Four Immeasurables Retreat with B. Alan Wallace - Sydney 2014 (part 9)

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0:34 This business, as you probably know, it's a very common greeting all through Asia. I spend a lot of time in Thailand, India, everywhere. It's a very common greeting, just greetings. But we're not Asians, most of us, and we're not in Asia. So what are we doing an Asian thing for? And I'm not doing this as an Asian custom, but rather as a Buddhist custom. Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

0:56 And so the meaning of it is very simple. Actually, in the Buddhist tradition, the thumbs are touched. It's not like this. The thumbs are inside. And the thumbs symbolize. Your Buddha nature within the lotus of your life. Report an error in the passage at 0:56 Highlight the passage at 0:56

1:15 And so it's simply a very simple gesture of honoring the purity within each of us. That's simple. So no one has better or worse. So there's no big bow or little bow or you're a little bit better. Report an error in the passage at 1:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15

1:35 It's simply an honoring of our capacity for awakening, our capacity for goodness. And it goes all the way. So here in this gathering of friends, because I think that's where you are here, it's even. I honor you. You honor me? Because we're the same. So simple. Report an error in the passage at 1:35 Highlight the passage at 1:35

1:56 Well, that was an interesting discussion last night, and I'd like to continue the thread from that, because this morning we'll go into a different type of meditation of enormous practical value, as well as being potentially very, very deep in terms of giving insight into the nature of our minds, but also that from which our mental processes and states, states of consciousness and so forth, emerge. Report an error in the passage at 1:56 Highlight the passage at 1:56

2:24 And what it entails is called by a couple of names. It's called settling the mind in its natural state, which implies a non-configured state, which is a novel idea. It's not really part of Western psychology at all. And that is right now your mind, for example, is configured as a woman's mind. You're from Australia. So it's an Australian woman's mind. Report an error in the passage at 2:24 Highlight the passage at 2:24

2:43 And not too young, not too old, so that's a middle-aged Australian woman's mind. And so forth. And then your whole past history, your language, your acculturation. There's also heavily influenced by, of course, your brain functions and neurochemistry and then genetics. So it's configured by many, many things. Environmental, physiological, social, linguistic and so forth and so on. And then we call that the psyche. I think, why not? Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

3:07 It's what the psychologists study, the logya of the psyche. Buddhists call it the coarse mind. And so this practice that we're about to venture into. Called settling the mind, its natural state, is really a very simple practice and it doesn't get more complicated. It gets deeper and deeper, but the method doesn't change. And it entails learning how to observe what's taking place in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 3:07 Highlight the passage at 3:07

3:30 Most easily, perhaps, thoughts or mental images. Right now, for example, if I suggest, I'll give you a little suggestion. What's your name? Pam. Pam, thank you, Pam. If I suggest, do you remember what a banana looks like? Can you visualize one right now, more or less? Nice yellow banana, right. Maybe actually a few speckles, a few little brown spots. It's almost turning too sweet. Come to mind? Yeah. That wasn't hard, was it? Report an error in the passage at 3:30 Highlight the passage at 3:30

3:56 And so what are you doing? You're observing with a type of mental eye, a mental awareness. We can call it introspection. We can call it metacognition. But you're not seeing it with your physical eyes, of course. But you are observing it. That is, you weren't just thinking about it. You're actually observing something arising in the space of your mind. And so it's not only mental images, but let's try this one. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:15 Anybody heard of Mary Had a Little Lamb? Okay, recite it mentally, just that. Mary had a little lamb. That Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:24 was easy. So you can also not only mentally observe as if it's visual, an image of a banana, but you can also recite exquisite poetry, a nursery rhyme or whatever you like. But we'll find there's a wider array of events we can actually observe without being totally absorbed in them. This, unfortunately, is not something that's taught widely in schools, but it actually should be. Report an error in the passage at 4:24 Highlight the passage at 4:24

4:48 It has nothing to do with Buddhist belief system or any kind of religion or non-religion. It's simply learning how to develop a metacognitive ability to monitor one's mental states and processes so that we're not ensnared by every single one of them. The possibility of observing thoughts without simply being caught totally up in them, thinking the thoughts but observing them arise, observing emotions arising without being caught in their grip as soon as they arise, and so on. Report an error in the passage at 4:48 Highlight the passage at 4:48

5:14 It's psychologically speaking, and I've had detailed discussions with psychiatrists, psychotherapists and so forth, and from Paul Ekman again, my very dear friend and esteemed colleague. This is an extremely valuable skill to develop, and it should be developed from at least early childhood, because the practical benefits are simply enormous, as well as the possibility of really fathoming the nature of the mind by direct observation. Report an error in the passage at 5:14 Highlight the passage at 5:14

5:39 So that's what we'll be doing. And we'll be relating this, of course, to the central theme of this whole retreat. But I'd like to back up just a little bit before we jump in. Because again, thanks to Danya, she sometimes seems to be a theme setter for us, the theme of emotions coming up a lot. And of course we all care about them. And yet they're not central at all. They're extremely marginal to everything I'm teaching here. That doesn't mean they're not important. It's just they're not particularly important or not central to these four measurables. Report an error in the passage at 5:39 Highlight the passage at 5:39

6:08 Because only one of them is an emotion. Out of the four. Loving kindness is not an emotion. It's cognitive. It has to do with aspiration, desire. Compassion is not an emotion. Not in Buddhism. Down in the West, it can be whatever it is. Whatever people say it is, that's what it is in English, French, German and so forth. But in Buddhism, compassion is not an emotion. Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

6:29 Compassion is not simply sympathy. Compassion, too, is an aspiration, a yearning, a desire. Just the flip side of loving kindness. Empathetic joy. Okay, that's an emotion. Taking delight in others' joys, their successes, their virtues. That's an emotion. Okay, good. Equanimity is not an emotion. Not as we'll understand it here. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

6:50 We'll get to that around, oh, what is it going to be? It's going to be Saturday, Friday, right towards the end. But what I'd like to do here, having introduced that, is to give a little bit of a build-up here. And it's a model that I've devised. So the format is novel. The content is utterly traditional. And the content, therefore, I have a lot of... Report an error in the passage at 6:50 Highlight the passage at 6:50

7:11 Very deep confidence in the content. And I have found the format to be useful, that's all. And that is the four aspects of mental balance. And these practices here, these four measurables, have an enormous amount to do with mental balance, including emotional balance. But I'm going to start, as I did in the response last night to Dania, with a conative. Report an error in the passage at 7:11 Highlight the passage at 7:11

7:33 And conative, again, it's a conation. It's a word that's not very commonly used, but it's very useful. It's, again, shorthand. And conation is simply our faculty of desire and intention, so both. So we can desire things that we don't intend, but if we intend something, there's going to be a desire behind it. Report an error in the passage at 7:33 Highlight the passage at 7:33

7:51 It's a voluntary intention and not simply getting captivated by something. And so with this practice where we'll start in maybe ten minutes or so, then we are cultivating something that really does take some, how do you say, some time to cultivate it. It doesn't come naturally. But it is a skill that can be acquired. And some people are more gifted, some less gifted, but everybody can develop it. And what it is, in essence, is learning how to let your awareness come to rest in stillness. Report an error in the passage at 7:51 Highlight the passage at 7:51

8:19 And we can all do that. In fact, let's do it in five seconds. Just be quiet and let your awareness be still. Five seconds. Report an error in the passage at 8:19 Highlight the passage at 8:19

8:32 From that perspective, though, then we turn the direction of the light of our awareness to this domain of mental experience, the domain in which discursive thoughts, memories, images, but also emotions and desires arise. So you don't see them in the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory or tactile. There is a sixth domain of experience. You just explored it with your banana and Mary had a little lamb. Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

8:57 And you didn't get it by the way of any of the five. And moreover, if somebody was doing a brain scan of you right when you were visualizing the banana or reciting mentally Mary had a little lamb, they're not going to see a banana inside your head. Report an error in the passage at 8:57 Highlight the passage at 8:57

9:10 And nor are they going to see a little script, Mary had a little lamb. Could they find the norocorrelates? Oh, why not? Sure. But the norocorrelates are not the image of a banana. There's nothing that takes a banana shape, yellow, inside your head. It's just not to be found. And so what's going on in your mind is actually invisible to physical measurement. Report an error in the passage at 9:10 Highlight the passage at 9:10

9:29 The correlates, of course, why not? But you are not observing neural correlates. You're observing actually events arising in the space of the mind. And so one of the types of mental events or processes that we can observe... And it's enormously useful to do so. It's to learn how to observe, be aware of, metacognitively or introspectively, desires that arise in the mind before our attention gets hijacked and our attention is riveted, focused on the object of desire. Report an error in the passage at 9:29 Highlight the passage at 9:29

10:01 So what very often happens is that desire comes up and then it just kind of like takes us by the back of the head. Especially food. And Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

10:17 we're not even aware that desire rose. All we think is food, food. Or whatever the thing is. It doesn't matter. This is what desires arise. They come in the back door, they catch our attention, and then we're focusing single-pointedly on the object desire. Sometimes that's quite harmless, but sometimes it's actually quite harmful. Especially when the desire then kicks over into intention, intention-manifestant behavior, and then we're aware of what the desire was only after it's blurted out our mouth. Report an error in the passage at 10:17 Highlight the passage at 10:17

10:45 That's what Paul Ekman calls a regrettable event. I really love the phrase. A regrettable event. Why did I say that? And now I can't take it back. I have to apologize. Maybe they won't notice. All kinds of crap comes. And so to be aware of desires, these impulses in the mind. Not that we're supposed to be really uptight and strict about them, but simply have some intelligence about which desires to follow and which not. Report an error in the passage at 10:45 Highlight the passage at 10:45

11:12 It's called cognitive intelligence. So this practice right here is enormously useful. Because some desires are very worthy. Some are quite innocent. You want some water? Anybody want some water? I got extra water. No problem, you know, that's innocent. And some are really benevolent, virtuous, wholesome, helpful. That's good. Tag along, go for it. Report an error in the passage at 11:12 Highlight the passage at 11:12

11:32 And other ones really aren't, right? It's kind of obvious, isn't it? Not every desire that arises in our mind, unless you have a very unusual mind, is presenting you only with laudable desires, that if you carry them out, they're just going to turn out well for you every single time. Not many of us can say that. I can't. And so to be aware of that, that's the cognitive, developing cognitive intelligence, and you can't do it. Report an error in the passage at 11:32 Highlight the passage at 11:32

11:55 Unless you develop the ability to be aware of the desires before they manifest in behavior, before they come out your mouth or in physical activity and so forth. So with everyone's worldview, this is one of those things, really, really useful. But it doesn't come naturally. From an evolutionary perspective, our attention is riveted out there. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:15 Because that's where we're going to find food and that's where we're going to find a mate. That's where we're going to find shelter and so forth for our survival and procreation. You don't need to be deeply introspective. You need to have sharp eyes, sharp ears. Don't be eaten. Eat what you want to eat. Make when you can. I think I just wrapped up everything about evolution. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:34 But it prepares us. Again, the biological imperative. It empowers us or it programs us or it prepares us. It motivates us to do what's essential for our survival and procreation. And that's very much outer. Very much outer. So in that regard, science and technology... Of course, we all know mixed blessings, so no commentary needed from me. On the one hand, just tremendous good things that have happened over the last 400 years in terms of health, communication, transportation. Report an error in the passage at 12:34 Highlight the passage at 12:34

13:05 I don't need to go on, do I? But they've also given us weapons of mass destruction and using science technology destroyed much of the planet, knocking out global warming and ozone layer, emptying the ocean of fish, a little problem like that. So it's been a mixed blessing, but again, no commentary needed from me. Report an error in the passage at 13:05 Highlight the passage at 13:05

13:24 But there's no question that I don't want to give up the benefits of science and technology. I just want everybody to use it well, wisely. But it's really the gist of science and technology has also been looking outwards from the beginning, from Galileo. It was only in 1875 or so that scientists as scientists started thinking, oh gosh, maybe we should start developing a science of the mind. Because until then they'd left it to philosophers. Report an error in the passage at 13:24 Highlight the passage at 13:24

13:49 And of course philosophers never agree on anything. It's almost by definition. So they had not done what scientists had done very successfully for 250 years, and that is develop a growing body of consensual knowledge. Scientists is just unparalleled in that regard, fantastic. Philosophy is not fantastic in that regard. They come up with a lot of clever ideas, very good ideas, sometimes very deep and wise ideas, but consensus is not the strong point of philosophy, never has been. Report an error in the passage at 13:49 Highlight the passage at 13:49

14:14 And so the conative... And the whole flow of evolutionary impulses and science and technology impulses is all outward. So done wonders for hedonic well-being in many respects. Frankly, I would have to say science hasn't given as much in the way of eudaimonic well-being. I mean, a few little whispers in the last decade or so. But the last 400 years? Report an error in the passage at 14:14 Highlight the passage at 14:14

14:35 I mean, really. And can we see anything? Is there any empirical evidence that humanity, especially Eurocentric, where science started, the Eurocentric civilization over the last 400 years, that we've just been just leaping by leaps and bounds growing in social eudaimonia? Any evidence of that? Not that I've seen. So we shouldn't expect of science that which it never promised to deliver in the first place. Report an error in the passage at 14:35 Highlight the passage at 14:35

15:00 And it never promised to deliver that. And for very good reason. All of the founders of modern science were Christian. Every single one of them. Look, look in the 17th century, 18th century, only in the 19th century do you get major scientists who are not devout Christians. Darwin being the big boomer. Report an error in the passage at 15:00 Highlight the passage at 15:00

15:19 And so they were not looking to science for eudaimonia. They were not looking to science for meaning, for salvation, for genuine happiness, for virtue, for wisdom. They had that in their Bible. So what do I need to do this twice for? We've already got that one covered. But now for our hedonic well-being, like Francis Bacon said, for our hedonic well-being, not to be so beaten up by nature, to handle diseases, to develop technology that make our lives easier and enrich our lives in many ways, that's what science was for. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

15:48 So it was a partner with Christianity. Well, that partnership kind of fell apart. They kind of got a divorce in the late 19th century. And science, unfortunately, got another spouse, a pretty rotten spouse, called materialism. It's not serving us so well. But it starts with conative. Conative. And this pertains very much to this whole retreat, but especially to shamatha, frankly, or mindfulness meditation. Report an error in the passage at 15:48 Highlight the passage at 15:48

