Four Immeasurables Retreat with B. Alan Wallace - Sydney 2014 (part 12)

· · · silence, 1 minute

0:50 So today we'll continue in the practice, go deeper into the practice of settling the mind in this natural, and of course we'll venture into compassion. Among the four measurables it's actually compassion that arises most prominently throughout the Buddhist teachings as a whole. If one asks a simple question, when Gautama teach enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, why did he get up? Why did he leave? Report an error in the passage at 0:50 Highlight the passage at 0:50

1:15 He enjoyed it for 49 days. He said he just dwelled in that state of awakening. But why did he get up? Why did he walk all the way to Sanat? It's a long walk. I think it's about 125 miles. It's a long walk to seek out his five former companions and begin turning the wheel of Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 1:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15

1:33 And there's a uniform response to that in all of Buddhism. And that is that the teachings of the Buddha, that the teachings of the Buddha have compassion at their root. Compassion at their root. There really was only one reason. It wasn't such a child in a religion. It wasn't a whole bunch of things. Report an error in the passage at 1:33 Highlight the passage at 1:33

1:53 It was only one reason why he got off his seat and he walked to Saranata to turn the will of Dharma, and that was compassion, to alleviate the suffering of the world. Very simple. No, very, very, I mean, extremely simple. And so that's one. More than loving kindness, empathetic or equanimity, this is one that really rises strongly. Report an error in the passage at 1:53 Highlight the passage at 1:53

2:16 And likewise for the Bodhisattva, that which really leads you into the direction, kind of an irreversible direction to become a Bodhisattva and follow the Bodhisattva way of life. Among the four greats, great compassion, great loving kindness and so forth, is great compassion comes up, not great loving kindness, great compassion. That's the trigger. Report an error in the passage at 2:16 Highlight the passage at 2:16

2:38 So very strongly, and I see, I'm just kind of seeing what comes to mind. This will be relatively brief here, but we're going to tie everything together. And it just occurs to me right now, I had never thought this before, but I think it's true, that we see also in the, when the Buddha first started turning the wheel of Dharma, that is teaching what turned out to be the Four Noble Truths, if one wanted to market this in the modern world, Report an error in the passage at 2:38 Highlight the passage at 2:38

3:09 sense is that it would have been smarter, more marketable. appeal he would start out with first noble truth of eudaimonia. Report an error in the passage at 3:09 Highlight the passage at 3:09

3:21 fresh, something new. You don't want to hear. is such a thing as genuine happiness. I've seen people smile. But now you're laughing Report an error in the passage at 3:21 Highlight the passage at 3:21

3:39 sarcastically, not with joy. It's kind of like, well, I kind of already knew that. But eudaimonia, tell me more about eudaimonia. I haven't heard that. Is it Greek? What is it? And then, that's, you know, if I'm really marketing, if I'm kind of running a PR campaign here, I'd say the first noble truth is the truth of eudaimonia, genuine happiness. Report an error in the passage at 3:39 Highlight the passage at 3:39

4:00 The second noble truth is the causes of eudaimonia. The third noble truth is the realization of eudaimonia. Isn't that much more upbeat? Report an error in the passage at 4:00 Highlight the passage at 4:00

4:14 I want to follow that Dharma. That just sounds really upbeat, positive. And not like those really pessimistic Indians, you know, suffering, suffering, suffering. Report an error in the passage at 4:14 Highlight the passage at 4:14

4:25 But he didn't. But he didn't. Because if I start speaking about eudaimonia, I'm starting to talk about something largely in a field of abstraction that you don't know much about, or maybe actually a field you don't know anything about. So take my word for it, though. Take my word for it that, you know, I'm awake and being, you know, I know something you don't know. So have faith in me, you know, because I really know something you don't know. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:51 There are these multiple dimensions. You can't yet imagine them. They're just unbelievably, they're really great. Eudaimonia, there's, you know, eudaimonia. Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

4:59 A good friend of mine actually is an outstanding scientist. He'd been to a minor life meeting, a neurologist, and he proposed. Later on, a couple of years later, in terms of another theme for one of the Mind of Life conferences, he proposed to the Mind of Life board, and I was on the board for him, how about we have a conference on nature of pain? Report an error in the passage at 4:59 Highlight the passage at 4:59

5:41 Because the neurologists, Western psychologists and so forth have a lot to say about pain. They've studied it extensively. And then Buddhism starts out with the noble truth, the first noble truth of suffering. And the Dalai Lama heard that. He very rarely turns us down when a proposal comes out. If you listen to that, okay, Western notion of pain, Buddhist notion of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

6:03 And he often is not this blunt, but he said, we're not going to have a whole lot to talk about. Because when you think of suffering, you think of pain, you think of what we regard as the most superficial level of pain. And what we're concerned with in Buddhism are two whole dimensions of suffering that you don't even regard as suffering. So we're not going to have a whole lot to talk about, and when we do talk about it, it's going to be on a superficial level. Report an error in the passage at 6:03 Highlight the passage at 6:03

6:26 So I'll pass. It never came out. We never had a conference on that thing. So the first noble truth is the reality of suffering, the second one. And here's, by the way, there is no such thing as a noble truth of suffering. Suffering is not noble. There's nothing noble about suffering at all. Not in any dimension is not suffering. Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

6:46 It just sucks, whether it's superficial or deep. But suffering is something we just like to get rid of. So it never stated there that actually this reality or this truth of suffering is actually noble. It's not there. It's kind of a poor translation, but it's standard, so I stick with it. Just for clarity's sake, just this brief allusion to. Report an error in the passage at 6:46 Highlight the passage at 6:46

7:06 The Four Noble Truths, what they are is actually not so much a truth but a reality. Satya means reality. A statement, the monk Jampa is right in front of me and to my right. That statement is true. That's a truth. Jampa is on my right. That's a truth. The Jampa who is on my right is not a truth. That's a reality. And so truths are about statements and realities about things that actually exist. So these are not truths actually, they're realities. Report an error in the passage at 7:06 Highlight the passage at 7:06

7:36 So there's a reality of suffering. That's the first truth. But it's not a noble truth at all. Let alone is suffering not a noble reality. But the second one, which has to do with craving, hostility and delusion, there's nothing noble about those at all. Not even remotely. They're toxic. And so they're not noble truths. Report an error in the passage at 7:36 Highlight the passage at 7:36

7:58 They're actually four realities from the perspective of a noble being. And that's an Arya. A person who's realized nirvāṇa is an Arya. A person who has completely purified his or her mind stream of all mental afflictions, that's an arhat, a person who has come to the culmination of that path of one's own individual liberation. Report an error in the passage at 7:58 Highlight the passage at 7:58

8:20 But an aria is one who has had a direct, unmediated realization, some glimpse, some authentic experience or realization of ultimate reality, nirvāṇa. That's an aria. And once you are an aria, when you attend to the world around you from that perspective of having seen this deepest reality, this transcendent reality. Report an error in the passage at 8:20 Highlight the passage at 8:20

8:39 Then you look out, you look about, just in the world, Australia, New Zealand, wherever you may be, and these are the realities that just loom large as you're looking at everyone around you. What you're seeing is this is just an ocean of suffering. You're not believing that, it's just, that's how things appear. And then you attend closely, because this is the truth for you as an aria, that this is a reality, the reality of suffering is a reality for you, because this is how you see things. Report an error in the passage at 8:39 Highlight the passage at 8:39

9:08 There it is, this world is just an ocean of suffering. multiple dimensions then as you attend more closely just take a second look you And moreover, it's not even typhoons and hurricanes and earthquakes and diseases. It's not that either. That's not the real root. That's not the real source. These are all Catholics. They all do contribute to. Report an error in the passage at 9:08 Highlight the passage at 9:08

