from start to finish, on the one hand. Report an error

40:24 On the other hand, as we are engaging in these practices that are really designed to bring forth transformation through active meditation, visualization, discursive meditations and so forth, when the shift actually takes place, Report an error

40:38 It's not coming, the shift, the shift of focus, the shift of awareness, the arising of virtue of whatever kind. Of course, it's not coming from the meditation itself, from those thoughts, those images, the discursiveness. It's not coming out of that. Those are creating, almost like tilling a field. You know the word bhavana, which is gong in Tibetan meditation. Report an error

41:00 It's to till, to cultivate, like cultivating a field. So these practices are really cultivating the field of the mind, the heart-mind. And then, through the course of that, then something comes up. So we're cultivating so that we can discover what comes up when we cultivate. And so from one perspective, it looks like, well, I didn't have those qualities and now I do. I cultivated them as if they're really coming from the practice. But from another perspective, you say you cultivate so that which is already there in seed form gets germinated and actually manifests. Report an error

41:32 And that's much more a matter of discovery. So we see there's really, just like the yin-yang symbol. It's mostly black, but it has the white dot. Mostly white has the black dot. One may engage in a highly developmental approach. The Lupa approach overall is very developmental. So is the Theravāda. Very much so. Whereas Dzogchen, for example, the Great Perfection, very discovery mode. The methods are different, but they still have the dot of developmental. Report an error

41:57 There's no question there are things to be done. Zen is very discovery. Chan is very discovery oriented. The methods, the ambience is different. But not like competing schools, not rivalry, if one understands them well. If they were really fundamentally incompatible, let's say Dzogchen, quintessentially discovery approach, and let's say the teachings of Tsongkhapa, very strongly developmental. Report an error

42:22 If they were really incompatible, guess who would not be able to practice both? Report an error

42:29 But there he is. He's a consummate, I think he probably is the greatest Geshe alive. I think it's probably a pretty safe statement. I mean, a consummate scholar. His Holiness' erudition just kind of like makes my jaw drop. It is truly, and I'm not just like, you know, a groupie here, but his erudition is astonishing. Report an error

42:49 He's a scholar. Wow. But he's also had, you know, Dingo Kenshin Rinpoche and Khenpojima Pinsok and other, you know, outstanding Dzogchen monks as his teachers. And he teaches and gives empowerments in Dzogchen. So if they were somehow incompatible. He wouldn't do that. He'd say, well, Dzogchen is quite faulty, but we Galupas have our act together. Or he'd say, I used to be a Galupa, but now I'm Dzogchen, I'm a Galupa. Well, no way. Report an error

43:17 But his phrase is in a beautiful way. I think it was in his first book. He has two books on Dzogchen. I attended both of the teachings on the basis of which these books came out. One was in San Jose, California, in the States, and that was, boy, 1989 or so, a long time ago. And the other one is around year 2000 in Neda Bling in the south of France. I was at both of them and books came out from both. But I think it was the first one. He made a very interesting comment. Report an error

43:47 He's talking about this theme of complementarity. And we can say in the modern parlance, this is from religious studies, from academic discipline or religious study, developmental and discovery. That's right, but from Stanford. But the gist of it is not a foreign import. It's already there in Buddhism and you find it in other traditions as well. But he made this comment that Tsongkhapa, Report an error

44:09 Again, a genius of a very, very high order, just in terms of his sheer intellectual powerhouse and his erudition, again, astonishing. He's presenting a path as if from the perspective of a sentient being. Report an error

44:25 And so here we are. We have all these mental effects and so much corruption in our own minds, so much toxicity in our own minds. And so here's the question. What can we do? What can we do to develop an authentic motivation, a benevolent motivation? To cultivate virtues, to counteract mental afflictions and to proceed along the path of maturation, greater freedom, greater awakening. We mentioned Vajrayana and then right on to awakening. Report an error

44:50 So he's presenting the whole path from the perspective of a sentient being. That you look into your mind stream and you see any qualities of a Buddha, like omniscience for example. How about infinite compassion? Did you check? Did you see any? How about siddhis, you know, great siddhis, paranormal abilities? Report an error