16:15 Mindfulness meditation, which is everywhere in the news. And as I said, often equated with meditation itself, which is hilarious. But we can ask simply this question. For the four immeasurables, I mean, the motivation's got to be pretty good. Because I doubt that any of you came here thinking, I want to learn more about the four measurables so I can make more money. I doubt it. Another retreat, my shamatha retreats, maybe so, that could help. Report an error in the passage at 16:15 Highlight the passage at 16:15

16:40 You know, develop attention skills, more money, success, good networking, you know, and so forth. Possible. But the four measurables, no, I'm especially happy to teach the four measurables. Because I can't imagine somebody coming to a four-measurable retreat with kind of a hedonic motivation. I don't think so. Something deeper going on. Report an error in the passage at 16:40 Highlight the passage at 16:40

16:59 And so when it comes to meditation, as is extremely evident in the media nowadays, it's often, very, very often, yoga and meditation all over the press. Just watch the press. Any press. It's being hijacked every single day for hedonic purposes. Every single day. Including shamatha, what I teach so often. Report an error in the passage at 16:59 Highlight the passage at 16:59

17:19 Oh, develop your attention skills. Develop your attention skills. This will help you. And they'll tell you all the hedonic benefits of that. Mindfulness everywhere. Almost all the studies done of mindfulness. And then there are scores of them. Almost all of them. You look, what are they after? What questions are you asking? The questions you're asking are hedonic. Almost every single time. And that goes for yoga, too. Report an error in the passage at 17:19 Highlight the passage at 17:19

17:39 Is yoga good for you? Oh, yeah, it's very good. And they'll tell you about hedonic benefits of yoga. That's not yoga. Not this ancient tradition of India that's been around for, what, 3,000, 4,000 years. They were not doing that for hedonic pleasure. That's what they had sex for. That's what they had good food for and music for and poetry for. They had lots of things for hedonic pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 17:39 Highlight the passage at 17:39

18:00 They didn't need to bring yoga for that. They already had that covered. Yoga, meditation, dharma. That was for what the hedonic doesn't cover. But in our material life, the society, we say, oh, one more goodie, we'll take that. One dose of meditation, please. I'll put that right after my jacuzzi and just before I get my massage. Report an error in the passage at 18:00 Highlight the passage at 18:00

18:19 Meditation can be as trivialized as anything else. And it has to do, again, not with the emotions you're developing, but with your motivation. What's it all about? So that's why this initial point of conative, developing conative intelligence, not only filtering, editing, Monitoring the desires that come up so you act upon the ones that are really meaningful, beneficial. But also cultivating, as we've already done in meditation on loving kindness, cultivating wise desires. Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:49 Wise desires, ones that will, if you follow them through skillfully, intelligently, they will actually give you what you're looking for. If we're looking for hedonic, well then go to the gym. Go to the movies, get some good food, have some nice sex and so forth. You don't really need any instruction from Buddhism on how to enhance your hedonic pleasure. It's covered by so many other people, institutions and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 18:49 Highlight the passage at 18:49

19:14 So cognitive intelligence is developing authentic motivations for its own well-being, for the well-being of others, such that if you follow through with them, they'll actually give you what you're looking for all along and that is a greater sense of well-being. So that's cognitive. It's really important that we start there. Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:33 And that we start with an authentic motivation and if possible maybe even a benevolent motivation that includes not only our own well-being but those around us, maybe even the planet, gosh. Because we're now so unprecedentedly interrelated. The Dalai Lama has emphasized this very, very strongly. He said, look, a hundred years ago, if Tibetans treated Tibet as an independent country, unrelated to any country around them, China, India, Russia and so forth, if they said, we just don't care about any other country at all, we Tibetans are for Tibet only. Report an error in the passage at 19:33 Highlight the passage at 19:33

20:02 The impact would be negligible. There's six million farmers and nomads living in a million square miles. They're in complete equilibrium with their environment. There was no environmental degradation in the history of Tibet until the Chinese communists came in. None. And their population was stable. That's what happens when one out of five men becomes a monk. Report an error in the passage at 20:02 Highlight the passage at 20:02

20:21 It really cuts down. It's a good way to handle your population. And one out of seven women got none, so they take them out of the baby pool. Report an error in the passage at 20:21 Highlight the passage at 20:21

20:30 It's not because they hated kids, but it was really they loved Lama. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:38 I have to tease her a little bit. And so, the cognitive first, establishing authentic motivation. And then, as we do so, if we have some kind of a vision, a vision of loving kindness for ourselves, how might I flourish? What would that entail? What would it be like? What might be the causes? How might I actually cultivate the causes of eudaimonia? Report an error in the passage at 20:38 Highlight the passage at 20:38

20:59 For myself, and oh gosh, why not other people as well? Maybe take care of the planet, be good custodians, like Christians tell us nowadays and Jews tell us nowadays. Because that was really the message of their scriptures, that we don't simply dominate the planet, but be custodians. So I love to see wisdom coming into these traditions. But when we do so, when we have some kind of a vision, maybe even something of a strategy, then one of the first things that may come to mind is, I'd like to hold that vision, but I keep on getting distracted. Report an error in the passage at 20:59 Highlight the passage at 20:59

21:29 I keep on forgetting it. I keep on falling into ADHD. Even my attention goes flippity flippity out into agitationville or into dullness getting spaced out, dreamy. And so having attention like this, kind of raw, uncultivated attention, it's hard, really, if not impossible, to do anything effectively if the attention isn't working well. Report an error in the passage at 21:29 Highlight the passage at 21:29

21:53 I mean, driving a car, baking a cake, anything. If the attention isn't stable and clear, if you can't maintain a continuity of attention. and with some clarity, and also without getting wound up in knots in the process, then whatever you're trying to do, get an education, raise a family, go to work, drive a car, anything, it's not going to work out very well. Report an error in the passage at 21:53 Highlight the passage at 21:53

22:13 And especially in our modern world, with all of the enormous sensory overload, the information glut, the pace of life, I don't need to describe your life to you, it's very hard to maintain attentional coherence. It's hard, Report an error in the passage at 22:13 Highlight the passage at 22:13

22:29 isn't it? In this modern world. clarity, in the sense of looseness, relaxation, it's hard, And so all the more reason, if it was important in Tibet a hundred years ago, then all the more important now. And that brief little excursion into Tibet a hundred years ago, the Dalai Lamas pointed out, back then, if individual countries had only a kind of self-centered attitude, it wouldn't have all that practical implication or impact. Report an error in the passage at 22:29 Highlight the passage at 22:29

22:52 But nowadays, as we so vividly know, To draw boundaries between China and Russia, between America and Canada, North America, South America, like, okay, that's your South American problem, that's not our North American problem, is completely ridiculous. It might have been kind of sensible at some time, when small economies and not much interrelatedness, but now economically, environmentally, socially, whether we like it or not, this is a global village. Report an error in the passage at 22:52 Highlight the passage at 22:52

23:19 Upside, downside, but that's just the way it is. And so the notion of being provincial, thinking, okay, I only want to care about Australia. After all, we're an island here. And a lot of ocean, yeah, not really. Not economically, you're not an island at all. How deeply related are you to China? Asian economic sphere. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:39 America, Europe and so forth. We're all entangled. So now more than ever in history, we've really got to grow up. And develop some cognitive wisdom that for our own sake, we have to be attending to a larger whole than ourselves, individually, nationally, culturally, socially and so forth. It's just now common sense. And if we deny that common sense, we're going to have a really hard time. So that's cognitive. And then when we wanted to get into gear, whether it's a government, whether it's individuals, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in business, just the importance of developing some attention skills cannot be overestimated. Report an error in the passage at 23:39 Highlight the passage at 23:39

24:16 It's always been important, but in this helter-skelter world that we're living in now, all the more important. Enormous. So that's among four aspects of mental balance. The first one is cognitive. The second one is attentional. Developing relaxation, stability, clarity. That should be taught in every school on the planet. Regardless of ideality. Report an error in the passage at 24:16 Highlight the passage at 24:16

24:34 And regardless of whether they're rich or poor. You don't need a rich kid to learn about this. You could be having your school in a little, you know, a barrack or a grass hut. You can still learn this. It's not high-tech. It doesn't cost anything. So on the basis of the cognitive and attentional, then comes a really big one. And I lectured on it a few nights ago at Vajrayana Institute. Report an error in the passage at 24:34 Highlight the passage at 24:34

24:55 Cognitive. Cognitive. Cognitive balance. Cognitive intelligence. And it's something very simple, but it's very deep and really challenging. And that is to be present with what's actually going on. It's really simple. Whatever's going on in your mind. Is your mind agitated? Is it calm? Is it clear? Is it dull? Is it in the grips of some distorting influence like an emotion or a cognitive bias and so forth? Report an error in the passage at 24:55 Highlight the passage at 24:55

25:21 Be aware of what's going on in the mind, what's going on in the body, then what's going on with the people around you, the general environment, other sentient beings, what's happening? That's cognitive balance. And it sounds like, okay, pay attention, that's good, but there's problems there. And that is, for example, just take the big one, a great big one, global warming. We still find highly educated, intelligent people, for example, in the United States, because I follow that news because that's where I was born, still saying, oh, global warming, not that big of a problem. Report an error in the passage at 25:21 Highlight the passage at 25:21

25:52 We probably didn't cause it anyway. And, you know, it's really not. So few little islands in the Indian Ocean, they've gone to water. Well, you know, we'll relocate them. What's the big deal here? And everybody else build dams. You know, Holland tells me I build dams. So everybody build dams, you know. Report an error in the passage at 25:52 Highlight the passage at 25:52

26:07 The water's rising, no big deal, right? So the people still shrugging it off. The scientific evidence is totally overwhelming that we caused it and it doesn't look good, right? And just, there it is. But they're still intelligent people. They are intelligent. They're not dim-witted. And they're not, you know, country bumpkins. Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:27 They do have education. And still they refuse to see it. And there are many, many other things like this where a person with clear sight can say, but this is an enormous problem. They say, no, no, not really, not really. Report an error in the passage at 26:27 Highlight the passage at 26:27

26:39 That's cognitive deficit. Where something's presenting it right to you, in your face, you're not seeing. Cognitive deficit. You should be seeing it, but there's an ideological barrier. It's not what you want to see. You have another agenda, desires, assumptions, beliefs and so forth, and you can't see it. Report an error in the passage at 26:39 Highlight the passage at 26:39

27:01 You don't see it. And that means you need to develop your metacognitive ability to see where the blinders are up. Where something's presented and you can't see it, it's hidden in plain sight for you because of your conceptual framework, the editing process it goes in. And there's a very rich field of psychology. Report an error in the passage at 27:01 Highlight the passage at 27:01

27:18 And so sometimes we're just not seeing what is evident in plain sight for any open-minded, clear-sighted person to see, and we just don't see it. And it happens everywhere. And the other one is cognitive hyperactivity, where we see what's not there. Where we see what's not there. For example, women, you know... Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:37 Women really don't need a higher education because they just have the intellectual strength to get a higher education. They're really not capable of doing that. That's why they don't really need to vote either because they'll just vote with their husbands anyway. So women don't really need an education. They should do what they're good at. Report an error in the passage at 27:37 Highlight the passage at 27:37

27:54 Stay home, children, cooking, tend the house. And the people who are really capable of getting a higher education, men, they should do that because they're reasonable. Now what I said, everybody's smiling because what I'm saying is just such... Report an error in the passage at 27:54 Highlight the passage at 27:54

28:09 But how many countries agree to what I just said 100 years ago? In the United States, American women could not vote one century ago. Not until the 1920s. America, which is kind of like, we kind of think civilized, in a manner of speaking. And a century ago, most women could not get into graduate school. Report an error in the passage at 28:09 Highlight the passage at 28:09

28:31 Why? And it's because everybody, all the men are dumb? No, they're as smart as they are now. And as dumb as they are now, they're doing these projections. They're seeing what isn't there. And they're not seeing what is there. And then the list goes on. That was just one that would make you smile because it's so completely idiotic. And yet, saying that a century ago, uh-huh, Report an error in the passage at 28:31 Highlight the passage at 28:31

28:57 so this is a big deal. This is cognitive, where we project our own super-musicians on reality and then can't distinguish between what we projected and what's being presented. It Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:10 happened so many times, and it's an incalculable tragedy for humanity. Because of these types of biases, of not seeing what is there and seeing what's not there. So that takes some work. That takes some real work. To develop mindfulness, discerning, intelligent, and it has to be metacognitive as well as mindfulness directed outwards. Report an error in the passage at 29:10 Highlight the passage at 29:10

29:29 It has to be the whole package. But there is such a thing. One can cultivate greater and greater cognitive balance. So what is being presented, you're seeing, and you're seeing it as it is. Report an error in the passage at 29:29 Highlight the passage at 29:29

29:43 So when it comes up, you do see it, so you're not suffering cognitive deficit, and you're seeing it as it is, which is to say, not that you're not projecting anything, you're not interpreting, you're not superimposing, but the big deal is, not that we should stop doing that, but we recognize, what are we rejecting and what's being given? Report an error in the passage at 29:43 Highlight the passage at 29:43

30:00 And often we don't. In that cognitive hyperactivity, we completely conflate what we assume to be the case, preconceived to be the case, imagined to be the case, assumed, you know, all of that, with what was the case, and we can't tell the difference. And the persistence of that gender bias is astonishing. Because consider it, it went right through the ages of Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Thomas Aquinas, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, shall the list go on, of just men, usually men, because they were the ones that had the chance. Report an error in the passage at 30:00 Highlight the passage at 30:00

30:36 How many great women composers do you know before the 19th century? And great women authors do you know? And scientists and so forth. No, no, they were where they were supposed to be, right? In the kitchen. So how much did we miss out on that? How many brilliant, before Madame Curie, how many brilliant women scientists did we miss out on? Report an error in the passage at 30:36 Highlight the passage at 30:36

30:57 Never even gave a chance. And that's only in one area. And so forth. So the cognitive is really a big deal. And it can be cultivated. But it takes some work. And then so we have the cognitive, the attentional, the cognitive. Each one of these is like a fireworks display. So important. Immensely important. Report an error in the passage at 30:57 Highlight the passage at 30:57