9:41 They're not the source. So what's the source? And the Arya sees it. And the Arya sees that mental afflictions, delusion, craving, hostility, and the actions that are aroused by such mental afflictions. Now we've hit the temper. If you can eradicate those, you're free. You can eradicate everything else, and you're still not free. So that's a truth. Report an error in the passage at 9:41 Highlight the passage at 9:41

10:04 That's a reality for the Arya. And for the Arya, the third noble truth is already a fait accompli. It's a done deal. It's already realized it. So no is that. That there is a cessation of suffering and its cause, and it is nirvāṇa. And that's already known from the Arya's perspective, the noble person's perspective. And then the path is just obvious. Report an error in the passage at 10:04 Highlight the passage at 10:04

10:23 Ethics, samādhi, completely obvious. And so those are four realities for Arya. So I'm going from tangent to tangent. But the point that he starts, the fact that the Buddha began as he first turned the wheel of Dharma, addressing the reality of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 10:23 Highlight the passage at 10:23

10:41 For everyone who's listening, whether it was the five disciples at that time or whether it's Buddhism becoming global now, everybody knows what you're talking about on some level. Report an error in the passage at 10:41 Highlight the passage at 10:41

10:52 Nobody who's listening says, suffering, what is that? I've never heard about it, but I don't know what you're referring to. Nobody says that. And so everybody knows what it is, but we also know, with no leap of faith whatsoever, that we don't like it. Report an error in the passage at 10:52 Highlight the passage at 10:52

11:08 If we liked it, it wouldn't be called suffering. It's kind of by definition we don't like it. And so in that regard it catches our attention and it can catch our attention at any time because suffering is always there at least in potential. So I see a parallel there. That was just kind of a thought while I began talking. The fact that the Buddha started by addressing the reality of suffering and the fact that not so much loving kindness but compassion looms large, prominent within the whole Buddhist tradition, all Buddhist traditions, Theravāda, everything. Report an error in the passage at 11:08 Highlight the passage at 11:08

11:40 It's compassion. And compassion is not... The aspiration may you find genuine happiness and its causes. That's, of course, loving kindness. But it's rather may you be free of suffering than the cause. Report an error in the passage at 11:40 Highlight the passage at 11:40

11:57 That's the root. So a little bit preamble, because the meditation we're about to go into is going to be an extension of settling the mind in its natural state. And I'd like to do a close weave. A close weave. And I'm not just doing two parallel tracks that bump into each other once in a while. In fact, they're deeply, deeply. Each one's going to augment the other. Report an error in the passage at 11:57 Highlight the passage at 11:57

12:17 And so... We'll be looking into this, I think pretty much today, maybe a little bit tomorrow, into this second immeasurable compassion. And when we raise the, arouse the aspiration, may we be free of suffering in its causes. Then as in the case of loving kindness, we're not simply wishing everybody to have a good day or to experience hedonic well-being, as important as that is. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:44 Of course, you all know we've been there, we spent three days doing that. Yes, we're aspiring, but people may find hedonic well-being. But for what? So that we can move on into the deeper, eudaimonia. So it has multiple dimensions there, and the latter part really requires wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:04 Well, similarly, when it comes to compassion, when we say, may we all be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, well, as the Solomon is so, how do you say, obviously made clear, we're not just talking about the most manifest, obvious level of suffering. I would call it hedonic suffering. And that is you hurt, your knee hurts, or you're disappointed, or you're sad, or you're depressed. And so that's evident suffering. Report an error in the passage at 13:04 Highlight the passage at 13:04

13:34 Everybody recognizes that, animals recognize that, any sentient being recognizes evident suffering. All you have to do is just be aware that suddenly there it is, this looming large, and it catches your attention. There's a deeper dimension, and I'm not going to elaborate on it right now, but another much softer dimension of suffering that in the modern world is simply not even regarded as suffering at all. Report an error in the passage at 13:34 Highlight the passage at 13:34

13:54 It's regarded as good fortune. And that's where you're experiencing the good life. You're enjoying the good life. I've met people like this. One in particular lives in a gorgeous home in a nicer part of Santa Barbara. And he lost his job with a great big golden parachute. So they just threw money at him as they fired him. So he could live for the rest of his life really cushy. Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:17 He had a lovely wife, healthy children, beautiful house and lots of music and a great big entertainment room. He just loved what he's doing. And so he just kind of loved his life. And I'm happy for him. There's no citizen here at all. He had a good life. He was a decent man, as far as I can tell. A nice person. I just met him once. But pleasure like that, where if somebody asks you, how are you doing? Report an error in the passage at 14:17 Highlight the passage at 14:17

14:45 And the answer comes, my family's healthy. I love my work. I love not having any work. I love having this beautiful house. I love living in Santa Barbara, the nicest place in North America. I just love my life. I'm doing great. Report an error in the passage at 14:45 Highlight the passage at 14:45

15:06 But of course, all that feeling great is all embedded in a whole network of attachments. what happens if your wife suddenly happens with cancer tomorrow? Report an error in the passage at 15:06 Highlight the passage at 15:06

15:16 one of your children dies? Or what if you get sick? Or what if, what if, because everything is like a house on a whole bunch of stilts. sticks, right? So you're feeling really well. Report an error in the passage at 15:16 Highlight the passage at 15:16

15:28 but it's kind of like one of those Greek tragedies. As soon as you start, you know it's going to turn out badly. that is that type of well-being that's completely hedonic and totally embedded. The sense that this is going to turn out well. This is going to last a really long time. And it's going to end well, too. Report an error in the passage at 15:28 Highlight the passage at 15:28

15:45 And then when it's blown out, all of that... It dissolves away. All that happiness is gone. And it gives rise to disappointment, sadness, grief, and so forth and so on. So it's not to disparage that well-being. We can take delight in empathetic joys coming later. Take delight in such hedonic well-being. But it's so fragile that you just know, just give it enough time and it's going to disappear. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:32 And it won't feel good when it does. It never does. And so that's the suffering of change. I said I wouldn't go on long about it, but that's a little nutshell. But now to directly relate to the meditation we're going to. Report an error in the passage at 16:32 Highlight the passage at 16:32

16:45 There's something called, I think, my best translation, came up with this translation in the retreat we just finished. Pervasive existential suffering. It's pretty close. Pervasive existential suffering. It's not exactly literal, but it really captures the spirit of it. This is just as sentient beings in the universe. Report an error in the passage at 16:45 Highlight the passage at 16:45

17:05 It's a great, big, broad statement. Sentient beings in the universe. This refers to or points to our fundamental vulnerability to suffering altogether. That is, why do we suffer at all? Why do we suffer? And here's the Buddhist response. And that's because we cling to or closely identify with our bodies and our minds. Report an error in the passage at 17:05 Highlight the passage at 17:05

17:36 Really looking at, in my case, looking at this body and saying, well, this is, and when I can look in the mirror and say, well, that's me, that's me, I can really identify with my body, that's me, that person right there, that's me. So I can actually simply think, this body is me. And if you're a materialist, you get a lot of encouragement for that. Or if you back up a little bit and say, well, no, it's not me, it's like my head is not me. Report an error in the passage at 17:36 Highlight the passage at 17:36

17:56 But it's mine. Other things come and go, like a cell phone. Somebody can steal it. But no, this is mine. This is really mine. And more of you, if you knock the cell phone, you break the cell phone, I don't like it. But it doesn't hurt. Whereas if you knock me, hit me with a hammer. Well, that's my body. And I get it immediately. I really don't like it. Report an error in the passage at 17:56 Highlight the passage at 17:56