45:07 And so my job now is to bring about all the cooperative conditions, cooperative teachers, Dharma friends. practice and so forth and so on, to take that seed, germinate it, so the potential becomes an actuality and over the course of time, following the path, then I will eventually become a fully manifest, authentically, perfectly enlightened being, right? Report an error

45:53 That's all I thought for the first 20 years. Gelopa, Sakya and Theravāda, that's what I had for the first 20 years of my training. I thought that was it. I said, well, I'm pretty splendid, you know. Especially with the Theravāda, I love the grounding in Theravāda and the Pāli Canon. And then when I was 40, then I started receiving teachings from my primary Dzogchen Lama, Gyatara Rinpoche, Nyingma Lama. Report an error

46:15 He was close friends with Lama Yeshe. Yeah, I just learned that recently. And then for the last 24 years now, Dzogchen, well, His Holiness, coming back to His Holiness, there's Tsongkhapa. But then Tsongkhapa, His Holiness then cites another, one of the greatest of all teachers of Dzogchen, Longchen. Report an error

46:34 CHEN PA, BOM CHEN RAB CHEN PA. And he lived in the 14th century, 13th century, something like that. But again, one of these masters, just incredible erudition, but he's coming in from another perspective, the perspective of the great perfection. And you look just, if you pick up, you want to talk about confusion, pick up Tsongkhapa, pick up Longchenpa and just try to figure it out yourself. And this is so confusing, you know, because Longchenpa is saying you're already a Buddha. Report an error

47:04 In fact, the difference between a Buddha and a sentient being is Buddhas know who they are, and sentient beings don't. How's that? Well, that's not what Tsongkhapa said at all. so the view from the great perfection side, let's say Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava's side, Tsongkhapa's side, from Tsongkhapa's side. Report an error

47:26 It's not saying one is more enlightened than the other. Nobody's saying that. These are both incredible. ...incredibly deeply realized individuals, let's say Padmasambhava and Tsongkhapa. So I'm not going to put one above the other, that's silly. But Tsongkhapa, his perspective here, he's presenting a perspective as if from the perspective of the sentient being. Report an error

47:43 He said, you are a sentient being, take that seriously. But you do have the potential to be on the mind. And take that potential which you have and develop it. And Padmasambhava will say, you are a Buddha. You don't have a Buddha nature, you are a Buddha nature. Your mind is Buddha nature, your mind is Dharmakaya. Report an error

48:03 But you've not realized who you are because of ignorance. Your sense of being a sentient being is an illusion. And you have to see through that illusion to see who you've always been. These are complementary. Report an error

48:20 The first one is asking, what can I do to become enlightened? The second one is, what can I stop doing so I can realize who I already am? Report an error

48:30 Very, very deep. So one more tension, because I have never abandoned one iota, not even one thumbnail, of all of my training within the Kalupa, Sakya and Theravāda. I embrace it all. I have no criticism, I just love it. But then I've just immersed myself for the last 24 years really primarily in Dzogchen. I love it. And I'm not going to give either one away. Report an error

48:52 Nor will I set one higher than the other. Because there we are. Does Report an error

49:01 that answer the question? His Holiness puts these together more so than anyone I know. Report an error

49:13 This will be a bit private, public, because I think this, of course, will be recorded, but I wrote to him just recently because I'd heard that one Tibetan Lama that I respect very highly, had said that the teachings, the Dzogchen teachings of the Fifth Dalai Lama are very important and worthy of being really made available and so forth. Report an error

49:38 This person said, I'll just keep it anonymous, but if you read Mandala magazine you'll know who it is, but quite an extraordinary Lama. And she said that nurturing of these teachings will be very good for the longevity of His Holiness and for the Tibetan people and flourishing of Dharma in the modern world. Report an error

49:57 I got very inspired. Because His Holiness is my root Lama for the last 43 years, and I have a tremendous devotion for Dzogchen. So I wrote to him, wrote to His Holiness, and said, Your Holiness, I've been translating Dzogchen texts for about more than 20 years now, so I have some background there, as well as being a translator for about 20 years before then, and so would you like me to translate the Dzogchen teachings of the Fifth Dalai Lama? Report an error