31:17 But I think there's a meaningful sequence here. First of all, get your act together in terms of having meaningful aspirations. Because if that's off, if I start out and think, if my initial motivation is, I'm white, I'm an Aryan, I'm that kind of person, may people like me, may we dominate. And that's a vision, right? That's an aspiration. That people look like me. You know, Scottish, English, Germanic kind of business. American mutt. Report an error in the passage at 31:17 Highlight the passage at 31:17

31:48 If I start out with that motivation, Well, people like me were clearly superior to people of darker skin color or maybe different nose shape and so forth. So I'm going to use all my intelligence now because I've got a really good vision. How to make the world a better place. Oh, you know what happened. But not by stupid people. None of them are stupid. Or very few of them. Report an error in the passage at 31:48 Highlight the passage at 31:48

32:08 It was a view. It was an aspiration, wasn't it? So much misery. It starts out with a view. How many millions died? So that's why we start with motivation. Check that first, because you've just set your navigation charts. And once the navigation charts are set, then the attention comes in, the cognition comes in, everything comes in. Report an error in the passage at 32:08 Highlight the passage at 32:08

32:29 But if your initial bearings are wrong, if you're setting out on some bad trajectory, all your intelligence, all your mindfulness, all your meditation will help you in that, but maybe something that just winds up being total disaster. And it's happened so many times in history. And remarkably, we learn so little, like cultural amnesia. Report an error in the passage at 32:29 Highlight the passage at 32:29

32:49 Cognitive, attentional, cognitive. And then finally comes emotional. Emotional balance. Emotional intelligence. I know Dan Goleman rather well. It's wonderful that he popularized this. I'll be speaking at a conference next spring in England all about this. Being top-notch business executives would like to know more about emotional intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 32:49 Highlight the passage at 32:49

33:12 they're probably, no, The host asked me to speak. The whole thing is EQ, emotional intelligence. Top CEOs from all over Europe. It's a big, high-profile conference. The organizers somehow thought I'd be a useful keynote speaker. I'm going to sabotage the whole thing. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:33 But with their invitation, he said, Alan, would you like to speak about cognitive intelligence? Yeah, I would. I really would. Sure, I'll come. Report an error in the passage at 33:33 Highlight the passage at 33:33

33:44 Says the fox to the chicken coop. I'd be happy to talk about cognitive intelligence. I'll try to do it in a graceful way. But I'm going to definitely rattle some chains. Happy to do so. And if they don't invite me back, I can live with that. So the final one is emotional. And of course we care about our emotions, even though it's not central here. Of course we care about our emotions, even though they come and go. When they come, they catch our attention. When they go, that catches our attention too. Report an error in the passage at 33:44 Highlight the passage at 33:44

34:15 Emotional imbalance. And emotional imbalance is not being bipolar, not having these wild mood swings, exaggerated elation, exaggerated depression, exaggerated, exaggerated, whacking off the walls all the time, hair-trigger kind of emotions. That's not healthy, not a sign of emotional imbalance. But also the opposite of being cold, aloof, withdrawn, as if fearful to venture into the world, fearful to engage with one's own emotions, untrusting, tentative. Report an error in the passage at 34:15 Highlight the passage at 34:15

34:45 Anxious and so kind of protectively. Report an error in the passage at 34:45 Highlight the passage at 34:45

34:52 That's not healthy. Hardly needs to be said, but it's not healthy. So an emotional balance where the degree of emotional response is appropriate to the circumstance. Some situations call for a strong emotional response. It's good. Sometimes very appropriate. Other times not. Cultivating that. And how do you cultivate that? By being aware of the emotions before you act on them. Report an error in the passage at 34:52 Highlight the passage at 34:52

35:17 Again, back to Paul Ekman and his spark in the flame. An emotion comes up, you get really upset about something, or really elated about something, or really sad about something, whatever. Especially when the emotion is likely to trigger a desire, which may trigger an intention, which triggers action. If you can be aware of the emotion when it first comes up. Report an error in the passage at 35:17 Highlight the passage at 35:17

35:36 And recognize, aha, I see this person really irritated me right now. He or she just said something, and it really rubs me the wrong way. And that emotion is coming like that. Disgruntled, irritated, resentful, haughty. And one is thinking, now one's intention comes, want me to help? Want me to help? Whatever your intention, whatever your intelligence is, I'm ready. Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

35:57 You want to say something really smart or really sarcastic? You want to nail this bastard? I can help. How about the script? How about the script? Report an error in the passage at 35:57 Highlight the passage at 35:57

36:11 And if you're not aware of the emotion, the script comes up and out it comes out your mouth. Go like that afterwards. Seeing the emotion first. Seeing the type of desire the emotion arouses. I want to retaliate. I want to put this person in its place. I want to show that I'm superior. I want to show this person's a schmuck. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:29 I want everybody to approve. I want to win. Do I have a word for pride? They have a word. It's standardly translated. It's pride. You know what it is? Very cool. Nagel. I win. Nagel means win. I win. Who's better? You or me? You or me? Who wins? win. Report an error in the passage at 36:29 Highlight the passage at 36:29

36:52 Who's better? Who's a better man? Report an error in the passage at 36:52 Highlight the passage at 36:52

36:57 Prizes I win. It doesn't matter if he's smarter, he's good looking, which he is. It doesn't matter. We can list if we have two people and another one has so many better qualities. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:09 We can still find a way of winning. I'm not one of those jerks that has a lot of education. They're so smarty pants. I'm a simple person. We can be proud of almost anything and thereby set ourselves in a superior position. Not like these young whippersnappers. What do they know? They have hardly any experience at all. The older people. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:30 It's pride. So emotional balance. Final point before we go to the meditation. A sequence here. It's really meaningful. The cognitive giving rise to then very meaningful cultivation of attention. The cultivation of attention being an enormous aid in developing an awareness of what's actually going on. Cognitive balance, cognitive intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 37:30 Highlight the passage at 37:30

37:52 How can you do that without having developed attention skills? But when you have those three, you have some real momentum up, developing more and more authentic, wise desires, aspirations and intentions, cultivating greater and greater attentional talents, you really get your act together. It's called samādhi, which means a unification of the mind, a composure, a collectedness of the mind. That's samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 37:52 Highlight the passage at 37:52

38:13 And then the cognitive. So you're really seeing things as they are discerningly. You're not letting your prejudices come in, your preconceptions, your projections. You're really there, spot on, seeing things as they are, being able to convey that to other people. You know, if you have those three, the fourth one's going to come as a bonus. You may not need to do anything more. If those three are all in good shape, then how would you be bipolar? Report an error in the passage at 38:13 Highlight the passage at 38:13

38:40 How would you be emotionally stifled? Aloof, dead within, if you had all three of those. And likewise, how would you be hyperactive if you're really seeing things as they are, with a stable, composed attention and authentic motivation? So the fourth one is almost like a freebie. It happens by itself. But it can be accentuated. You can give it a boost. Report an error in the passage at 38:40 Highlight the passage at 38:40

39:03 You can nurture it. And one way of doing that is the four measures. Report an error in the passage at 39:03 Highlight the passage at 39:03

39:11 And it has to do a lot with this. Number one, these are benevolent. They're wholesome. They're good for the heart. Good for the body, good for the mind, good for our interpersonal relationships, and that doesn't really need to be defended. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? But the sheer fact that we're going beyond the biological imperative, Report an error in the passage at 39:11 Highlight the passage at 39:11

39:28 we don't need any training from a meditation teacher to be within the biological imperative, because of course we're born with that, but to extend the field of caring, and I'm coming to this favorite word, extending the field of caring beyond what is biologically demanded. Biologically, My family for sure. And maybe my neighborhood. We have to take care of our neighborhood. Neighborhood watch. Let's look after each other. Neighborhood watch. Okay, we've got a neighborhood. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

39:55 Okay, well maybe my city. Okay, my state. So New South Wales. Let's take care of New South Wales. How about Australia? It's one big island after all. Okay, this. How about the South Asia Pacific? This region. And so expanding beyond the biological imperative to be more and more realistic. That, in fact, Australia is no more precious a country than New Zealand or Indonesia. It's a country with human beings in it, sentient beings in it. There's no more precious, no less precious than any place else. Report an error in the passage at 39:55 Highlight the passage at 39:55

40:24 That's actually a reality of it. And so beyond the biological imperative is to expand the field of caring that is not limited to that which is going to be conducive to your own survival and procreation, like your family, for example. Report an error in the passage at 40:24 Highlight the passage at 40:24

40:39 It gets broader. And it gets broader by expanding it consciously, deliberately, with skillful means. And we'll be looking into that after the meditation this morning. So the field of caring is a nice word. It's a simple word. It's not an elegant or spiritual word. But do you care? Do you care about your neighbors? Do you care about other species on the planet? Report an error in the passage at 40:39 Highlight the passage at 40:39

41:00 Whether or not you're going to eat them or want to eat them? Because they're sentient beings. They have as much a right to be here as we do. And likewise are the human beings all over the planet to expand the field of caring. Well, the larger the field expands, the greater emotional balance you can have. Report an error in the passage at 41:00 Highlight the passage at 41:00

41:18 That's a simple truth. The larger the field of caring, the greater emotional balance you'll have. It's the same thing as dropping a rock in a glass of water, dropping a medium-sized rock in a glass of water. It's total chaos in the water. You drop it, it's a mess all over the place, right? I gave this analogy earlier. Big mess. Because it's a small vessel. Report an error in the passage at 41:18 Highlight the passage at 41:18

41:41 Now, take a swimming pool, drop the same rock in the swimming pool, it's just a ripple. The water's the same. The rock's the same. Report an error in the passage at 41:41 Highlight the passage at 41:41

41:51 But the impact on the swimming pool is just a ripple. And the impact here is just a mess all over the place. Chaos. So likewise, if the field, the space of our attention, is small, basically, my nuclear family. You know, mine. I mean, really mine. My nuclear family. That's where, okay, we have to take care of us. That's really a small cup. Any disaster strikes in that little nuclear family and it just throws your whole world into a disarray. Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:25 Catastrophic. It can send you into a tailspin of depression for years. Happens, right? Same catastrophe, but you really deeply care about your community and tragedy strikes your family. It's still the same tragedy. Still worthy of concern, of care, everything, but it's a bigger field. Report an error in the passage at 42:25 Highlight the passage at 42:25

42:47 The emotional turbulence, the emotional being distraught, the upheavals, the imbalances and so forth, not the same because the volume is greater. Report an error in the passage at 42:47 Highlight the passage at 42:47

42:58 And so this is why it is said of the four immeasurables, the first beneficiary of cultivating any of these four immeasurables is yourself. You get benefit. And how it's going to manifest is out there on the icing on the cake of the four immeasurables. And the icing is emotional balance. This is a direct key to that. Report an error in the passage at 42:58 Highlight the passage at 42:58

43:20 It's not about developing positive emotions. It's about everything we've been talking about. But developing greater emotional balance, resilience and so forth is one of the benefits of it. Report an error in the passage at 43:20 Highlight the passage at 43:20

43:31 That's a long prelude. But now, if you're still comfortable, or you can get comfortable, please find a comfortable position. We'll go into a new meditative practice. Report an error in the passage at 43:31 Highlight the passage at 43:31

· · · silence, 1 minute

44:45 Again, as usual with settling the body, speech and mind in the natural state, Report an error in the passage at 44:45 Highlight the passage at 44:45

· · · silence, 1 minute

45:56 this settling process culminates in settling the mind in this natural state. And the essence of that is releasing. As much grasping as you possibly can in what is left over, as you release hopes and fears, desires and aversions, and simply let your awareness come to rest, Report an error in the passage at 45:56 Highlight the passage at 45:56

46:24 is awareness resting in stillness in its own place, without being directed here or there, just being present. So see if you can taste this, experience what it's like, just for a short time, Report an error in the passage at 46:24 Highlight the passage at 46:24

46:43 just being still, not spaced out, maintaining a flow of cognizance, of knowing. In the present moment, without distraction and without grasping onto anything, loose and free. Now Report an error in the passage at 46:43 Highlight the passage at 46:43

· · · silence, 1 minute

48:03 for just a couple of minutes, gently calm the discursive mind with mindfulness of breathing. You may attend to the sensations of respiration throughout the entire body or focus on the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensations of the breath at the apertures of the nostrils. Report an error in the passage at 48:03 Highlight the passage at 48:03

48:28 But relax deeply with every out-breath, releasing thoughts and developing a composure, a unification of your breath. Just for a couple of minutes. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

· · · silence, 2 minutes

50:35 Quality of awareness, a clear sense of mindfulness. Bring your attention to the visual field, this elliptical field, if you have two eyes that both work. Report an error in the passage at 50:35 Highlight the passage at 50:35

50:47 A field of experience in which you see most nakedly colors and shapes. Report an error in the passage at 50:47 Highlight the passage at 50:47

50:58 Now maintain a flow of cognizance, of interest, discerning awareness. But as much as you can, refrain from the projections, the labeling, the preferences, the conceptualization. Report an error in the passage at 50:58 Highlight the passage at 50:58

51:17 In other words, in the scene, let there be just the scene. In colors and shapes, let there be just colors and shapes. What Report an error in the passage at 51:17 Highlight the passage at 51:17

· · · silence, 1 minute

52:05 is there, but also what's not there. In this visual field, there's no solidity, there are no sounds, no smells or tastes. Report an error in the passage at 52:05 Highlight the passage at 52:05

52:17 And over these visual impressions, these colors and shapes, these qualia, they're called, appear to be out there. But you must know that's not true. These colors and shapes, these qualia that you perceive, arise independent upon your visual cortex. Report an error in the passage at 52:17 Highlight the passage at 52:17

52:38 Mechanism starting with the pupils of your eyes. Report an error in the passage at 52:38 Highlight the passage at 52:38

52:45 These exist in the space of awareness, not out there, not inside the brain, not anywhere else in physical space. To see them for what they are, without any preconceptions, just attend to them closely. Report an error in the passage at 52:45 Highlight the passage at 52:45

53:18 Now close the eyes, and Report an error in the passage at 53:18 Highlight the passage at 53:18