18:18 And so that grasping onto the body is I and mine. That identification with. As soon as you've done that. You've just called out to the universe, I'd like to suffer, please. I'd like to suffer, please. I'm sure you're going to respond. So that's one element is grasping on to identifying with the body. Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:37 And then, of course, grasping on to identifying with the mind, the feelings, thoughts, emotions, everything that arises. Grasping on to identifying with, it's called closely holding, closely holding this body and mind, which is strongly conditioned by mental afflictions. Report an error in the passage at 18:37 Highlight the passage at 18:37

18:54 As soon as that's there, then we're ready to suffer. Just let reality start playing out. And it's only a matter of time before you'll have suffering. It's kind of like maybe one millisecond and then the suffering will start. And so that's really core. Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:10 So is there freedom here? And I like the parallel here because this looks like a great big invitation to dissociation. And people have studied mystical experience like this magnificent text, Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. It's quite brilliant. It's still a classic. And it was written 100 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:33 One looks at some of the deepest mystical experiences, because William James had a pretty nice survey there, and East and West, Christian and so forth, and you look at some of the deepest mystical experiences, and from one perspective they look kind of psychotic, and yet they're not. But they kind of look like it. I'll tell you something that sounds, if not psychotic, I'm not quite sure what the word is, but definitely a mental problem. And that is, take this 64-year-old guy here, and I start seeing him in public. Report an error in the passage at 19:33 Highlight the passage at 19:33

20:09 I will bring everybody to enlightenment. Everybody. Not only on this planet, but on all planets, throughout the universe. I will liberate all sentient beings from all suffering. I will bring every single one to perfect enlightenment. Therapist lesson. I'd Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:34 like to take my hands. Let's go to a safe place. Because this guy's totally bonkers. Come on, give me a ray. Every planet, and I'm 64 years old, so I'm going to do that really quickly, right? I literally had my work cut out for me. Because I'm going to solve not only all the problems on this planet, but I'm going to go to all the rest of them, every century being from all suffering. Totally wild-eyed, cuckoo megalomania off the charts, right? Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

21:01 And then many others think like that. And yet there is a perspective from which that's realistic. But it's not this one. It's not up here. It's not this 64-year-old guy. It's completely cuckoo on that level. Go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, and then you find, oh, way, way down there. From that perspective, it's realistic. Report an error in the passage at 21:01 Highlight the passage at 21:01

21:22 And there are many other cases like this as well. But we've had this detailed conversation, and that's a good primer for where it's going here, that whole discussion of this practice settling the mindless natural state. That's a kind of a trailer or a foretaste of coming attractions. Because to develop that quality of awareness that is in fact not a kind of neurotic or a mental dysfunction, but is, and it is in fact, a release of all grasping and identification with. Report an error in the passage at 21:22 Highlight the passage at 21:22

21:50 But not out of trauma, not out of fear, not out of anxiety, not out of shock, but just as I explained, I don't need to use many words now. This presence with the body, total presence, total open presence with what is arising within the field of the body. So not pulling back from it, not fearful of it, totally present with what's arising in the body, but attending to it without identification. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:15 And then totally present with everything that's coming up in the mind. Thoughts, emotions, desires, everything, memories, everything, totally present, but not identifying with, not I or mine, just being present with. Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:30 Insofar as one can release that close identification with that grasping onto the body and mind, being totally present, not dissociated, and yet not identifying with, right there in the middle, that's where liberation's from. And so, we're just about to the meditation now, and I think you'll find it interesting. Report an error in the passage at 22:30 Highlight the passage at 22:30

22:51 Studies have been done, I've not really looked at the studies and the write-ups of the studies, but I've heard of studies done where people are practicing mindfulness of breathing, simple practice, mindfulness of breathing. And in some cases, it's been reported that people becoming relatively adept in this practice, that the benefits of that practice in terms of managing pain, pain like physical pain, can be comparable to or better than morphine. Report an error in the passage at 22:51 Highlight the passage at 22:51

23:21 So it was not a flaky study, I think it's a reputable study. So how could that be? Well, one is attending, in the practice of mindful breathing, attending to the body but not identifying with the body. Very present with it, but not in its grip, not identified, not in the body, locked in. So the practice we're going to now, within just a couple of minutes, we're going to start with attending to the field of the body. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:48 In that way, this quality of awareness that is central to the practice of settling the mind in its natural state. And if you'd like to memorize something, here's the core quintessential phrase. Sustain your mindfulness without distraction and without grasping. That's a direct translation. Sustain your mind. Report an error in the passage at 23:48 Highlight the passage at 23:48

24:09 So without distraction, kind of obvious. Don't stray off. Don't lose it. Don't forget. Don't be distracted by it. Don't get lost. That's pretty clear. And then the without grasping, that's subtle. And it gets subtler and subtler and subtler that you're totally present with. But on a very subtle level, you're present with even without preference. Report an error in the passage at 24:09 Highlight the passage at 24:09

24:29 Because as soon as you like this sensation and not that one, that's an expression of grasping. Totally present. But the tentacles of identification of I and mine are so withdrawn, so withdrawn, so loose, so teflony, or teflonish, that whatever's coming up, there's simply sensations or appearances arising in space, but they have no owner. Report an error in the passage at 24:29 Highlight the passage at 24:29

24:53 And therefore you feel totally at ease, totally loose, whatever's arising, because you've withdrawn even the subtlest tentacles. of grasping onto his mind. In which case then, you can be attending to your body without distraction, without grasping. They free you from the suffering that goes on in the field of the body, but not because you withdraw into some safe space someplace. Report an error in the passage at 24:53 Highlight the passage at 24:53

25:18 You're actually totally present with it, face to face really, face to face, with whatever's arising, but not that way, not with the grasping, the clinging, the identification. And it's just that, the grasping, that makes us vulnerable. Not the fact that sensations are arising, the fact that there's grasping to it. Think of the woman who took the man's hand and helped him thrust the knife into her guts with no pain. Report an error in the passage at 25:18 Highlight the passage at 25:18

25:47 That was very simple. There was no grasping. She wasn't grasping onto the knife as being a real knife or onto her own body as being a real body. That's a dream knife, dream body. So there was no grasping. Hence, no fear and no pain. In which case, it's impossible to have a nightmare. Report an error in the passage at 25:47 Highlight the passage at 25:47

26:07 Why? Because it was a smaller knife or it was a rubber knife? No, it was a stainless steel, great big sharp knife in the dream. But there was no grasping. So it doesn't matter whether it was a rubber knife or a rainbow knife. It was a dream knife. It already was a dream knife. So because there was no grasping, she had no fear. And then almost like as a celebration, kind of a joyful, giggly kind of thing. Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:31 You know, oh, you understand me? Oh, sure, let me help. Because there was no grasping. Just that one simple thing. She didn't have to transform the knife into butter. She took the knife and did it like that. No grasping, no fear, no suffering. And if one can bring that same quality of awareness to one's own mind, then you're free there too. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:53 So let's do that. We'll spend a 24-minute session. First half will be for freeing the tentacles of identification with the body. Second half, freeing the tentacles of identification with the mind. And if you become an Arya at the end of the 24 minutes, I'll be very content. Report an error in the passage at 26:53 Highlight the passage at 26:53

27:12 Please find it comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 27:12 Highlight the passage at 27:12

· · · silence, 1 minute

28:23 A motivation of compassion for ourselves. A very heartfelt aspiration that we may be free of suffering. The causes of suffering. With Report an error in the passage at 28:23 Highlight the passage at 28:23

28:37 this motivation, settle your body, speech and mind in these states of dynamic equilibrium. Relaxed, still, vigilant. Report an error in the passage at 28:37 Highlight the passage at 28:37