50:24 I'd like to just offer that if you'd like. Report an error

50:33 No, he didn't comment on that. He said, oh, that's very good motivation. This is just personal. I've never shared this publicly at all. But at least not now. He didn't say bad idea. He said, but there's this text here by two, I think it was two scholars. Two texts, I think, put together as one. I have to check my notes. But there's a text here that shows how you... Report an error

51:01 put these together, the complementarity, how you take this galupa view, this developmental view, and the discovery view of Dzogchen, and how you can bring them together and really understand them, too, in their dynamic between the two. he said, you might like to translate that one. Report an error

51:18 like me to send you a copy? So it's waiting for me at home. I've had a very full agenda when I was off in Thailand and here and I'm heading home. So that book is waiting for me. It's already arrived. Report an error

51:31 When His Holiness said, would you like to do that, it's kind of like, you might want to pay attention. So I'm looking forward to reading it. I hope I can. And if I have trouble, I'm sure I can find some Lama to help me. Report an error

51:43 I think it would be helpful, though. Maybe he would not recommend it without me. Okay? Report an error

51:50 What's that? I met her just Report an error

52:00 once, spent an hour with her. At the end of the hour, I asked her to be my Lama. It was just, the experience was absolutely unforgettable. I got to translate for her. There's just a few of us and we went to have a meeting with her in Dharamsala. She came out and the flow of spontaneous wisdom and purity was utterly astonishing. Report an error

52:23 I've had superb moments. I'd never seen anything like that before, witnessed anything like that. And then I have the great privilege to be translator for this little group of people. The spontaneous outflow of wisdom was just astonishing. And all of us, one by one, it's Report an error

52:43 very rare to me, we're going to say the name. If you have a chance to meet Khandrola, you might want to take advantage. Report an error

52:59 Good, one more in the back, please. Report an error

53:04 Microphones coming, for posterity. Report an error

53:13 Oh, your name first? Mark, thank you. With insomnia, yes. Meditating, getting frustrated. Meditating, getting more frustrated. Put that down, breathe it all in. question. Report an error

53:30 Still have the insomnia. Four hours have passed. I share all your kindness and thank you for having me? Or do I keep you at a table? Report an error

53:40 I say reboot. Start all over again in a totally different way. Report an error

53:53 Trying to fall asleep is an oxymoron, isn't it? What I would suggest is this, because I know what it's like. Sometimes I wake up at 12.30. If I wake up, this morning I was up at 2.50, that was fine, because I get to bed early. Then it's fine. But when I wake up at 1.30, I know I need more sleep. Almost always I need more sleep. Three o 'clock's okay. So you wake up when you really know you need more sleep to be able to be fully functioning, engaged, clear and bright for the next day. Report an error

54:26 Here's what I would suggest. Don't try to fall asleep. Don't even want to fall asleep. Don't hope to fall asleep. Give it a rest. Give up all hope. And just lie. Just be a corpse. Just lie it within you. It's going to be comfortable. You're in bed. You're warm. You've got a nice pillow. So just go flat out into the Shavasana, into the supine position. Report an error

54:51 Say, I'm not going to try to fall asleep. I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed here, as awake as I can be. So I can't fall asleep when I'm not even sleepy. So what the heck? If you can't beat them, join them, right? So go into the Shavasana. But within the Shavasana, get your awareness out of your head. So I'll give you a little tip from... Report an error

55:12 Zogchen from Vajrayana. And you can test for yourself whether it seems to have any truth to it. But it's this first-person physiology, which is not in competition with medical physiology. They're just like that. First-person physiology, the prāṇa, the energies in the body that are strongly related to mind, when you're in the waking state, they're up here. Report an error

55:34 This chakra, right in the middle of the forehead. They gather here. That's where the energy is. Hello. Up here. When you're in the dream state, when you're dreaming, the energy converts to the throat. And when you're in deep sleep, dreamless sleep, into the heart. So if you're lying in bed and you really would like to rest, whether you can fall asleep or not, that's an open question. But you need rest. That's what you really need. Rest in the body and rest in the mind. Report an error