53:24 to the best of your ability, now single-pointedly focus your attention on the domain of sounds, the auditory field. Once again, in the herd left to be just the herd. When you hear a sound, see if you can simply attend to it without conceptually associating it with the sound of this or that, which reminds me of this and that reminds me of that, and enter into a stream or a chain of thought. Report an error in the passage at 53:24 Highlight the passage at 53:24

53:50 Moment to moment, each one fresh, unprecedented, Report an error in the passage at 53:50 Highlight the passage at 53:50

53:56 tend to the sounds that are arising in this auditory domain. We're Report an error in the passage at 53:56 Highlight the passage at 53:56

54:13 seeking here to cultivate what is often called bare attention, simply being present with the what is arising in the space of awareness from moment to moment. Seeing it as it is, attending closely so we're not oblivious, but attending closely so that we're not conflating our projections, labels and concepts onto what is being presented to us objectively. Report an error in the passage at 54:13 Highlight the passage at 54:13

· · · silence, 1 minute

55:31 We'll move right through the olfactory and gustatory, probably not a whole lot to smell right now or to taste. Those are their own domains of experience, but we'll move through and go right to one we care about a lot, catches our attention a lot. Report an error in the passage at 55:31 Highlight the passage at 55:31

55:50 The tactile domain, the domain of physical sensations. So once again, there's no need to visualize your body, to imagine it. Scale back, and in the felt, the tactilely felt, let there be just the felt. Attend closely to the sensations arising from moment to moment within this tactile field. Just Report an error in the passage at 55:50 Highlight the passage at 55:50

· · · silence, 1 minute

57:23 once again be open. But this time let your gaze be vacant, as if you're daydreaming, eyes open, but your attention really elsewhere. Report an error in the passage at 57:23 Highlight the passage at 57:23

57:35 So you're... Visual gaze is resting in the space in front of you without focusing on any visual object or anything out there. Report an error in the passage at 57:35 Highlight the passage at 57:35

57:49 Now in terms of your attention, your mental awareness, I invite you now to explore a bit. Report an error in the passage at 57:49 Highlight the passage at 57:49

58:02 You're aware of the visual impressions arising, of course, and sounds, tactile sensations, all of these knocking on your sense doors. You're aware of these impressions coming in. You might even pick up a smell or a taste. But Report an error in the passage at 58:02 Highlight the passage at 58:02

58:23 right now as you sit quietly, wide awake, I ask you, of what else are you directly aware, do you directly perceive, that Report an error in the passage at 58:23 Highlight the passage at 58:23

58:38 appears to your awareness, but not by way of any of the five physical senses? Can you directly perceive anything else? Observe closely. You Report an error in the passage at 58:38 Highlight the passage at 58:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

59:23 may have already noted, directly perceived, certain phenomena, appearances, that do not come by way of visual, auditory and so on, the five physical senses, but to give you a little help, a little nudge. How about discursive thoughts? Have you noticed any wandering thoughts, discursive chit-chat, commentary, that you can be directly aware of, perceive? Report an error in the passage at 59:23 Highlight the passage at 59:23

59:51 How about the phrase, marry half a little lamb? Does that come to mind? Anything Report an error in the passage at 59:51 Highlight the passage at 59:51

1:00:08 else besides mental conversation? You Report an error in the passage at 1:00:08 Highlight the passage at 1:00:08

1:00:22 have the soundtrack. How about the visual? Do any mental images come to mind, whether of bananas or anything else? Do any images just spontaneously come to mind, of memories, fantasies? Observe closely. Mental Report an error in the passage at 1:00:22 Highlight the passage at 1:00:22

· · · silence, 2 minutes

1:02:08 processes as well. But now we'll settle into the meditation. It is subtle, and if it's fresh, it may be a bit challenging, if you've never done it before. But here's the challenge. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:08 Highlight the passage at 1:02:08

1:02:25 Establish your base camp, so to speak, a center. And that is awareness just resting in its own place, without going here or there, without being hijacked by this thought or that emotion. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:25 Highlight the passage at 1:02:25

1:02:39 Recognize it, know it experientially. What it's like when your awareness is still, like right now, and Report an error in the passage at 1:02:39 Highlight the passage at 1:02:39

1:02:58 it's not being pulled. All this way or that way, not being caught up and carried away by this thought or that sensory impression. Just at rest, again, like that unflickering candle flame. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:58 Highlight the passage at 1:02:58

1:03:19 Recognize stillness when there is stillness. The stillness of your own awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:19 Highlight the passage at 1:03:19

1:03:50 The light of your awareness to this mental domain, such as there is visual, auditory and so forth for each of the five physical senses, so is there a domain that is purely mental. It cannot be physically measured. It cannot be measured with any of the five physical senses. It's unique access by way of mental awareness. Focus your attention as single-pointed as you can on that sixth domain of experience, wherein mental events take place during the daytime and at nighttime. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:50 Highlight the passage at 1:03:50

1:04:26 This is the same theater, the same domain of experience in which dreams arise. Your physical senses are dormant, but you're living in this technicolor, three-dimensional world, all arising. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:26 Highlight the passage at 1:04:26

1:04:43 In which you have a sense of seeing, hearing, tasting, thinking, emoting, but it's all purely mental. Pen to that domain and observe the movements of the mind, thoughts, images and so on. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:43 Highlight the passage at 1:04:43

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:05:59 And the challenge here is to distinguish between the stillness of your awareness and the movements of thoughts. And to see if you can sustain that stillness even as thoughts and images come and go. In contrast to these mental events hijacking your awareness. So suddenly, involuntarily, your tension is carried away after the referent of the thought or image. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:59 Highlight the passage at 1:05:59

1:06:29 The practice here is to be aware of mental events as mental events. In the mentally perceived, to see just the mentally perceived. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:29 Highlight the passage at 1:06:29

1:06:42 What is arising in the space of the mind here and now, there is the skill to be cultivated. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:42 Highlight the passage at 1:06:42

· · · silence, 3 minutes

1:10:05 It's obvious quite quickly that we have six modes of perception. Not five modes of perception, and then simply memory, intellect, reason and so forth, but actually six modes of perception. Perception means we're directly apprehending appearances that are arising to meet us. So the visual, etc. for the five. Sensory. But we can actually directly mentally perceive what you were watching, assuming something came up when you were looking for something that was not in the sensory, any of the five sensory domains, that you didn't draw a blank. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:05 Highlight the passage at 1:10:05

1:10:37 And so you have bananas, for sure. Everybody has a merry happy little lamb, but probably some other images came up as well. Nod if you're with me. And then probably some chit-chat came up as well, and you can be aware of the chit-chat, almost like overhearing a conversation, maybe an annoying conversation. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:37 Highlight the passage at 1:10:37

1:10:57 And so that's not the whole extent of it, but at the very least we are perceiving mental images coming up, perceiving conversation coming up in the mind. There's more to it than that. But the whole point of this practice is to, as the Buddha was, and this came right from the Buddha, in the seen, let there be just the seen, in the heard, just the heard, in the felt, that is somatic, just the felt. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:57 Highlight the passage at 1:10:57

1:11:21 And then he turns to the mind, in the mentally perceived, let there be just the mentally perceived. In other words, what we're aware of are appearances arising in the mind. Appearances arising in the mind are not people. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:21 Highlight the passage at 1:11:21

1:11:31 They're not things in the physical world. But we often conflate the two. So someone comes to mind, well it's an appearance coming to mind, drawn from our memory, heavily edited, highly selected. And it's very easy then, when that image comes to mind, to completely conflate that with an actual person whose existence is frankly independent of our own. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:31 Highlight the passage at 1:11:31

1:11:51 I die, you don't die. You die, I don't die. Okay, that's independent. And so this skill, which unfortunately we didn't learn when we were in preschool, or at least kindergarten, is of just enormous benefit. And I'll show a nice parallel. It's a very, very strong parallel. And it's a topic I love talking about. When we're simply caught up in our thoughts, so we're hijacked, and we're in that quasi-conscious state, but not even aware that our mind is wandering. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:51 Highlight the passage at 1:11:51

1:12:22 We're in the trunk, so we're wandering, but we're not aware that we're wandering. When we're in that state, sometimes people call it rumination, mind-wandering and so on. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. I would suggest that that's very much... Like a non-lucid dream. You don't remember when it started. That's one of the things about a non-lucid dream. You don't remember when the dream started because you were unaware that it was a dream when it started. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:22 Highlight the passage at 1:12:22

1:12:51 Therefore, you don't know when the dream started because when it started, you were not aware that it was a dream. It has to start, a non-lucid dream has to start in ignorance. Otherwise, it would start as a lucid dream. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:51 Highlight the passage at 1:12:51

1:13:03 But now, isn't it cool? So it starts in ignorance, but then... Unfortunately, we don't remain in ignorance. Ignorance is innocent, it's clean, it's ready to learn something. Historically, in science, being ignorant of something is just a really juicy opportunity to learn something. Like, are there planets around other stars? Until 20 years ago, the answer was, don't know, probably, maybe, not quite sure. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:03 Highlight the passage at 1:13:03

1:13:29 Don't have the technology, right? And then roughly 20 years ago, something like that, technology got better, right? Whoop, got one. And then after all, it was 20 a month. It's probably more than that by now. And so we didn't know, but we, the scientists, astronomers, developed technology, and now it's known beyond a shadow of a doubt. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:29 Highlight the passage at 1:13:29

1:13:47 There are exoplanets. There may be as many planets as there are stars in the universe. Well, I have a lot of company then. But you start with ignorance. You don't start with the assumption that you already know. You start with the awareness that you don't know, and that sets you up for learning something. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:47 Highlight the passage at 1:13:47

1:14:03 What happens in a dream is we start out not knowing what's happening in that first moment of the dream, but we don't go through, I wonder what's happening, I wonder what's happening, I don't know, I don't know. In the second moment, we get it all figured out. I'm awake. And that's a real person over there. We get it wrong. We are not witnessing in a non-lucid dream, you're not recognizing a mental event as a mental event, you're recognizing a mental event as a person. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:03 Highlight the passage at 1:14:03

1:14:29 And a person is not a mental event, a person is a sentient being, right? And it's not a rock, it's an appearance of a rock. There are rocks, they have a history. They go back, you know, millions of years, billions of years on the planet. Rocks have a long history. The rocks in your dreams don't have a long history. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:29 Highlight the passage at 1:14:29

1:14:44 They're just an appearance. They're like maybe ten seconds old. They're just an appearance of a rock, appearance of mountains, appearance of other people, appearance of activities. But it's all nothing other than the play of your own mind, but we don't recognize that. In a non-lucid dream, we start out with ignorance and then we go deluded. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:44 Highlight the passage at 1:14:44

1:15:01 So Freud commented on this. He said, every time we enter into a non-lucid dream, we're basically psychotic. It may be an enjoyable psychosis. I've known some people who are psychotic, who seem to have a relatively good time. But they are psychotic. Completely confused. I mean, completely, profoundly misapprehending the nature of reality. They may be quite charming. I saw one woman having a brief psychotic reaction. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:01 Highlight the passage at 1:15:01

1:15:23 She seemed happier than anybody else around. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:23 Highlight the passage at 1:15:23

1:15:28 I mean, really. There's no sarcasm at her at all. It was actually harmless, but she was psychotic. And she used to have a happy grin on her side and hugging people like that. So she was psychotic, happy, but of course many people who are psychotic are anything but happy, and I've seen those too. Absolutely distraught. The devil inside of them. I've seen that. I've witnessed that. So a non-lucid dream is psychotic, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, because we fundamentally misapprehended the nature of reality we're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:28 Highlight the passage at 1:15:28

1:16:01 Now... Just a show of hands, because I'm always a bit curious. How many people have ever experienced even one lucid dream in which you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming while you're dreaming? Yeah, no surprise, about half. Often it's half or more. So just so you know, because I've done this many, many times, sometimes it's two-thirds, three-fourths. Half is very common. In other words, since you've had that, I doubt that there's anything I could tell you that would persuade you you don't have it. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:01 Highlight the passage at 1:16:01

1:16:27 Once you've had a lucid dream, it's pretty incontrovertible. But interestingly enough, because I know one of the pioneers in the field, Stephen LaBerge, and I have good friends. We've done six workshops together. When he was starting out this research back in the 1980s, and he came up with the first objective evidence that people do have lucid dreams, clear, objective, incontrovertible. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:27 Highlight the passage at 1:16:27

1:16:47 They published it, and now, okay, it's accepted. But when he was a young graduate student at Stanford, we were there at the same time, many psychologists during that time, when they heard other people say they had lucid dreams, they refuted it. He says, it's not possible. You think you've had lucid dreams, but you're wrong. I know, I'm a psychologist. You're wrong. I can tell you why you're wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:47 Highlight the passage at 1:16:47

1:17:10 Because it's not possible to have lucid dreams. I'll tell you why. Because you can't be awake and asleep at the same time, stupid. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:10 Highlight the passage at 1:17:10

1:17:19 And they would shut up hundreds, thousands of people with logic. Because you can't be awake and asleep at the same time. Except when you are. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:19 Highlight the passage at 1:17:19

1:17:32 And people who had lucid dreams, they would say, gosh, what do you tell this person? He's never had a lucid dream, therefore he thinks nobody else does. Well, I think that's called cognitive hyperactivity. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:32 Highlight the passage at 1:17:32

1:17:46 Assuming that what you don't experience, nobody else experiences. That's cognitive hyperactivity. That's an overextended implication or exaggeration. But now for those of you who've had lucid dreams, and of course there's a whole gradient, how lucid are you? There's a big spectrum there. A little bit lucid, very lucid. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:46 Highlight the passage at 1:17:46

1:18:05 But once you've stepped across the threshold, I've had lucid dreams, once you've stepped across the threshold, you know what it's like, that it's really an anomaly. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:05 Highlight the passage at 1:18:05

1:18:15 Because you are dreaming, and yet you have all of your waking consciousness and your waking intelligence, waking memories, right there inside the dream, which is like you're a supernatural being. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:15 Highlight the passage at 1:18:15

1:18:25 So one of the easiest things to do, I'm going on a tangent, I know, but it's so much fun. Insofar as you're lucid, you can become a magician. It's very easy to do. You can be a wonder worker. One of the easiest things to do, really easy, is fly. Pretty much all you have to do is just jump and then do something symbolic. And then suddenly you're lofting off. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:25 Highlight the passage at 1:18:25