28:49 And spend just a couple of minutes in mindfulness of breathing to calm, to subdue the discursive conceptual mind. Report an error in the passage at 28:49 Highlight the passage at 28:49

· · · silence, 2 minutes

31:06 Settle your awareness in its own play, which means not going, being directed anywhere. Just resting right where it already is. Being present and knowing itself. A very simple immediate knowing of being aware. Report an error in the passage at 31:06 Highlight the passage at 31:06

· · · silence, 1 minute

32:04 Now let the light of awareness, which is simply to say your attention, let the light of your awareness illuminate the space of the body, the somatic field, from the soles of your feet up to the top of your head. No need to visualize anything. Immediately felt. So Report an error in the passage at 32:04 Highlight the passage at 32:04

32:34 let this field be the object of mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

32:52 And within this field, various types of tactile sensations arise. They emerge from that space and dissolve back into the space like waves on the surface of an ocean. So let's give them names. Report an error in the passage at 32:52 Highlight the passage at 32:52

33:12 Corresponding to those sensations, indicating firmness and solidity. For example, where your feet are on the ground, maybe your thighs and your buttocks on the ground. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:23 Wherever there's firmness, Report an error in the passage at 33:23 Highlight the passage at 33:23

33:28 in the surface or in the interior of the body, attend this earth element. In the felt, let it be just the felt. Identify it with a label, but once you identify it, release the label. With bare attention, simply observe the Report an error in the passage at 33:28 Highlight the passage at 33:28

33:49 sensations of the earth element, Report an error in the passage at 33:49 Highlight the passage at 33:49

34:08 unchanging or whether they're constantly in a state of flux. Report an error in the passage at 34:08 Highlight the passage at 34:08

· · · silence, 1 minute

35:05 Maybe any sensations of moisture, fluidity, probably mostly to be gone. Just a bit of moisture there. Once you identify them, just look at the sensations themselves without projecting, imagining or labeling anything. Report an error in the passage at 35:05 Highlight the passage at 35:05

35:22 In the felt, let it be just the felt. Report an error in the passage at 35:22 Highlight the passage at 35:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

36:04 This is the whole gradient from cold to hot. So where the fire element is dominant, you feel hot. Where it's not, you feel cold. Everything in between. It's not temperature. It's the immediate experience of warmth, coldness, heat. So observe the sensations corresponding to the intensity of the earth element, weak or strong, throughout the entire field, on the surface and the interior. Report an error in the passage at 36:04 Highlight the passage at 36:04

36:34 Don't identify with the sensations, simply observe them closely. Report an error in the passage at 36:34 Highlight the passage at 36:34

· · · silence, 1 minute

37:26 Wherever you sense movement in the body, within the somatic field, whether tingling and vibration, whether movements associated with the respiration, Anytime you want. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:41 Attend closely to this air element. Report an error in the passage at 37:41 Highlight the passage at 37:41

38:04 Now within this somatic field, can you directly perceive or detect anything else, apart from the sensations of earth, water, fire and air? Can you pick up anything else? Attend very closely. The Report an error in the passage at 38:04 Highlight the passage at 38:04

· · · silence, 1 minute

39:17 space from which all of these sensations arise, in which they are present, and into which they eventually dissolve. Can you observe space or only imagine it? Report an error in the passage at 39:17 Highlight the passage at 39:17

39:28 Observe closely. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

39:58 Partially open, at least a little light coming in. But let your gaze be vacant, not focusing on any object, but just rest in the space in front of you. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:13 And now as we previously single-pointedly focused on the somatic field, now direct your attention as we settle the mind in its natural state to the field of the mind, the space of the mind. And whatever comes up in it is a wide variety of phenomena, appearances, impulses, discursive thoughts. You may, if you're new to the practice, go ahead and generate one, anyone you like, something short, to the point. Report an error in the passage at 40:13 Highlight the passage at 40:13

40:49 Generate the thought, observe it single-pointedly, allow it to fade out, keep your attention right where it was. to observe the next thought that arises spontaneously. Report an error in the passage at 40:49 Highlight the passage at 40:49

· · · silence, 1 minute

42:05 -pointedly, allow it to fade out and keep your attention right where it was. You may also Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

· · · silence, 1 minute

43:24 detect, Report an error in the passage at 43:24 Highlight the passage at 43:24

43:27 Subjective impulses that are not quite like appearances arising to your awareness, but rather impulses that flavor your awareness, impulses such as desires, emotions. Report an error in the passage at 43:27 Highlight the passage at 43:27

43:42 The central point of the practice is whatever arises in this domain of experience. Simply be present with it, attend to it, observe its nature. But as much as possible, sustain the flow of your awareness without being distracted, without being carried away, without grasping. Report an error in the passage at 43:42 Highlight the passage at 43:42

· · · silence, 2 minutes

46:22 We're exercising and refining. But it's ever so important also to utilize and refine the secondary faculty, and that is, we can call it introspection, faculty of awareness by which you can monitor the flow of mindfulness itself. And when you hone it sharply, you detect very quickly when excitation is set in, distraction, you've been carried away to some extent. Report an error in the passage at 46:22 Highlight the passage at 46:22

46:54 As soon as you recognize that, and you'll recognize it retrospectively in Report an error in the passage at 46:54 Highlight the passage at 46:54

47:01 all the three R's, first of all, relax, loosen up. Report an error in the passage at 47:01 Highlight the passage at 47:01

47:08 Release whatever captivated your attention into the present moment to what's arising right here and now. You don't follow afterthoughts, just what's happening right now. Report an error in the passage at 47:08 Highlight the passage at 47:08

47:23 You see retrospectively you've lost your edge, clarity is diminishing, or you've simply become spaced out. Refresh your interest, restore your attention. Report an error in the passage at 47:23 Highlight the passage at 47:23

· · · silence, 6 minutes

53:43 In terms of the four measurables I've mentioned before, I've not elaborated on the point that I believe there's a very meaningful sequence in these fours. As I said before, it's not just kind of four wonderful qualities. And it is significant that it does not start with compassion. This is the standard sequence, loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. Report an error in the passage at 53:43 Highlight the passage at 53:43

54:05 It always starts with loving-kindness. And in the modern Theravāda tradition, the first of the four masterfuls is often taught all by itself, without ever getting to the compassion of the others. So mettā bhavana, mettā bhavana, so many insight meditation centers, vipassanā centers. We'll do Vipassanā, but we'll also do mettā. So it's a wonderful thing. They're starting out, right? They're starting out with this theme that, again, I think has always been important, but it's been especially important in our modern world, quite strongly, that it's good to start with love and kindness. Report an error in the passage at 54:05 Highlight the passage at 54:05

54:38 Because if one understands it and its richness of it, it gives vision. It gives vision. And that is, in this modern world, without elaborating, because you know what I would say if I did, Report an error in the passage at 54:38 Highlight the passage at 54:38

54:51 We have a very cramped notion of what it means to be a human being. Even, I don't want to criticize another religion, but even in Christianity. St. Augustine, I've read him fairly extensively. He was quite an accomplished contemplative in his own right. He wasn't simply a theologian and a philosopher. He wasn't experienced. Report an error in the passage at 54:51 Highlight the passage at 54:51

55:09 He had some genuine realization. But he made a point that the contemplative life can be begun in this lifetime, but come to its fulfillment only in the hereafter. Only when you're in heaven. So you can start it, but don't get your hopes up too much. Because you can complete it only after you're dead. So there's that point. Report an error in the passage at 55:09 Highlight the passage at 55:09