56:01 Then get your attention out of your head. Bring it down. Bring your awareness down into the torso, down to the heart, or even lower than the heart. Bring it down to the hips. Go all the way down. All the way down to the soles of your feet. You can do that. Just bring your awareness down to the soles of your feet. Down to the legs. And what that means is just be aware of the tactile sensations as you're lying on your back. Report an error

56:22 The pressure of your legs on the mattress. Your heels. The pressure on the mattress. Down to the earth element. Bring your awareness down, out of the head, way down to the opposite end of the body. Bring it way down. You're Report an error

56:42 safe. You're not in danger. You have the night before you. You're relaxed, you're comfortable, you're breathing, you're not sick. That's a lot of pluses. And then as you're breathing out, just every breath as if it's your last one, not like you're thinking morbid thoughts, but just breathing out like this, what? Report an error

57:03 I make it exaggerated. I'm Report an error

· · ·

57:40 going to squeeze it out. I'm just like, I'm not going to do it. But it's just like a glass of water, you just tip over and it all flows out. So you really release, but without pushing anything. You release the breath and there's just nothing more to give away. Release totally, with total abandon, total surrender, total vulnerability. Report an error

58:01 When are we more vulnerable? When we're lying on our back and we breathe out and we have nothing left. Somebody can just go flat and we can be dead very shortly. But you're not going to be harmed, nobody's going to do that. So that breathing out, that total release, and as you're breathing out, just give everything away. Release the body, any tension in the body. Report an error

58:22 Release the breath out to the last dregs, the final drop. And whatever thought's coming up, just say, you know, it's 12.30 in the morning, I don't need these. And just, whatever thought's coming up, important thoughts, trivial thoughts, happy, sad, whatever. Just, and then the breath flows in. However the breath flows in, long, short, deep, shallow, whatever it is. Just let it come in. But then you're ready. And the next one, that big, Report an error

58:58 big emphasis on just releasing. Report an error

59:21 overwhelming emphasis on relaxation. Report an error

59:27 Sending the whole body and mind at ease. Report an error

59:33 if you don't fall asleep, done this a lot myself, I'd say one hour of this. You know, one hour of this is about as good as one half hour of being sound asleep. So it's not just being awake. It can keep you restless, agitated and really exhausted when you wake up. If you do this with no anxiety, no grasping, no clinging, no hope, fear and all of that about sleeping, you're just saying, this is what I'm doing right now. Report an error

1:00:00 This is what I'm doing. And I'm actually quite content to do this. Then that's about half as good as sleep. It's not bad. It's very restful. It doesn't tie the mind in knots. It doesn't stress you out. And then in the course of that, as you're just lying there in the supine position, because I know this so well from my own experience, after some time, and you're formally meditating, you're not trying to fall asleep, but don't try to fall asleep. Report an error

1:00:24 Meditate. Hey, it's quiet. This is really quiet. It's one of the quietest times, 12.30, 1.30 in the morning. It's really nice. Everybody else is asleep. Report an error

1:00:35 And you're the lucky one. So there you are. And you're just saying, hey, I'm going to meditate. It's quiet. Why not? And just do it. And do it for however long, whether it's 20 minutes, half an hour or longer, whatever. At some point, as you're meditating, you're practicing Samatha, at some point you may find, I love this word because it's so onomatopoeic, you may start to feel woozy. Report an error

1:00:59 Isn't that a nice word? Start to feel woozy. Report an error

1:01:06 When you start feeling that woozyness coming in, it's just a perfect word. You're not feeling woozy. Then... Mentally snap your fingers and say, I think the meditation is coming to an end. I'm going to roll over. Report an error

1:01:28 No side effects. No negative side effects. The side effect is you actually could probably fall asleep. Try that. Get back to me. We need a good night's sleep. We need three things. Air on a regular basis. Food on a regular basis. And sleep. Those three. To live a healthy life we need those. Have Report an error

1:01:53 a good night's sleep. I hope that helped you a little bit. It's a nice way to fall asleep. And to re-fall asleep should you wake up. See you in the morning. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/BAWFourImmeasurables. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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