1:18:49 Then you just direct your mind and there you are and you're a superwoman, superman. And that's miraculous, isn't it? I mean, people can fly without an airplane and so forth. And then you start developing that ability and you say, well, you're quite a magician. You can maybe walk through walls. One of the easy things to do, breathe underwater. Because there's no H2O in a dream anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:49 Highlight the passage at 1:18:49

1:19:09 There's no oxygen in the dream whatsoever. So you should be able to dream underwater as well as you can above water because there's no water. And there's no above water either. There's nothing physical in the dream whatsoever. And I can tell that on good authority because one of the greatest scientists, physicists of the 20th century ran experiments and proved it. I'm not kidding. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:09 Highlight the passage at 1:19:09

1:19:27 Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate. When he was an undergraduate at MIT, he was naturally gifted for lucid dreams. Taking a psychology course, had to do a print-term paper. He wasn't really interested in psychology, but he could lucid dream. So he said, ah, I know, I'll enter into a lucid dream and I'll run physics experiments. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:27 Highlight the passage at 1:19:27

1:19:46 Because that's what he really liked doing. And he ran physics experiments in the dream. And he found, to no one's surprise, I don't think his either, that the laws of physics do not hold up in a dream. For a pretty good reason. There's nothing physical in a dream. There's not one atom in your dreamscape. Appears to be. But there aren't any. So why would the laws of physics? Report an error in the passage at 1:19:46 Highlight the passage at 1:19:46

1:20:08 For example, the law of gravity, that just doesn't hold at all. One of the easiest state checks when you're wondering whether you're dreaming or not is just jump straight up. Jump straight up. It will work almost every time. Waking state, we know what it's like. Come thumping down and Newton's right again. Jump straight up in the middle of a dream, you're probably going to hover or maybe float down like one of the astronauts on the moon, like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:08 Highlight the passage at 1:20:08

1:20:32 Very unlikely you could come thumping down like you do in the waking state. Well, that already proves it. Okay, laws of physics don't hold. But the point I'm getting at, I know this is a tangent, is that insofar as you're lucid, you're recognizing the dream as the dream. In the mentally perceived, you're recognizing the mentally perceived. It's exactly the skill we're cultivating here. Here we're cultivating the ability to be lucid with respect to your mind and the waking state. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:21:00 That you're not conflating or confusing mental appearances, mental events, with something out there in the objective world. And we do that all the time. That's how come our thoughts can torture us. That's how come memories can torture us. The memories, the thoughts, they're just like images on a television screen. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:00 Highlight the passage at 1:21:00

1:21:20 How could they possibly hurt anybody? Dreams, I mean, as they say, what dreams are made of. Dreams, they're completely insubstantial. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:20 Highlight the passage at 1:21:20

1:21:30 Nothing there that could really harm you any more than an image on a television screen could come out and give you a bruise. Ridiculous. Or even a 3D, you know, 3D movie cinema. You know, IMAX and all of that. Even though they seem to be coming, I mean, everybody knows, that's why we can enjoy movies, is that the spear coming for you will not create a wound when it hits you in the head. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:30 Highlight the passage at 1:21:30

1:21:52 Well, here's the simple point. Insofar as you're lucid, you recognize quite quickly that nothing in the dream can harm you. Any more than rainbows or images in a mirror or images on a television screen. You know, because you know it's television. A little kid might not until they get used to it. But we are lucid when we watch television, at least on occasion. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:52 Highlight the passage at 1:21:52

1:22:13 So you become lucid with respect to your mind in the dream state, and you're free. Whether you're seeing horrific imagery or very pleasant imagery, the horrific doesn't harm you and the pleasant doesn't help you. They're empty appearances. They're just appearances to the mind. And you know that when you're lucid in a dream. And in this practice, we're cultivating the ability to be lucid with respect to our mind in the waking state. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:13 Highlight the passage at 1:22:13

1:22:37 And insofar as we succeed, then you see memories as memories, but these are memories of events that no longer exist. That's why they're called memories. So you're seeing memories, you're seeing images of things that do not exist anywhere at this time, in which case they're empty, in which case, if we're observing clearly, we see they can't harm us. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:37 Highlight the passage at 1:22:37

1:23:00 We could have been harmed a long time ago, that's for sure. Somebody actually verbally abusing us, physically abusing us, and so forth and so on, for sure. Not questioning that. But once it's gone, and all there is is a memory, it has no ability to harm, unless we're deluded. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:00 Highlight the passage at 1:23:00

1:23:19 As we are in a non-lucid dream. And that's called a nightmare. Fundamentally rooted in ignorance, delusion, mishapering and handling everything. And then if somebody physically abuses us, physically assaults us, verbally assaults us, we're experiencing great danger. Somebody is about to shove us over a cliff or a shark is about to maul us. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:19 Highlight the passage at 1:23:19

1:23:41 We all know that the emotions in the dream are every bit as real as the emotions in the waking state. But why the big trauma of a nightmare? What's going on here? How can there even be a nightmare? These appearances have no real existence of their own. There's nothing going to harm you in terms of those appearances. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:41 Highlight the passage at 1:23:41

1:24:00 Why then can we be frightened, terrified, miserable, and so forth in a dream when this is just all the play of our own minds because we don't recognize what it is, we take it for what it's not. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:00 Highlight the passage at 1:24:00

1:24:14 We grasp onto the reality, which isn't there at all, as being real, and then we're terrified. Terrified. And then we wake up and it can ruin the rest of the day. I had such a terrible nightmare last night. I'd just been just edgy, tight, wired all day. It just really got to me. No, it didn't get to you. You got to it. You reified the dream and then it beat you up in response. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:14 Highlight the passage at 1:24:14

1:24:39 Now, is that necessary? Well, I'll tell you a wonderful, very short story. I was in Norway this past spring and my host was a woman, a Dharma practitioner, a meditator. She's rather good at lucid dreaming. And so she told me, because I stayed with her and her husband, Report an error in the passage at 1:24:39 Highlight the passage at 1:24:39

1:24:54 She told me that right during that time I was leading a meditation retreat, she had a dream in which somebody, a big man, a big, burly, nasty-looking man, came at her with a knife. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:54 Highlight the passage at 1:24:54

1:25:05 A big knife. What was his name? A crocodile dundee kind of knife. A real knife. Not the little thugs guy. And he comes towards her with a knife. You know, she did. She took the guy's hand in her own, holding the knife, and she thrust it into her gut. She's lucid, of course. She knew she was dreaming. That's why she'd do a silly thing like that. But it wasn't silly. She took his knife and rammed it into her guts. And I asked her, did it hurt? Report an error in the passage at 1:25:05 Highlight the passage at 1:25:05

1:25:37 She said, no. I was dreaming. Why would a dream knife hurt a dream gut? There's no molecules there, no molecules here. So exactly where's... There's no nerve endings in a dream gut. Unless you think there are. But she didn't think there were because she knew it was a dream gut. So there's no pain. And of course there was no fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:37 Highlight the passage at 1:25:37

1:26:00 I mean, you've planted a knife into your gut, so you're not going to do that because you're afraid. That's the kind of freedom that you get when you're lucid. Now, that's just true. That's just true in a lucid dream. Maybe not the first lucid dream, but as you become more and more lucid, and she was rather an experienced lucid dreamer, then you wind up being simply fearless with respect to whatever comes up. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:00 Highlight the passage at 1:26:00

1:26:21 Alligators, cobras, brown snakes, whatever you've got here. You know, fearless. And if you can develop that kind of fearlessness with respect to your own mind in the dream state. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:21 Highlight the passage at 1:26:21

1:26:32 Fearlessness is reality-based because you know that nothing that happens in that dream can possibly harm you. Number one, there's no you here substantially to be harmed. Your body has no molecular constitution to it. So exactly how do you harm a body that's not physical? And you know this isn't really you. This is a little dream persona whose lifespan is maybe five or ten minutes. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:32 Highlight the passage at 1:26:32

1:26:53 So that's a figment of your imagination. So exactly how is this supposed to hurt you? Where's the target? And then who's going to target who's out there in the dream who actually wields some power to harm you? Well, you know there isn't any, so you feel footloose and fancy-free, fearless, because you know nothing can harm you here. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:53 Highlight the passage at 1:26:53

1:27:12 This is a dream. If that's possible, and it is in a lucid dream, how about in a waking state? Now, people with knives, you have to be careful, and give them your wallet, because they really can harm you. We know that, so let's stop with the obvious. But in a waking state, when images come up... Memories come up. Maybe traumatic memories come up. Fantasies come up and so forth. Some that may be very troubling. They're troubling only because we're misapprehending them. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:12 Highlight the passage at 1:27:12

1:27:40 They're not troubling. They don't have power in themselves to harm us or to help us. They're appearances in the mind. And only we reify them. We grasp onto them. We grasp them as being substantial, real, concrete, solid. Then, lo and behold, weird enough, they can hurt you. But only because you believe it. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:40 Highlight the passage at 1:27:40

1:28:02 In the dream state, I'm not confusing waking state where rocks really are made of rock and they can break your leg and so forth. But mental events are not physical. And so it is possible and it can be cultivated, this ability, to develop a similar fearlessness with respect to your mind in the waking state. Reality-based fearlessness. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:02 Highlight the passage at 1:28:02

1:28:23 As you do in a dream when you're lucid and become fearless because you know nothing can harm you. So that can be quite a relief, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 1:28:23 Highlight the passage at 1:28:23

1:28:34 So many people have had traumas, adversities, misfortunes, great challenges, difficult times in their lives. I mean, give us enough time, you know, we'll get our share. But instead of it torturing us once, the memory comes back and tortures again. And I've heard, correct me if I'm wrong, Dania, but I've heard that if you are reliving, some of they say traumatic experience, and then you relive it, in a manner of speaking. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:34 Highlight the passage at 1:28:34

1:29:05 What I've heard... As a person who's not even remotely a neuroscientist, is the brain mechanisms that were involved in the initial experience where somebody's really doing it to you, and maybe malevolently. Now you're running the program again. The same brain mechanisms are operative all over again without any outside help. So poetically speaking, as far as your brain knows, you've now had the experience twice. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:05 Highlight the passage at 1:29:05

1:29:28 You've been traumatized twice. Psychologically, yes. You've now been traumatized twice. So we see... So you're nodding out. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:28 Highlight the passage at 1:29:28

1:29:46 But now consider, and this is going to be directly related to the material we'll go into after our break. Exactly related. And that is this person, I often say Jack and Jill, so you know I'm not referring to anybody. Jack over here. Jack treated me terribly on one occasion. And he meant to, and he harmed me, and I felt demolished. He really got to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:46 Highlight the passage at 1:29:46

1:30:06 And then he went off and did other things. But a day later I remember it, and I'm miserable again. And six months later, I remember it, and I remember it, and I remember it. It's one of those big events in my life. He treated me so atrociously, and I have now remembered it 50 times, which means he harmed me once, and I harmed myself 49 times. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:06 Highlight the passage at 1:30:06

1:30:26 And of course, it doesn't top of the brain, right? The brain is not an isolated little tank up there related to the nervous system. Metaphorically, at least generally speaking, it's related to the whole system. It's part of the system. So the damage there is not just... every other metaphor. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:26 Highlight the passage at 1:30:26

1:30:40 In terms of just brain mechanisms, it's going to have other influences on the body. But now you've been harmed 20, 30, 40 times. And you did 85 % of it, 90 % of it. You did. Not voluntarily, but nobody else did it. Jack got to you once, and then he went off and played with his kids. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:40 Highlight the passage at 1:30:40

1:30:59 He's probably not thinking about it. I got the sucker. And then he's on doing other stuff. Well, maybe he turns into a nice person later and doesn't do it anymore at all. But you still get the repeats and you're beating yourself up. Like somebody hits you with a rock and then walks away and plays with his kids. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:59 Highlight the passage at 1:30:59

1:31:15 And you take the, oh, I've got a rock. Oh, I've got another rock. Oh, I've got a rock. And you bash your brains in 20 times with the same rock the other guy put in your hand. You say, wait a minute. Am I in his employee? Did he pay me to do this? Because I'm doing far more than he ever imagined it could be done. He only did it once. And now I, as if he should pay me. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:15 Highlight the passage at 1:31:15

1:31:33 Because he wanted to harm me, but now he got so many more dividends. He harmed me, actually I harmed him, myself, 20 times more than he did. He should pay me, I should give him a call and say, you know, Jack, you wanted to harm me. It's payday, because I help you so much here. You have no idea, but you owe me. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:33 Highlight the passage at 1:31:33

1:31:51 It's crazy. So that's how these two link, where we're going right after the break, is let's learn how not to punish ourselves. Simple thing, because we do it so often. And so unnecessarily. Let's take a break and come back at 10.50. We'll go right to meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:51 Highlight the passage at 1:31:51

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:32:54 A variation practice we did in the last session, but with a very clear difference, and I'll explain as we do the practice, with a brief preface. In terms of cognitive deficit, there's some really amazing expressions of cognitive deficit occurring at the highest levels of modern academia nowadays, and it's been going on for about a century. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:54 Highlight the passage at 1:32:54

1:33:18 To quote one very intelligent man, I've debated with him at Northwestern University several years back, one of the most prominent philosophers in the United States, highly recognized, appears in the New York Times and so forth, pretty high-profile guy, his name is John Searle. And John Searle informs us in his book, The Rediscovery of the Mind, that there is no such thing as specting intro. You cannot observe your thoughts, mental states and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:18 Highlight the passage at 1:33:18

1:33:41 And again, he gives logic. Why? Because the mind can't observe itself. And therefore, I just proved. itself, therefore you can't observe events. There is no such thing as specting interrupt. And I organized a conference on Buddhism and science with a couple of other people a few years ago at Oxford University. And I was promoting the perspective of William James, which is so wonderfully empirical and non-dogmatic. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:41 Highlight the passage at 1:33:41

1:34:06 And the philosopher, who is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Oxford, he said, almost with kind of a Jehovian type of thundering, booming voice, He said, it's not possible to observe thoughts. You can only think them. I've Report an error in the passage at 1:34:06 Highlight the passage at 1:34:06