55:30 And then another point that he found from, I'm sure he found it from his own experience, but to my mind, it unfortunately became kind of like the unquestioned dogma of Christian contemplative practice for centuries and centuries after he died. Report an error in the passage at 55:30 Highlight the passage at 55:30

55:44 That when he went into a very deep contemplative state, and this is through a process of, I remember it, purgation. In the sequence, classic Augustinian contemplative practice. Brigation, where it's mundo, it's preliminary practice, purifying, purifying, that needs to be done. And then it's recollection, and that's really recollection, drawing awareness, collecting awareness, recollecting awareness, doing so repeatedly. Report an error in the passage at 55:44 Highlight the passage at 55:44

56:10 It sounds a lot like mindfulness. And then there's introversion. And introversion is where you then take your awareness and you direct it right in upon itself, right in upon your own identity. Introversion, that sounds a lot like introspection. But it's probing right into your nucleus, right into your core. And then the fourth and culminating phase Report an error in the passage at 56:10 Highlight the passage at 56:10

56:31 is contemplation, contemplatio. And that is the contemplation of God. Contemplation is a term, it's a Latin term, and it's related to, it's a direct corresponding to teoria in Greek. And teoria is where we get theory, and theory means view. So contemplation, teoria, it all means to behold, to behold. Report an error in the passage at 56:31 Highlight the passage at 56:31

56:52 It's not simply a creed or belief system. It's beholding. And I've mentioned that before, that right view in Buddhism is not just holding a bunch of right beliefs. It's viewing reality authentically. And so contemplation then is view. It culminates in view as the end point of the whole path. And what are you viewing? What are you contemplating? What are you directly encountering? And Augustinian's ideal here, as first a Manichaean and then later as a very Christian, of course, is that... Report an error in the passage at 56:52 Highlight the passage at 56:52

57:22 The ideal of the contemplative life, its culmination is a face-to-face encounter, an immediate direct encounter, not one of union, not of indivisibility, not of unity, but face-to-face, unmediated, face-to-face encounter with God. Report an error in the passage at 57:22 Highlight the passage at 57:22

57:38 In fact, he described, what did he say? Love of God, Amor Dei. I found this really interesting when I was a graduate student. Amor Dei, love of God, which I could never make heads or tails of when I was growing up. I didn't know what that meant. And why should love God? Because he does a lot of... If he's responsible for everything, he's responsible for a lot of rotten things happening. So I'd feel ambivalent at most. But there's this phrase, Amur Dei, Amitari. Report an error in the passage at 57:38 Highlight the passage at 57:38

58:00 Well, it just never made any sense to me when I was growing up. And then I got to graduate school years later. And then I read Augustine. Oh, now I get you. For him, Amur Dei, the love of God, is actually the passionate yearning to know God. Report an error in the passage at 58:00 Highlight the passage at 58:00

58:15 That I can resonate with. I'm not perplexed there. So he says, he regards this as the culmination of the contemplative path, is having a face-to-face encounter of knowing directly. But now what's God? What's God? A man? What are you encountering? And then he gave the answer to that. I really think it's from his own experience. Report an error in the passage at 58:15 Highlight the passage at 58:15

58:36 He characterized God as the changeless light, the changeless light, that you encounter the changeless light directly, without mediation, is the divine, it's the ultimate, it's the transcendent. But he said in that encounter... It is so, one can almost say infinitely overwhelming, it's probably the right term, infinitely, it is the finite mind of man, or awareness of man meeting, encountering the infinite light of the mind of God. Report an error in the passage at 58:36 Highlight the passage at 58:36

59:05 But it's so overwhelming, he said, that it's like, what is it, the phoenix goes up to the sun and then just melts, just kind of melts, isn't it, phoenix? I think so, yeah. So the mind of man ascends, this is again that apotheosis, the mind of man or woman. Ascending to the mind of God, but you get so close. And then after a relatively short time, he said, kind of like no more than a half an hour. You can't bear it any longer. Report an error in the passage at 59:05 Highlight the passage at 59:05

59:31 It's almost like the joy you're talking about, like unbearable. You can't bear it. You just can't. It's just too much, too intense. And then you fall, kind of like you just fall. You fall and you fall and you fall and you fall until you come back to your own ordinary state. And he said, as you fall, there's this sadness of it fading out. And he said, as long as you're embodied, as long as you're a human being, that's as good as it gets. Report an error in the passage at 59:31 Highlight the passage at 59:31

1:00:05 You cannot sustain it. Just by the very nature of the experience, you cannot sustain it. So that's kind of limiting. I mean, it's pretty noble what I just said. And I actually have deep respect for what I just said. But it's limiting. But that became the dogma. That was in the 4th century, then right on through, right on through, right up to, oh, Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:05 Highlight the passage at 1:00:05

1:00:27 So that's a thousand years. That was the assumption, that the contempt of life can only be started in this life, not come to its culmination. And when you have that deepest state of realization, it is by nature transient. And that was virtually not questioned for a thousand years. No such notion exists in Buddhism anywhere. And as a scholar of this area, my sense is, this isn't just my interpretation, I could be totally off here. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:27 Highlight the passage at 1:00:27

1:00:55 And this does relate to where we're going. It was India, not the Greeks or the Romans or the Hebrews or the Christians. It was the Indians that really made the contribution of samādhi to world civilization. They did it like no one else. Not the Mayans, not the Chinese, the Japanese. Nobody else did samādhi like the Indians. They did it probably 4,000 or 5,000 years ago, getting them going. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:55 Highlight the passage at 1:00:55

1:01:20 And so by the time Gautama came, 2,600 years ago or so, the whole tradition of samādhi, of developing exceptional, extraordinary states, A very deep, extremely refined, very focused, brilliant, single-pointed attention. The Indians invented that. I think it was their greatest invention, actually. And so when the Buddha came along, he was born into a contemplative current that was already at least 2,000 years old, something like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:20 Highlight the passage at 1:01:20

1:01:49 This was ancient knowledge. And what can be discovered is not just blissing out. It's not just having profound states of equanimity. But when you develop that kind of laser-like attention and then you turn it inwards, right in upon the mind and upon consciousness, it turns out to be a portal. And the laser is that which cuts through everything in a portal revealing multiple dimensions of reality, not just multiple dimensions of consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:49 Highlight the passage at 1:01:49

1:02:16 So this was old, old knowledge at the time of Gautama. And he was born into that. And so it's no wonder that when Gautama, at the age of 29, when he left his home, This radical disillusionment, this pursuit of eudaimonia, as they called moksha back then, liberation. It's no wonder he was a highly intelligent person, that the first people he sought out were not ascetics who teach him how to fast or do exercises and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:16 Highlight the passage at 1:02:16

1:02:40 The first people he taught out were, first one, and then the second, consummate samādhi masters. That's the first thing he sought out. That was the best thing they had out there. So he went for the best right from the very beginning. And being the prodigy that he was, he very rapidly achieved these extraordinary saints of samādhi of his teachers. First one, and the teacher, being an incredibly benevolent person, wasn't jealous. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:40 Highlight the passage at 1:02:40

1:03:07 He just turned to Gautama, who had achieved everything he'd achieved, but like in maybe weeks, just zoomed through. He said, great, let's teach together. We both achieved moksha, we both achieved liberation. And Gautama was just too sharp. He said, yeah, this is great, but it's not moksha. Nothing irreversible has taken place. The root of something has not been cut. It's just been subdued. So he sat up. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:07 Highlight the passage at 1:03:07

1:03:32 But he didn't give up. He went to a second Samādhi master who had achieved even a higher state of Samādhi and then learned from him. He again achieved it very, very quickly. The same thing happened all over again. The second Samādhi master said, Gautama, fantastic. Let's teach together. We'll team up here. And again Gautama said, this didn't do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:32 Highlight the passage at 1:03:32

1:03:50 This didn't do it. Enormous discoveries to be made and all kinds of... Wonderful thing, but not liberation. So, and then he went on to six years of ascetic experimentation to see what might actually yield liberation. So that was a tangent upon a tangent. But it is showing something of the contemplative context in which the Buddhist teachings arose. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:50 Highlight the passage at 1:03:50

1:04:15 And the fact that compassion figures so prominently. So compassion, we come to that now. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:15 Highlight the passage at 1:04:15

1:04:27 First point is... When we're translating from Pāli Sanskrit to Tibetan, you've got to find your best term. It's not going to be an exact match, but you try to do your best. And different translators like one word, another one likes another word. But this is quite uniform. When translators across the board may come across this term, Sanskrit term, karuṇā. Karuṇā. I think pretty much everybody translates it as compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:27 Highlight the passage at 1:04:27

1:04:49 And I think it's as good as we get. But we come back to our dear friend, Dania. Emotion, emotion, emotion. Ask almost anybody, just walk outside and say, what is compassion? And if they start talking about it, they're probably going to say, well, it's a very compassionate, it's a very, you know, and they'll talk about the emotion. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:49 Highlight the passage at 1:04:49

1:05:11 So by and large, I think probably you look it up, I haven't recently looked it up, like the Oxford English Dictionary, but if you look up compassion, the word emotion is bound to crop up. Emotion or feeling, it's a feeling of, and then they'll describe it. Well, I'm not going to refute that, I mean, it's English, English users. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:11 Highlight the passage at 1:05:11

1:05:27 define the terms that we use, not some lexicographer. And so, in English, compassion is an emotion, but not in Buddhism. So then we have to say, okay, this is Buddhist compassion. Compassion, as it's understood in Buddhism, is not an emotion. It's, again, as I said before, it's an aspiration. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:27 Highlight the passage at 1:05:27

1:05:51 And you can have a lot of emotion if you see somebody suffering directly by web media, you read about it, what have you. Some people are very emotional. Some people more, some people less, right? If one is very sensitive, very emotional, then attending to someone else's suffering may give rise to a great deal of sadness, sympathy, empathy, tears. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:51 Highlight the passage at 1:05:51

1:06:18 It's not compassion. It's empathy. Empathy is a feeling. Empathy is an emotion. It's a co-emotion. It's feeling with, right? Sympathy to. I like the word. It's kind of getting spoiled a little bit as if it's something bad. But I feel a great deal of sympathy for your situation. I don't see that as a negative statement. I feel with you. But that's all it is. It's an emotion. It's not a bad emotion, but it's not. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:18 Highlight the passage at 1:06:18

1:06:46 So what's the sequence here for the arising of the emergence of compassion? I suggest the first thing is attention. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:46 Highlight the passage at 1:06:46

1:06:58 My friend Lawrence Friedman said that's the greatest gift you can give to another person. Give them your attention. They become real for you as you attend to them. That's just the way it works, right? But if you're not attending to someone, If you're not attending someone, like if you live in an apartment, like an apartment building, and there's a doorman who simply opens the door every time you come in, Report an error in the passage at 1:06:58 Highlight the passage at 1:06:58

1:07:20 paying attention to him, oh, why should I pay attention to that doorman? Like that. Then that becomes kind of like a wooden statue, which is kind of like nothing. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:20 Highlight the passage at 1:07:20

1:07:30 He's a doorman, whatever. Why are you asking him a doorman? So you've made an it out of him, because you're not attending to him. Some doors have mechanical openers, and some have human openers, tomatoes, tomatoes. So we can simply regard human beings as its. By not attending to them as a human being. It happens a lot. And so the first thing is attention. That is, we're attending to sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:30 Highlight the passage at 1:07:30

1:07:53 This is a crucial point. Oh, and I know where they all went from. The sequence. I didn't quite finish that thought. But I'll finish this right now. But the sequence is important. I'll get to that. I'll get back to that. But the attention is crucial because the focus of attention is very important. The focus of attention when you're arousing compassion is not suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:53 Highlight the passage at 1:07:53

1:08:14 The focus of attention when you're arousing compassion is a sentient being, one or more. It can be a whole species, it can be the whole planet of sentient beings, but you're focusing on sentient beings, sentient beings who are experiencing suffering, prone to suffering, vulnerable to suffering, but your attention is a sentient being and not their suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:14 Highlight the passage at 1:08:14

1:08:35 I think that's good medicine, because I think we know in modern medicine it sometimes happens in kind of the dehumanization and becoming inured to the suffering of one's patients. I mean, this is a cliché, and I think there has to be a lot of reality behind it. Who's in this bed? Tuberculosis. Okay, who's in this bed? You know, yeah, and so you're saying, okay, oh yeah, this is tuberculosis. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:35 Highlight the passage at 1:08:35

1:08:58 Oh, this is stage 3 cancer, gotcha. And who's this one? And you're looking from symptom to symptom to symptom, and those are the enemies. You're like a terminator. And this is, okay, this one, bedtime 3, okay, I have to terminate that, do our best, terminate this, terminate that, so the optic can easily turn to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:58 Highlight the passage at 1:08:58

1:09:13 The illness, the injury and so forth. That's your job to eradicate. And if you fail, then you and the patient have lost the battle against cancer or whatever it may be. But it easily slips into that with all the diagnoses, all the charts, all the tables, all the tests and measurements and so forth. Are you in there too? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:13 Highlight the passage at 1:09:13

1:09:32 Good. But now I'm back to business. It's back to the symptoms. Well, that can happen. It can happen in medicine. It can happen elsewhere as well. But it's missing the whole point that the good healer, the good physician is there to heal. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:32 Highlight the passage at 1:09:32

1:09:44 the veterinarian to heal animals. This is very prominent, very explicit in Buddhism. So as for loving kindness, the object of loving kindness, what you're attending to, is not happiness. And it's not the causes of happiness either. You're attending to a human being or a sentient being of some sort. And as you're attending to a sentient being, then you're attending the, I wish you to find happiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:44 Highlight the passage at 1:09:44

1:10:16 And so the The one you're attending to, their life is enriched, Report an error in the passage at 1:10:16 Highlight the passage at 1:10:16

1:10:24 what you're wishing for them. But you're not attending to the happiness and the cause of happiness. That's to augment the life of the person. And so with compassion, loving hand, it's a very important point, that you're attending to sentient beings. So here it is, suffering. So the first one is attending. Attending to sentient beings. It's the doorman, it's the person behind the cash register in the grocery market. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:24 Highlight the passage at 1:10:24

1:10:47 Wherever it is, you can be attending to sentient beings when you're watching CNN. Or whatever news you like, if you ever watch news on television or the internet, you can attend to sentient beings by way of those images. And that can arouse compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:47 Highlight the passage at 1:10:47

1:11:03 If you're focusing on suffering, that's probably just going to make you sad. Or you'll get inured to it and then say, well, thank goodness it's not where I live. That's dissociation. So that's a crucial point. So it starts with attention. That a sentient being other than ourselves becomes real for us. If that doesn't happen, then nothing else will flow. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:03 Highlight the passage at 1:11:03

1:11:25 The rolling out. Compassion won't happen. Recognizing a sentient being a sentient being, which means fundamentally like myself. Bottom line, fundamentally like myself. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:25 Highlight the passage at 1:11:25

1:11:37 So it starts there. You turn your attention to, and then having turned your attention to, and that means there has to be some conation, so I'm going to roll that one out. Conation, you have to have an intention. Would you like to cultivate compassion? Would you like to be more empathetic? Would you like to be more attentive to sentient beings? Will that be a good thing? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:37 Highlight the passage at 1:11:37