1:34:25 done it for tens of thousands of hours and didn't know what to say. And so it's a cognitive deficit. Apparently there are people who are metacognitively challenged and they actually are not aware of their own minds. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:25 Highlight the passage at 1:34:25

1:34:40 Or more likely, I think, because they know when they're happy, they're sad. If you ask them, are you agitated? Are you calm? Is your mind busy or is it quiet? They're not going to say, huh? I can't imagine they would. But there's a dogmatic bias there. Which doesn't allow the possibility of introspection. And these are materialists. And introspection shouldn't occur. And therefore it doesn't occur. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:40 Highlight the passage at 1:34:40

1:35:05 So this is really a weird one. There's a whole book called The Disappearance of Introspection. Arguing that it doesn't happen. A noted philosopher at Trinity University in Ireland. So I've researched this a lot. And it really makes my jaw drop. Wow. That cognitive deficits get in so deeply that you deny that you're aware of your own mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:05 Highlight the passage at 1:35:05

1:35:24 Which is what you're most intimately aware of altogether. But there's even one beyond that, and I have alluded to it, but really we should be so shocked that we should be reeling. And that is, again, highly intelligent, very well-educated people. I've mentioned the names. Patricia Churchland, I've met her. Daniel Dennett, I haven't met him. And then Michio Kaku, the physicist, and then Michael Graziano, and there are others for sure. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:24 Highlight the passage at 1:35:24

1:35:48 But these are people of prestigious institutions, very knowledgeable, very erudite, very smart. And they're saying in a chorus... That you don't have any subjective experiences at all. Why? Because it doesn't fit into the materialistic paradigm. It just doesn't fit anywhere. It can't be measured. It's not physical. And they're assuming everything that exists is physical and subjective experience isn't. So either you expand your worldview and say, well, look, there has to be non-physical events in the world because we're experiencing every single moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:48 Highlight the passage at 1:35:48

1:36:19 Or you say, no, I'm going to stick with my dogmatic view and I'm just going to deny that anybody has any experience at all. And I've tried to find some other way of interpreting this, and I can't. They actually mean that. If you look at Are We Really Conscious? Check it out in the New York Times, Are We Really Conscious? Report an error in the passage at 1:36:19 Highlight the passage at 1:36:19

1:36:37 by a top-notch neuroscientist psychologist at Princeton University. And that's what he's saying. You have no subjective awareness right now of the information I'm conveying to you. This is the most massive overload of cognitive deficit, I think, in the history of humanity. And when it was published in the New York Times, it didn't come with a disclaimer. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:37 Highlight the passage at 1:36:37

1:36:54 By the way, this guy is totally bonkers. They just kind of let it pass. And so I think we need to be aware of the massive ideological bias that is simply refuting the very existence of that which is most core to our very existence on the planet. This is actually not a light matter, as I've mentioned before. And I did take a course on cognitive psychology when I was at Stanford. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:54 Highlight the passage at 1:36:54

1:37:20 Very good professor. And a big fat book, 500 pages. We read the whole thing. I studied the whole thing. And in the introduction it mentioned, in this kind of classic... College undergraduate textbook that a long time ago we tried introspection, didn't work. And so we finished with that. Introspection doesn't work. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:20 Highlight the passage at 1:37:20

1:37:40 And then the rest of the whole book, like 475 pages, went on and there was not one reference to the fact that we are actually able to perceive our own thoughts, images, dreams and so forth. There was not one single reference to the existence of mental perception. As if it just doesn't exist, it never even comes up. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:40 Highlight the passage at 1:37:40

1:37:59 And yet to my mind, mental perception should be the primary mode of observation for cognitive psychology. If you'd like to understand what's happening in the mind, you might watch. Like an astronomer might want to actually look at the stars and not just think about them. And I've checked, I've made this comment over years, including a couple of years back when I was in New Mexico at the center of Joan Halifax by a dear friend. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:59 Highlight the passage at 1:37:59

1:38:22 And there was a cognitive psychology textbook writer who attended the workshop. So she should be pretty much, you know. And he said, are there any textbooks yet that mention that we actually have mental perception? He said, nope. Because when you exercise your ability of mental perception, all you're seeing is non-physical phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:22 Highlight the passage at 1:38:22

1:38:45 That's it, I mean dreams, there's just nothing physical in them. Emotions, desires, hopes, fears, expectations, everything. They have no physical attributes whatsoever. And yet I've spoken with people in neuroscience and I say, you know, it's so obvious they're not physical for two reasons. Number one, you can't physically measure them. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:45 Highlight the passage at 1:38:45

1:39:03 That's kind of an indicator. And when you do observe them, they have no physical attributes. So isn't that kind of like QED? And they said, no, no, they're physical. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:03 Highlight the passage at 1:39:03

1:39:15 And the fellow that interviewed me, I think I mentioned him, he said, why are they physical? Thoughts, images and so forth. Why? Because they are causally efficacious. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:15 Highlight the passage at 1:39:15

1:39:25 Because they have causal efficacy, after all, your thoughts do influence things. Because they are causally efficacious, they're physical. I said, but what are you thinking? This is like a hostile takeover of one company over another company. They have no physical attributes. They can't be measured physically. But now you're saying because they have causal efficacy, they have to be physical. Why don't you just say they're causally efficacious and they're not physical because there are phenomena in the universe that have causal efficacy and they're not physical. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:25 Highlight the passage at 1:39:25

1:39:53 Why don't you accept the obvious? And they say, no, no, no, they're physical. Even though no physical attributes and can't be measured physically. So the mind is very imaginative. That's called cognitive hyperactivity. They're physical. It's kind of looking at, what's your name again? Report an error in the passage at 1:39:53 Highlight the passage at 1:39:53

1:40:09 Jason. Jason. It's like looking at Jason and saying, you know, he's actually a kangaroo. He's actually a kangaroo. He doesn't look like it. He doesn't actually have any attributes of a kangaroo. And he actually looks like a human being. But take my word for it. You know, he's got four limbs. He's a kangaroo. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:09 Highlight the passage at 1:40:09

1:40:29 You've seen a lot of kangaroos like that and they look different? Yeah, but those are other kind of kangaroos. This is a special kangaroo. It is a kangaroo. Just believe me, because only kangaroos have four limbs. It's that silly. It's quite amazing. That such a cognitive deficit can become so ubiquitous with a massive case of groupthink. It happens in politics, religion, but now unfortunately it happens in an area that's very dear to my heart. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:29 Highlight the passage at 1:40:29

1:40:53 It's a shame because it's anti-science. So now let's go back to loving kindness. I have no love for scientific materialism, but I love a lot of scientific materialists. Please find a comfortable position, Report an error in the passage at 1:40:53 Highlight the passage at 1:40:53

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:42:22 aspiration for Report an error in the passage at 1:42:22 Highlight the passage at 1:42:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:43:42 just a few minutes. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:42 Highlight the passage at 1:43:42

1:43:52 Let your awareness be still, but Report an error in the passage at 1:43:52 Highlight the passage at 1:43:52

1:43:59 let it illuminate this somatic feel of your body. Easy to do. It's all around you. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:59 Highlight the passage at 1:43:59

1:44:09 And simply be aware of the fluctuations within this romantic field corresponding to the in and out breath, relaxing with every out breath and arousing and focusing your awareness with each in. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:09 Highlight the passage at 1:44:09

· · · silence, 2 minutes

1:46:17 To sustain the sense of ease and relaxation of your body but also of your mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:17 Highlight the passage at 1:46:17

1:46:28 A relative freedom of grasping enables the awareness to remain still. Your Report an error in the passage at 1:46:28 Highlight the passage at 1:46:28

1:46:41 eyes at least partially open, your gaze vacantly resting in the space in front of you without anchoring attention on any visual object, just floating. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:41 Highlight the passage at 1:46:41

1:46:58 Focus your attention single-pointedly to that one domain of experience that is mental. In other words, some of you may know of open presence, open monitoring, choices, awareness. It's not that. That's equally open to all of the senses. Not this practice. This is a Shanta practice for a little while. Focusing single-pointedly on one domain, and not one object within the domain, but that one domain in which thoughts, images and other mental events occur, in which dreams occur when you're sleeping. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:58 Highlight the passage at 1:46:58

1:47:32 Focus your attention there. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:32 Highlight the passage at 1:47:32

1:47:44 New to the practice, you don't know quite where to focus, whether it's in front of you or inside your head or left or right. It's actually not anywhere in physical space, so I can help you access it. This silly little phrase, recite it slowly, mentally, and syllable by syllable as you recite the first line of this nursery rhyme. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:44 Highlight the passage at 1:47:44

1:48:14 Focus just on the mental event, Mary. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:14 Highlight the passage at 1:48:14

1:48:21 You are observing a mental event which is of necessity occurring in the mental. Recite that once or twice. And when you finish to keep your attention fixed right where it was, in the same domain it already was, and then sit quietly, patiently, and observe the next discursive thought that arises of its own accord. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:21 Highlight the passage at 1:48:21

1:48:47 Simply observe its nature, whatever it is, without being caught up and carried away by it. Simply observe the mental event as a mental event, the thought as a thought. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:47 Highlight the passage at 1:48:47

· · · silence, 3 minutes

1:51:56 A single pointedly on it. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:56 Highlight the passage at 1:51:56

1:52:19 To observe it right from its inception, you'll be observing a mental event. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:19 Highlight the passage at 1:52:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:53:38 These images, of course, are not you. They're simply images. But you can attend to yourself. You can focus on yourself as a person, Report an error in the passage at 1:53:38 Highlight the passage at 1:53:38

1:53:50 these thoughts, these memories. So do so now. Move beyond the practice we were engaged in and now shift to another one. And this is the cultivation of loving kindness. Not cultivating loving kindness for images because this is silly. They're just images. By way of the images of yourself, the thoughts, recollections, attend to yourself now. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:50 Highlight the passage at 1:53:50

1:54:17 As in sorrows or hopes and fears, being deserving is Report an error in the passage at 1:54:17 Highlight the passage at 1:54:17

· · · silence, 2 minutes

1:56:49 partially open but again vacant. Direct your awareness back to the space of Report an error in the passage at 1:56:49 Highlight the passage at 1:56:49

1:57:04 the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:04 Highlight the passage at 1:57:04

1:57:19 Directing your attention without trying to control it any more than you try to control your breath. Just letting it be. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:19 Highlight the passage at 1:57:19

1:57:29 See who comes to mind spontaneously. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:29 Highlight the passage at 1:57:29

1:57:37 An enemy, someone you know only by way of immediate, without seeking out one individual or simply rest quiet. And see who comes knocking on your door. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:37 Highlight the passage at 1:57:37

1:58:00 Of course we're talking just about images. Nobody's really knocking. But when the image of someone comes to mind that you recognize, then by way of the image, Which occurs nowhere else other than in your mind. By way of the image, by way of the recollection, the memory, direct your attention to that person, preferably one who is alive, that Report an error in the passage at 1:58:00 Highlight the passage at 1:58:00

1:58:30 person, by thinking of other qualities of the person. Now focus on the person, not being Report an error in the passage at 1:58:30 Highlight the passage at 1:58:30

1:58:41 very much like you, with Report an error in the passage at 1:58:41 Highlight the passage at 1:58:41

1:58:52 each out-breath now. As you recognize the commonality, in the midst of all the differences, how different you are from this other person, there is that common ground. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:52 Highlight the passage at 1:58:52

1:59:03 You send your beings, you hear joys and sorrows, hopes and fears. Very similar. And as you are deserving of happiness, then arouse the same aspiration. May you, like myself, Report an error in the passage at 1:59:03 Highlight the passage at 1:59:03

1:59:23 even more importantly, let Report an error in the passage at 1:59:23 Highlight the passage at 1:59:23

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:00:42 the appearance of this person fade back into the Report an error in the passage at 2:00:42 Highlight the passage at 2:00:42

2:00:48 present, in the present, and Report an error in the passage at 2:00:48 Highlight the passage at 2:00:48

2:00:53 see who else comes to mind, what other appearances. And now since you're not meditating, anyone may come up, a stranger, a loved one, or possibly a person with whom you've had great difficulty, may be lost, a harbor of strong resentment, whatever comes up evenly. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:53 Highlight the passage at 2:00:53

2:01:14 Recognize the common ground, Report an error in the passage at 2:01:14 Highlight the passage at 2:01:14

2:01:19 arouse the aspiration, You, like myself, be well and happy. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:19 Highlight the passage at 2:01:19

· · · silence, 6 minutes

2:07:14 And that is, it's a very nice thought, a very idealistic thought, a very spiritual thought, unconditional love for everyone in the heart. We count whoever comes to mind, we equally arouse a sense of benevolence, kindness, wishing each one well, each one well and happy. But in the meantime, in American TV we say, meanwhile back on the ranch, meanwhile back where we live, for many of us, quite possibly not all of us here, there are some people who come to mind who we encounter, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:14 Highlight the passage at 2:07:14

2:07:43 Day-to-day, our ordinary life, where we just feel, I don't want this person to be happy. This person is really mean. This person is a really rotten person. Treats others terribly, abusive, contemptuous, bullying. I don't want this person to be happy. Well, just do that more. He'll be really happy about being a terrible person. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:43 Highlight the passage at 2:07:43

2:08:06 Why would I want that? I want terrible people to recognize they're terrible, and I want them to feel bad about it. I don't want to be well and happy. I want them to be bad. At least not well and happy. They don't deserve it. People who behave atrociously shouldn't be rewarded. I'm not going to sit here and throw out candy to everybody. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:06 Highlight the passage at 2:08:06

2:08:23 So I understand that. And what we're not wishing is may everyone be hedonically happy. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:23 Highlight the passage at 2:08:23

2:08:32 That's why you just have to bring wisdom to this practice. Otherwise it gets so sappy, saccharine, cloying quality. But how about eudaimonia? How about we bring some wisdom to it? How about that way of interpreting well and happy? It's a nice phrase. It comes up a lot in Buddhism. May you be well and happy. It rolls off the lips. It rolls off the tongue. Well and happy. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:32 Highlight the passage at 2:08:32

2:08:56 I received an email this morning from some husband, but they're separated. She came home after some time away. She wrote to me that he was just so vindictive, so mean, contemptuous, abusive, calling her a worthless bitch, worthless, selfish bitch. And they were married, which means they had a lot of love. They were married for a number of years. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:56 Highlight the passage at 2:08:56