1:11:57 For yourself and other sentient beings, yes or no? Or do you simply want to use people? You could do this for me, and I think you could do this, and would you mind doing this? And so, okay, now I'm going to be the big manipulator to get people to do what I want them to do. That's a possibility. But then, of course, no compassion will arise from that. And so, first of all, that has to be aspiration, intention. That's clonation. And then, you've got your clonation. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:57 Highlight the passage at 1:11:57

1:12:21 Okay, now what are you going to do? Well, focus on someone. Attend to someone. Some sentient being, any sentient being will do. Good. Now you're focusing, but now what? You have to know what's going on. And that is, if the person is suffering, it's not just like that. When you see somebody who's experiencing suffering, whether they're expressing it verbally or the facial expression or in any way you know, maybe you just see some heavy object just falling on their leg, that you know you have this cognition coming, that you recognize that's a sentient being like me, and that sentient being is in a state of fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:21 Highlight the passage at 1:12:21

1:12:58 State of physical pain, psychological pain, what have you, but you get it. You know, I know what pain is and that person's experiencing it. I've had something similar myself, at least enough that I can imagine what that's going through and I know they don't like it and it's real and it's real to me and they don't like it. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:58 Highlight the passage at 1:12:58

1:13:19 So then the cognition comes in. You know what's happening. So there has to be a clonation. I'm going to add something to the notes next time I print these up. There has to be the clonation, the intention, design. The attention, cognition, and then the emotion. So I'm sure that Dania and perhaps others here could start talking about mirror neurons. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:19 Highlight the passage at 1:13:19

1:13:45 I've heard recently they're being overplayed a little bit, maybe a lot. But in any case, I know that could be an interesting conversation. But I can say this without knowing much about the brain at all. Are there neural correlates when you attend to another person who's experiencing suffering and you do feel a real empathy? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:45 Highlight the passage at 1:13:45

1:14:03 Some kind of a resonance, something occurring similar here to what you perceive there. Are there identifiable events taking place in the brain that strongly correlate with the empathy you're experiencing? It has to be yes. Whether it's mirror neurons, whether it's much more complex than that, I'll leave that to the neuroscientists. Maybe there can be a seminar at the end of the day, and I'm sure that could do a good job of that. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:03 Highlight the passage at 1:14:03

1:14:26 But there it is. But something's activated where there's a resonance, this feeling with. And we can call it empathy. It's a nice word. Where you sense the other person maybe can't bear their suffering or at least is having a difficult time. And you have that same sense. You find you're moved. Just as if you were in pain, you'd move. If this is giving you pain, you'd move away from it. Like where there's a movement that you're feeling in some sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:26 Highlight the passage at 1:14:26

1:14:52 You're feeling something similar. And you're doing it voluntarily because you can always just turn your head away. Roll back. But if you don't roll back and you continue to attend, then it's quite a natural thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:52 Highlight the passage at 1:14:52

1:15:08 And not only for human beings, but when we attend, I Report an error in the passage at 1:15:08 Highlight the passage at 1:15:08

1:15:16 think it's a very interesting area for study, and there could be a very, very fruitful collaborative study between, let's say, Buddhist contemplatives and scientists in this regard. Are we biologically driven here? Do we have a biological imperative that when we attend closely with an open heart, really giving our attention to someone else who is in pain, that we experience empathy? Report an error in the passage at 1:15:16 Highlight the passage at 1:15:16

1:15:38 Is that a biological imperative? Does it cut across species? And I think I know the answer. I don't know how broad it is. But I know a little anecdote. I grew up with dogs. We loved dogs. And I had collies when I was growing up as a boy, a teenager. And we had one dog when I was about 13 or something like that, 13, 14. We had a collie named Bonnie. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:38 Highlight the passage at 1:15:38

1:16:00 And I was the one that took care of her. So she was kind of my dog, family dog, but I was the one that took care of her. So we had a very close relationship. And so sometimes I wanted to test Bonnie. I do experiment on her. I pretend to cry. Just pretend. I'm not of an actor, but I'm just trying to impress the colleagues. I'm no Academy Award here. But I would go like that. I'd bury my head and really pretend to really be crying. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:00 Highlight the passage at 1:16:00

1:16:33 And my colleague, Bonnie, would come over and she'd stick her up. The colleague had these long noses, right? And she'd stick and she'd get her head under my chin. My chin would come up and I'd just lick her. She'd lick her. I can't interpret that other than she was trying to comfort me. To avoid that conclusion, I think it's kind of like, come on, give her a break. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:33 Highlight the passage at 1:16:33

1:16:58 She loved me. I loved her. We had a very nice relationship. But I'm not her species. But my clear sense was she felt empathy. She wanted to comfort me. And that's how she would do it. Face up. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:58 Highlight the passage at 1:16:58

1:17:15 This happens across species. A number of famous stories about dolphins rescuing human beings across species. So it does happen across species. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:15 Highlight the passage at 1:17:15

1:17:25 But we see there that in the case of Bonnie, my colleague, that it wasn't only empathy. Because empathy, she would feel sad. She sees her friend, because I wasn't so much of a master, but her friend, me, that I was sad and she felt sad. She was moved. But then Bonnie went beyond empathy. Because she's getting my head up so she can lick me on the face. And that was compassion. She wanted me to be happy, wanted me to stop crying, to show sadness. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:25 Highlight the passage at 1:17:25

1:17:52 And so she was doing her best. That was her best shot, lick him on the face. But that's compassion. When there arises an aspiration, may you be free of suffering. And then that moves beyond the aspiration to an intention. And there she is taking her long nose and trying to get my face up so she can lick it. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:52 Highlight the passage at 1:17:52

1:18:08 So that's where the culmination of this. It gives rise to an emotion. That's the empathy. And a lot of people would say, good, you've already arrived at compassion. And the Buddhists say, no, not quite. That's empathy. The emotion is empathy. It's sympathy. But we haven't quite made it yet. That has to trigger. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:08 Highlight the passage at 1:18:08

1:18:27 An aspiration, a desire. And I could feel in something else here, the aspiration has to trigger an intention. Because simply desiring and intending, not the same. And then the intention, if it's not blocked, will trigger the nose coming in and lifting my face up. So it can be like an action. So there's a sequence. And that sequence, as I comment here in the notes, you'll find the same thing for loving kindness. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:27 Highlight the passage at 1:18:27

1:19:02 There it is. So there is a woman I know moderately well. I've met her on a number of occasions. She's a first late neuroscientist named Tanya Singer. And her father was now retired, both in world class. But Tanya Singer, his daughter, is risen now as a scientist of real stature in and of herself, regardless of where dad is. And she now runs the Max Planck Institute for Neuroscience in Leipzig, I believe it is, quite sure. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:02 Highlight the passage at 1:19:02

1:19:25 So really a very, very accomplished neuroscientist. And she's worked with Richard Davidson. She and I have known each other for a few years now. And she's made some interesting discoveries. This is just a side note. And that is, she's gotten very interested in compassion. It's become a very legitimate area for rigorous scientific research, both by psychologists as well as neuroscientists. Collaboration. And then sometimes we'll bring in contemplatives as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:25 Highlight the passage at 1:19:25

1:19:51 So there's a whole group at Stanford University that has a Buddhist scholar, Tupin Jimbo, one of my oldest friends, and a whole group there of psychologists and neuroscientists. And it's all about study and understanding. So it's gotten very legitimate, which is a great thing. Tanya Zinger, working on the other side of the Atlantic in Germany, she's been interested in this for some years now. And she's had, I think, more than one monk come in and really study their brains. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:51 Highlight the passage at 1:19:51