2:09:23 But now you're a mean, selfish bitch. That's what you came home to. And she's had a lot of abuse over her life, rather struggles with low self-esteem. She got hammered, just hammered. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:23 Highlight the passage at 2:09:23

2:09:36 So if I should write to her and say, well, what should you do here? Jill, Jill, as in Jack and Jill. Jill, what should you do here? Develop loving kindness. Develop loving kindness. That's the right expression. That expression is give me a break. He's abusing me and I'm going to sit around and give him a big sweet hug and a smile. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:36 Highlight the passage at 2:09:36

2:10:05 But as I just read this, I met that man once, I don't know, a few exchanges of words. I don't know, except for by hearsay. But what's perfectly obvious, I think, to anybody is she's coming home. She's just had a very meaningful experience. She was on a retreat. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:05 Highlight the passage at 2:10:05

2:10:26 Who is he really talking about? He's talking about himself. His soul is in torment. People who are happy don't talk like that. Whoever they encounter, people who have an inner serenity, a balance, a sense of well-being, eudaimonia, they don't turn to anybody and say, you're a worthless, selfless bitch. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:26 Highlight the passage at 2:10:26

2:10:46 And then those words would have come out of your mouth. So who is he really talking about? It's a soliloquy. He's just expressing the torment of his own soul. And I've heard about him. Real problems. Really serious problems. Major depression. And that's just the start of it. And so she comes home and a marvelous experience. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:46 Highlight the passage at 2:10:46

2:11:09 Very rich. Very transformative. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:09 Highlight the passage at 2:11:09

2:11:16 So now who is, here's a Buddhist question, who is worthier of compassion? A woman who is very dedicated to Dharma, just has been spent eight weeks drenching her mind. Dharma, very deep Dharma. It was a great retreat we had in Phuket. Who's worthy of compassion? This woman who's just come home and got hammered with such verbal abuse. She or the man. Who's worthy of compassion? Report an error in the passage at 2:11:16 Highlight the passage at 2:11:16

2:11:42 Well, maybe it's a toss-up. But I think we really look at this. If you look at this as a health care professional, like a psychotherapist, now you know, yeah? This guy really needs help. She needs a hug. But he really needs help. Because you just don't talk to people that way. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:42 Highlight the passage at 2:11:42

2:12:04 You can hammer behavior. Sure, I hammer behavior. I hammer wrong views that I think are very harmful. I do my best not to hammer people. But he hammered her. Hammered her. Just crushing her sense of self-esteem. And back into your stupid, your slow, your selfish. It happens actually not to be true. None of the above. Somewhat. So the person is really worthy of compassion there. From a Buddhist perspective, I give the right answer. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:04 Highlight the passage at 2:12:04

2:12:33 The person is worth even... She of the tree with me. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:33 Highlight the passage at 2:12:33

2:12:35 Worthy of greater compassion, you know the answer is him. Because he is just storming these torments of his own soul. And he's occurring what Buddhists would call really negative karma. This is really awful to treat people that hurt. It will come around. It will bite him. She's simply the recipient. She's getting it in the face right now. And that hurts. But what he's doing is he's just digging himself a deeper pit. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:35 Highlight the passage at 2:12:35

2:12:56 And he's coming out of his own mental afflictions. And rather than addressing his own mental afflictions, trying to heal his mind, he's just like a boiling pot, spewing boiling liquid oil. tormenting himself, because nobody enjoys doing that. really. enjoying receiving that. And so could we hear, you know this person only as an abstraction, and I don't know much more. as I can trivial way, just once. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:56 Highlight the passage at 2:12:56

2:13:20 Could we authentically wish him well? And that is the torments of your own mind, the sadness, the illusion. Low self-esteem you undoubtedly experience the anger, the resentment, the anxiety, the depression. There's a lot going on. There's addiction there as well. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:20 Highlight the passage at 2:13:20

2:13:49 Might we authentically wishing well in the sense of may you be well. May your mind be healed. The storms of these mental afflictions abate. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:49 Highlight the passage at 2:13:49

2:14:00 Might you find some serenity, some inner calm, a sense of inner well-being, some peace of mind. Could you wish for that? Report an error in the passage at 2:14:00 Highlight the passage at 2:14:00

2:14:10 I think so. We're not wishing, have a happy day. No, we're actually serious here. We're recognizing someone who's really afflicted and it hurts because I think we've all experienced this to some, maybe not addiction, maybe some kind of addiction, but does anybody here not experience anxiety, not experience depression, not experience low self-esteem, not experience anger, not experience content? Report an error in the passage at 2:14:10 Highlight the passage at 2:14:10

2:14:32 Can anybody say, no, no, I don't know what that's like? But we know when I'm asking that question, it feels awful. Isn't it true? I never enjoy hatred or even anger if I feel a surge of confusion. I don't enjoy that. It feels creepy. Depression, of course, feels creepy. So it just feels awful. Everything I said about him, it just feels awful. To be him, I think, would be unbearable. I'd want to jump out of my skin. Report an error in the passage at 2:14:32 Highlight the passage at 2:14:32

2:15:16 And he's not a bad person, because I've also heard some very good qualities he has. He's not rotten to the core. He has some really afflictive tendencies, and they spout out his mouth. Probably even without his intention, he just blurts out. So that's where it can become real. May you be well and linger there. Report an error in the passage at 2:15:16 Highlight the passage at 2:15:16

2:15:34 And once you become well, maybe be happy. And most importantly, eudonically. Have happy days, bad days, eudonically. That happens to everybody. Report an error in the passage at 2:15:34 Highlight the passage at 2:15:34

2:15:47 So we turn to this big issue, and that is when we are seeking to cultivate this loving kindness, omnidirectionally, as we see in preceding passages, really to embrace everyone equally, seeing each one is equally deserving, despite how heavily afflicted they are by mental afflictions, despite their behavior. Report an error in the passage at 2:15:47 Highlight the passage at 2:15:47

2:16:05 It's the person who has mental afflictions. It's said so commonly in Buddhism, mental afflictions come and go. Nobody can be hateful 24 hours a day. You burn out. You fry. Nobody can keep it up that long. Hatred or craving or jealousy or any mental affliction. In the Buddhist tradition, they come and go. They come and have these surges, almost like a bout of malaria. You have it and it surges up, you get the symptoms. It subsides, but you don't have it all the time. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:05 Highlight the passage at 2:16:05

2:16:34 And there are other diseases like that as well. They come and go, I'm having a migraine. It comes and then it goes. While it's coming, it's awful, but then it goes. And so mental affliction like that. But there's a person to whom they come and go. And that person is not identical to the mental affliction. That's kind of crucial. And likewise behavior, as Paul Ekman comments, people are not behavior. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:34 Highlight the passage at 2:16:34

2:16:56 There's behavior that is absolutely, I could just throw in the act of despicable, evil, contemptible. Terrible, awful, to be exterminated, annihilated, never to come. I'll hammer behavior. There's all kinds of behavior that is just absolutely evil. Right? We all know that. People know. People engage in terrible behavior and then they don't. It happens. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:56 Highlight the passage at 2:16:56

2:17:21 There was a movie I saw just recently. It was a wonderful movie. I don't know if it was a great movie, but it was with the Train Watcher or something like that. Anybody see the Train Watcher? Was that the title? The Train Watcher. You watched it? It was worthwhile, wasn't it? Beautifully acted. Colin Firth is an outstanding actor. It's really worth seeing. Some movies I really actually recommend because they're meaningful. They brought me to tears. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:21 Highlight the passage at 2:17:21

2:17:46 And very meaningful tears. But it was a person to say, that is evil. And it was that railroad of death. And it was one of the guys, one of the Japanese soldiers, and he was one of the torturers. Cool as a cucumber, intelligent, educated, and just was really good at his job. And boy, what a villain. Just what a villain. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:46 Highlight the passage at 2:17:46

2:18:07 Railwayman, thank you. Thank you. Railway. Railway man, wasn't it? Railway. Yeah, let's get the time that anybody wants to watch it. I think you're right. Yeah, not training. Railway man. Thank you. I saw it on an airplane. But it really, boy, it just engrossed me. It captured me from the beginning and all the way. And then when I saw how it played out, oh man, it really moved me. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:07 Highlight the passage at 2:18:07

2:18:28 It really moved me. But the simple point is, and I'm not giving away the movie here, this man engaged in real evil. And it was really sinister. It was dark. Evil. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:28 Highlight the passage at 2:18:28

2:18:39 And then he didn't. He saw the air of his ways. The movie plays out, I think, in a very sensitive way. It was not schmaltzy. It could have been schmaltzy. It wasn't. But that's the simple point. So now we get back. But it is really this. Not conflating the behavior with the person. Not conflating the mental affliction with the person. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:39 Highlight the passage at 2:18:39

2:18:58 Wish the person well, which means may you be free of those mental afflictions and free of that kind of behavior. Because I hate the behavior, but I refuse to hate you. And I hate the mental afflictions, including views that are... Terribly, catastrophically wrong and harmful. I hate those, but not the person who holds them. Because people move on and adopt different views. So we come here, countering resentment. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:58 Highlight the passage at 2:18:58

2:19:22 What about when you meet the barriers? And this is again, this is all taken from Buddhagosa, 5th century, path of purification, greatest classic in the Theravāda tradition. Theravāda Buddhist tradition, great commentary. It's full of wisdom, incredible amount. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:22 Highlight the passage at 2:19:22

2:19:39 And so he runs through these lovely phrases, you know, may you be free of this, may you be well and happy and so forth. And then he says, okay, now we're getting real. When you're doing that, where do you meet an obstacle? We're moving beyond the biological imperative, right? And moving out to the neutral people. And then there comes one of those people like, okay, here's one. I'm sorry, but I have to go around you. Because you're just unlovable. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:39 Highlight the passage at 2:19:39

2:20:04 I mean, there's just nothing about you that's lovable and I don't want you to be happy. Okay, because I'm holding you in deep resentment. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:04 Highlight the passage at 2:20:04

2:20:11 I've lived in Sri Lanka, and some Sri Lankans are holding resentment to the Portuguese for what they did 400 years ago. What they did was really, really awful. Evil. In the name of Christianity, of course. Putting babies in cannons. Really grotesque. 400 years later, there are Sri Lankans that said Portuguese. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:11 Highlight the passage at 2:20:11

2:20:29 Not welcome. The British were just arrogant, but they weren't quite. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:29 Highlight the passage at 2:20:29

2:20:36 So resentment can really take a deep hold. That's what he's talking about. So when we're getting a block where the barrier's up, the whole practice of cultivating love and kindness is to break down all the barriers, and in that way your love and kindness becomes immeasurable, open, unimpeded, embracing, and therefore unconditional. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:36 Highlight the passage at 2:20:36

2:20:56 But where we live, unless you've already realized that to its perfection, you're bound to run up against people where you find there's a barrier. I may be saying the words, but I don't mean them, because I don't want this person to be well and happy. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:56 Highlight the passage at 2:20:56

2:21:13 Well then, okay, what do we do? So this is again a 1,500-year-old bit of advice here, one point after another. Try this, try this, try this. All of these techniques to break down the barriers. So dissolve the caricature of the enemy by recalling his unoffensive qualities and behavior. So whenever there's hatred, I mentioned that mental afflictions, like craving hostility, jealousy, pride and so forth, if it's a mental affliction, by definition, it's rooted in delusion. Report an error in the passage at 2:21:13 Highlight the passage at 2:21:13

2:21:40 Ignorance, delusion. There's a fundamental misapprehension of reality. So if there isn't any of that, even if you have an intense desire, if it's not rooted in ignorance and delusion, even an intense desire is not attachment. It's not a mental affliction. It's a very important point, and I don't think it's very common in modern psychology, because when I organized a conference that included this theme with the Dalai Lama at Stanford quite a few years back, maybe 10 years ago, And I listened to the psychologists. They would refer to a desire as being afflictive or a problem only if it was excessive. Like liking alcohol a bit, a drink of a glass or two of wine, no problem. Report an error in the passage at 2:21:40 Highlight the passage at 2:21:40

2:22:20 Liking it so much you can't get off the bottle, okay, now I have a problem. It was more a matter of simply magnitude. Too much is bad. Too much is bad. But in Buddhism it's not a matter of too much. It's the nature of the beast. If your desire is rooted in delusion, And with that kind of editing and exaggeration and so forth and so on, then even if it's a little bit of attachment, it's still attachment. Whereas if you have a desire that is all-consuming, but it's not rooted in delusion, then it's not attachment. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:20 Highlight the passage at 2:22:20

2:22:51 It's really a crucial point, really a crucial point. Imagine a physician who is hearing, as we all know about, the outbreak of Ebola virus. They're estimating by the end of the year it may be 10,000 a week if it continues on the current trajectory. So, big problem. So imagine a physician who's trained in that area, hearing about this, and then just becomes overwhelmed, completely consumed by the passion. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:51 Highlight the passage at 2:22:51

2:23:16 I will now do everything I possibly can, including putting my own life in danger, to try to save lives. And then goes off wherever it needed to be. Big desire. Maybe even leaving family behind and say, I've got to do this. There's so much suffering here, so I'm on my way. That could be an enormous desire, setting aside it. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:16 Highlight the passage at 2:23:16

2:23:37 His or her job and so forth and so on. Is that attachment? It's simply a very strong desire. But likewise then for aversion, we can be averse to a different type of behavior, different type of food, whatever. I don't really care for marzipan, mini marzipan. That's not a mental affliction, I just don't care for it. I don't care for rude behavior. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:37 Highlight the passage at 2:23:37

2:24:02 I find it offensive. I don't think it's a problem. It's just I don't care for rude behavior. So there it is. And I can really not like rude behavior, but it's still an amount of mental affliction. It becomes mental affliction when it's rooted in delusion, and that's what we're talking about here. When we hate somebody or feel strong, call it what you like, anger, hatred, hostility, resentment, malevolence, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:02 Highlight the passage at 2:24:02

2:24:33 What happens when it's rooted in a mental affliction, rooted in delusion, is that instead of seeing the person clearly and seeing that my... My awareness of this person is totally mixed with my modes of perception. I'm not seeing the person in and of him or herself. Let's just say him. I'm not seeing just the person himself. I'm seeing the person through my lens, through my background, my abilities, my sensitivities, my expectations, my concepts. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:33 Highlight the passage at 2:24:33

2:25:03 So I'm never seeing you. I'm always seeing you me. I'm seeing you by way of me. So if you are far more compassionate than I am, Could be. If you're far more compassionate than I am, I won't see that part. I'll see you within my framework. I'll see you as maybe maxing out me. But if you're immeasurably more compassionate, and I've never experienced it, I can't imagine it, then I'll see you cut down to size. I'll see you within my framework. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:03 Highlight the passage at 2:25:03

2:25:36 But likewise, if I see somebody really malevolent, a degree I've never experienced before, I'll only go this far and then my imagination runs out. And I just say, it's not chronic. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:36 Highlight the passage at 2:25:36

2:25:53 And then you do that, I don't get it. And there is evil like that. Why just throw my hands up? I don't get that. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:53 Highlight the passage at 2:25:53

2:26:02 So it's always within our own framework, within our own filtering system. And here it is. It's filtered not only by the limitations of our experience, but by our mental afflictions. So when we really develop a strong animosity towards a person, then what happens is just the opposite of attachment. Attachment we tend to highlight, focus on the attractive, the desirable, accentuate them, screen out the neutral and the negative, so we can get really infatuated. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:02 Highlight the passage at 2:26:02

2:26:27 Got it, got it. Infatuation, addiction, craving, clinging. But just turn that all over on this back, on the negative side. And now, okay, this person is 100 % negative. 100 % negative. Whenever I think of any aspect of that person, physical appearance, voice, attitudes, behavior, 100 % negative. Absolutely, the person is completely deplorable. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:27 Highlight the passage at 2:26:27

2:26:50 If that person just vanished from the earth, completely disappeared, the earth would be a better place. Because that person is just evil. So we have a caricature against a cartoon. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:50 Highlight the passage at 2:26:50

2:27:00 Nobody's that simple. Nobody can be that homogenous. Neither horizontally, from day to day, moment to moment. Who can keep it up? I mean, as evil as you may be, you have to take a rest once in a while and just drink some tea. And not in an evil fashion, just drinking tea. Whatever you are, you just can't keep it up all the time. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:00 Highlight the passage at 2:27:00

2:27:19 Good people can't be always doing one good thing after another. Sometimes they just drink tea or go to the bathroom. Their poop smells like everybody else's. And so here's where the caricature comes in, the cartoon. Where we hold somebody in resentment, we develop a caricature where it's a cartoon, just like a cartoon, flat and simple, where the person has only negative qualities. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:19 Highlight the passage at 2:27:19

2:27:45 And what Buddha Gosa, who's now, he wasn't known as a great contemplative, he was known as an incredible scholar who collated, organized, systematized a vast amount of insight, knowledge and so forth, as well as this great erudition of the Buddhist teachings and the Pāli Canon. Systematize them. He's like a Thomas Aquinas for the Theravāda Buddha tradition. Systematize, organize, laid out in a very systematic fashion. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:45 Highlight the passage at 2:27:45

2:28:10 So he lays this out, drawing around the wisdom of 1,500 years and 1,000 years of Buddhism before him. He says, when you do this and you've met a block that you can't arouse any sense of loving kindness for a person, look at what you're attending to. Because you're not attending to a person, you're attending to a caricature, a cartoon. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:10 Highlight the passage at 2:28:10

2:28:29 You know, like a villain in a cartoon, 100%, like a silly cartoon, 100%, all evil. But you have to recognize that's not a person, that's a creation of your own mind. So try to puncture through your fiction, and can you note anything there that's not offensive, either in terms of person's attitudes, behavior, anything. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:29 Highlight the passage at 2:28:29

2:28:52 Start bringing some texture to this, that you're actually penetrating through your own projection. To the person who's actually there and penetrate deep enough and you might actually find someone who's quite like you. And as soon as you find that, you might find someone for whom you can wish may be well. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:52 Highlight the passage at 2:28:52

2:29:14 Buddhist therapy. Now we may run into a block with some individuals who really are just terribly negative. I mean, their behavior is so... If you look at the kind of... If you monitor them and see how much virtue each day, how much evil, malevolence, real negativity each day, you might find that just one drastically outweighs the other. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:14 Highlight the passage at 2:29:14

2:29:36 There are people like that. So you can say, well, but this person really, okay, call it behavior, but still this person's behavior, attitudes is so bad, really overwhelmingly bad. Okay, I understand there's 10 % that's neutral, a bit of virtuous, he likes his kids or likes dogs. Hitler was a vegetarian, that's nice, I guess. Whatever, only negative. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:36 Highlight the passage at 2:29:36

2:30:00 And so what about people like that, where I say, this person, okay, 10%, 5 % is okay, and the rest is, well, why should I wish this person well? And then the answer is really reality-based. What person suffers more than that? In a chronic, ongoing fashion, suffering and sowing the seeds of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:00 Highlight the passage at 2:30:00

2:30:20 Suffering and sowing the seeds of suffering. Even in this lifetime, if you have a Buddhist worldview, as your soul shall reap from lifetime to lifetime, then you look at this person and say, of all the people I encountered, that one is the most worthy of compassion, the most worthy of the aspiration, may you be well. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:20 Highlight the passage at 2:30:20

2:30:40 Your mental afflictions are so... Terribly strong. It has to bring terrible suffering now and in the future. So may you, above all, may you be free. One of my teachers, Geshe Vapton, I trained very intensively through the 1970s, said if you have two people, one person's in a wheelchair, crippled. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:40 Highlight the passage at 2:30:40

2:31:05 Besides that, well, doing fine. Maybe even practicing Dharma. And another person over here who's fit as a fiddle. Maybe handsome, strong, robust, really strong in health. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:05 Highlight the passage at 2:31:05

2:31:18 Engages in really bad stuff, but looks really good. And also enjoying life. I'm so good at what I do. I Report an error in the passage at 2:31:18 Highlight the passage at 2:31:18

2:31:31 feel so satisfaction. I'm a con artist. I really know how to cheat people. I sweet talk them. I persuade them. And man, I give it to them. They feel so good afterwards. They're such schmucks. They're such schmucks. I'm so smart. Okay, that person and the person in a wheelchair. Now which one's more worthy of compassion? Report an error in the passage at 2:31:31 Highlight the passage at 2:31:31

2:31:52 There's the answer. Wheelchair. Wheelchair. You can live a perfectly good life in a wheelchair. Not quite so much mobility. Well, they're worse things. But this person? Well, that person would be good. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:52 Highlight the passage at 2:31:52

2:32:06 It would be like being in a hospital and being a doctor doing general, what's it, grand rounds? I don't know what it's called, grand rounds. Isn't it? So a lot of patients, right? Some people are just in for something minor. Maybe they sprained a whistle, so they're in for a little while, fix it up and go home. So wide variety. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:06 Highlight the passage at 2:32:06

2:32:24 Some people are very pleasant looking, some people unpleasant looking. But some, physically, just look disgusting. Really, whatever the disease was, it's like, ugh. Leprosy looks awful. I've seen people with leprosy. Then you go into the psychiatric division and see people who are criminally insane. They have to be protected for themselves or anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:24 Highlight the passage at 2:32:24

2:32:49 Just whacked the mind, so gone, so psychotic, so warped. They can't see strength, they can't do anything. You just have to protect yourself from them and them from them, so they can't commit suicide or harm themselves. So the person, the great physician, the great physician, the compassionate physician, who's going to feel greater compassion for? Report an error in the passage at 2:32:49 Highlight the passage at 2:32:49

2:33:11 The person with a strained wist? Or the person criminally insane? Or the person with advanced leprosy? Report an error in the passage at 2:33:11 Highlight the passage at 2:33:11

2:33:21 So that's one. That's how one might actually authentically arouse the yearning. Because you, more than anybody else, I know, you really need such well wishes. You really need to be well. So much oil. It's not schmaltzy and it's not hypocritical. And that's very important for this. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:21 Highlight the passage at 2:33:21

2:33:42 We're fooling ourselves. I don't really wish you happy, but I'll say the words, may you be well and happy, whatever. So now in the cases where there's the so-called enemy, where there's real dissonance, Report an error in the passage at 2:33:42 Highlight the passage at 2:33:42

2:33:56 the other person that you find, the real barrier here, you just can't arouse any authentic sense of warmth, kindness or loving kindness. If this person holds you in contempt, like this man towards his separated wife, clear contempt, really very hard contempt. If the enemy's contempt is unfounded, the person says you're a worthless, stupid bitch, or selfless, that was the word. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:56 Highlight the passage at 2:33:56

2:34:18 Worthless, selfish bitch. And you look into your own being. Worthless. That should be a fast answer. The answer is no. Are you selfish? Well, most of us are to some extent. Are you extensively so? Or do you evaluate that? I mean, probably selfish to some extent. But are you, is that, was that a worthy, was that an accurate barb? Report an error in the passage at 2:34:18 Highlight the passage at 2:34:18

2:34:40 Worthless, selfish. Bitch is just a prerogative, a pejorative. So you can throw that one out. That's just showing he doesn't like you. Has no other content except for content. So the only thing was, worthless, will you not worthless? Let's throw that one out. Selfish? Yeah, probably to some extent. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:40 Highlight the passage at 2:34:40

2:35:02 Does that shoe fit? That was just one phrase. Well, there are many, many phrases people use when they show contempt for each other. And it's trying to hold your own ground. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:02 Highlight the passage at 2:35:02

2:35:12 And this really requires knowing yourself. If you know yourself, if you've observed your mind, observed your behavior with discernment, with intelligence, recognizing where there are flaws, where there are errors, where there are shortcomings, At the same time, just like a good physician. A good physician, well, in this area you're very healthy, this is really good, but here it's down, here there's injury, here there's disease. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:12 Highlight the passage at 2:35:12

2:35:36 But this part's very healthy. It's a good diagnosis. You're good here, but there's a problem here. Well, we diagnose ourselves. We take stock. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Pretty good sense. This is healthy. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:36 Highlight the passage at 2:35:36

2:35:54 If you have a pretty good, clear sense of how your mind works. If you monitor your speech and you note, is your speech frequently abusive, contemptuous, disdainful, dishonest, manipulative and so forth? Or is it not? If you observe your behavior, your speech, you observe your mind and you can have a good deal. And you're done with clarity, with a cognitive balance, so not imagining things that aren't there and not failing to see things that are there. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:54 Highlight the passage at 2:35:54

2:36:19 So this is a skill to be cultivated, a pretty good skill to be cultivated. If you develop a pretty sound sense of who you are. Your strengths, your limitations, but also having a sense of your potentials, the possibility for transformation, for growth, for realization, for following a path to liberation. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:19 Highlight the passage at 2:36:19

2:36:34 If you are well grounded there, and then somebody says you are such and such, such and such, Report an error in the passage at 2:36:34 Highlight the passage at 2:36:34

2:36:43 I heard your words, hold that thought for a moment, and see whether it's true or not. And if it's not, it's like my calling Jason a kangaroo. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:43 Highlight the passage at 2:36:43

2:36:57 I like doing that sometimes. You're not only a kangaroo, but you're a big, fat, ugly kangaroo. But there he is, so sane, so peaceful. Okay, a big, warty, ugly, nasty, fat kangaroo. And he's still smiling. I mean, can I label it? Can I say something more? I think he's just going to smile more. Because he knows perfectly well there's just not an ounce of truth in anything I'm saying. Even if I should grimace and seem really serious, you really are a big kangaroo, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:57 Highlight the passage at 2:36:57

2:37:25 And he just smiles again. Because that's not what he knows who he is. Of course, that's silly. But take two steps removed and it's not silly at all. And if you have that kind of knowledge, then you're serene, selfish, not exceptional. Not enough to warrant that as a characterization of me as a person. I'm not worthless and I'm not a bitch, but I sympathize with you. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:25 Highlight the passage at 2:37:25

2:37:54 Because clearly you're a very indisputably true. The enemy's contempt is unfounded. Don't accept that delusion. And if it is founded, if the person says you're a very mean spirit or you're very selfish or you're stingy or whatever, and you say, yeah, actually you have a pretty strong tendency of stinginess, then say, oh, okay. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:54 Highlight the passage at 2:37:54

2:38:13 Yeah, you got that one right. Yeah, I could be much more generous. I'd like to cultivate that. I'm in the process of doing so. But thank you for pointing that out. I still have room for it. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:13 Highlight the passage at 2:38:13

2:38:28 And this next one is really, I think we'll end on this one for the time being. But I mentioned it before, so I can be very short. Trauma. I think Buddhist wisdom here might actually have something to offer for post-traumatic stress disorder. I have no training at all in psychology. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:28 Highlight the passage at 2:38:28

2:38:45 But it's certainly a big deal from so many areas, childhood and so on. It's a big deal. It torments. It brings so much misery to the world. And here's a Buddhist response. I'm not the only one. And I've already elaborated this, and I can be very brief. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:45 Highlight the passage at 2:38:45

2:39:00 But recognize the absent enemy is not hurting you. The person abused you, treated you badly, swindled you, harmed you physically, harmed you verbally. And that can go for a single individual. It can also, the Jews with respect to the Germans, the Tibetans with respect to the Chinese, and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:00 Highlight the passage at 2:39:00

2:39:19 When the harm is stopped in Tibet, it doesn't actually stop. But it's a very small portion of Chinese who are actually doing harm. Most of them are just making a living. They have nothing to do with the bed. But when the harm has stopped, like in post-traumatic stress disorder, it's post-trauma. Well, no, it's not post-trauma because you keep on traumatizing yourself. So it's actually, it's current trauma disorder, not post-traumatic stress disorder. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:19 Highlight the passage at 2:39:19

2:39:42 But then the enemy stopped and you haven't. So recognize the absent enemy, who you remember and recurringly remember, is no longer hurting you. He may be dead. He may be petting his dog. Maybe having a bite to eat. But he's not hurting you now. But you keep on recalling the trauma. And it is your own language. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:42 Highlight the passage at 2:39:42

2:40:06 And see how you can stop. Get some help. Help yourself through your meditation. Help with a therapist, with a meditation teacher. But stop harming yourself. And see how you can do that. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:06 Highlight the passage at 2:40:06