1:20:14 And monks who can really, how do you say, do things, you should be. That is, monks who can really, how do you say, engage in compassion meditation in a very precise way. And so, for example, they can tell the monk, I know one monk that was involved in the study, okay, please, monk, please now develop empathy, but don't go to compassion. So hold back, don't go all the way to compassion, but now please generate empathy. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:14 Highlight the passage at 1:20:14

1:20:46 The monk's good, he can do that. So you just remain there in that kind of co-emergent sadness or sympathy. And then she studied the neurochoralist of that. I said, okay, now kick it in. Now kick it over into compassion. She found, lo and behold, the neural correlates are different. It's not just more of the same. Different parts of the brain activated and so forth. She studied it, I think, with as much rigor as anybody has that I know of. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:46 Highlight the passage at 1:20:46

1:21:13 And then she would say, okay, now go up one-third throttle. You know, just like, go up one-third throttle. Okay, one-third compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:13 Highlight the passage at 1:21:13

1:21:23 Bring it on now. Do that now. And she's watching. Okay, now two-thirds throttle. Then watch. Okay, now full throttle. Let it loose. Like that. And she's studying the brain correlates all the way through. Quite cool. So I met with her a few years back in Sadhanath, India, where we were both at a conference together. And she said, it's quite clear now, the neural correlates of empathy are different than a neural correlates, which is interesting. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:23 Highlight the passage at 1:21:23

1:21:46 No big surprise, but it is interesting. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:46 Highlight the passage at 1:21:46

1:21:57 It's all about compassion. But the compassion, again, entailing something different, something more than empathy. I'll just leap right now to one of the most delightful experiences I've had in my life, just a warm-hearted, good experience, memorable experience. I'm going to just jump to it right now because it connects with us immediately. It was 1992, and with the Dalai Lama's encouragement, his blessing, then a group of scientists, and I was very much part of that group, a collective group, of neuroscientists and me. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:57 Highlight the passage at 1:21:57

1:22:32 Francisco Varela, world-class, and a splendid human being. I miss him. Richard Davidson, very renowned. Cliff Saron, head of the Shamatha Project. That was years later, the Shamatha Project, later. He was there. And Greg Simpson, another first-rate cognitive neuroscientist, area of specialization, attention. So these four neuroscientists, all men, and then me, one more guy. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:32 Highlight the passage at 1:22:32

1:22:57 So we wrote up a proposal for us doing some scientific study on compassion and attention. That was our target area. And wanted to study this psychologically and neurophysiologically. Got a grant. And I got the full permission and encouragement by the Dalai Lama that what we'd want to do is go up to the mountains above Dharamsala, where I'd lived years before as a monk, as a yogi up there with these incredible yogis. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:57 Highlight the passage at 1:22:57

1:23:23 So I lived up there until my visa ran out. I was up there for about five months. But they knew me. And at this point, 1992, I was no longer a monk, but they still knew me. And so I was kind of good liaison because I was fluent in Tibetan. I knew enough science, knew Buddhism, and then I knew some of the yogis up there. So it was kind of a natural to... Report an error in the passage at 1:23:23 Highlight the passage at 1:23:23

1:23:42 To venture to open that up. And the Dalai Lama then sent the word out. He did not say, because he doesn't do this kind of thing, he didn't tell the yogis, when these scientists come up, I want you to collaborate with them. He didn't say that, and he wouldn't. He left to each yogi's choice. If you'd like to collaborate, you may. If you'd like to do it, I'm quite pleased with that. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:42 Highlight the passage at 1:23:42

1:24:03 I welcome that, but not so much that if you don't do it, I'm going to be disappointed. In other words, it's really a free choice. But these scientists are coming up with my approval, my blessing and so forth. So if you'd like to collaborate with them, that would be really fine. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:03 Highlight the passage at 1:24:03

1:24:19 So there we were in 1992 and brought just backpacks full of equipment, computer monitor, computer displays, LCD screens and EEG, which is heavily burdened, backpack full of about $50,000 of equipment. Head up to these Neanderthal little huts up on the side of the mountain, about an hour and a half hike, steep hike. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:19 Highlight the passage at 1:24:19

1:24:39 above Amaclao Janj, where the village is. It was just an incredibly memorable sequence of experiences as we go from one yogi's hut to another. It was kind of like kids coming out, would you like to play? Would you like to play? We'd like to play with you, would you like to play with us? It was kind of like that really, very sweet. And they already knew that we're okay, that we're not just kind of barging in. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:39 Highlight the passage at 1:24:39

1:25:05 This was all the blessing of the Dalai Lama. And the responses were very interesting. It's a tangent, but it's really not a trivial tangent, I don't think. The responses were really interesting. I remember one, he'd been up there for maybe 20 years or so, seasoned yogi. And these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed neuroscientists come up, all eager beavers. I mean, they're so smart, so dedicated. And they're all materialists, but they're open-minded, and they really would like to know, I mean, what goes on in the brain when it's compassion, attention. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:05 Highlight the passage at 1:25:05

1:25:33 It's a legitimate question. And so I remember the one yogi there. They interviewed. I'm in the middle of all of it because I'm their only language liaison. They kind of eagerly told this yogi, who's maybe 50 years old or so, we'd really like to understand compassion and attention, shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:33 Highlight the passage at 1:25:33

1:25:53 We have all of our equipment here. Would you be willing to let us hook you up and get tests and so forth so we can measure? We can understand compassion. And the yogi gave this incredibly sweet smile. Bemused is the perfect word. I told this story a number of times. I found just the right word. Bemused. Bemused. It's a very sweet smile. There's nothing sarcastic or condescending about it, but bemused is exactly it. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:53 Highlight the passage at 1:25:53

1:26:21 And he looked at it and said, oh, you'd like to understand the meditative cultivation of compassion and attention skills? Report an error in the passage at 1:26:21 Highlight the passage at 1:26:21

1:26:38 Oh, will I like to link up my head with all those contraptions? No, I won't do that. You're not going to understand compassion or attention that way. But if you'd like to really understand attention and compassion, I'll teach you meditation. I'm happy to do so. And they passed. They came up with their own. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:38 Highlight the passage at 1:26:38

1:26:57 Another one that I'd lived with for, by then I'd already lived with him for a year, Gen Lam Rimba. We had him to the United States for a one-year shamatha project, retreat, that I organized and then I led, I was an apprentice teacher, so to speak. That was 1988. And Gen Lam Rimba was there. Well, he already knew me. We got to know each other quite well because he was my nearest neighbor when I was in retreat up there. And he would let me drop in on him and ask questions about meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:57 Highlight the passage at 1:26:57

1:27:23 He'd already become one of my team. And so he knew a bit about Western. By me, I'm the West. I don't know if he'd ever spoken with a Western besides that. He's a yogi living in solitude, so you don't bump into too many Westerns that way. And so they came to Gyanlan Rinpoche's little hut. Would you be willing to play? Report an error in the passage at 1:27:23 Highlight the passage at 1:27:23

1:27:51 Because you're coming in with so many assumptions that I think are completely wrong. You never collaborate with you. You just reinforce your assumptions. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:51 Highlight the passage at 1:27:51

1:28:05 Then they went to kind of the senior yogi on the hill. Geshe Yeshe Topten. Geshe is quite renowned. You heard his name? Yeshe Topten. Gentutupla, his nickname was Gentutupla. He was older, he was probably 65, something like that, maybe 70. He'd been up there for like 30, 35 years, the seasoned yogi, the yogi of the yogis, the senior most one. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:05 Highlight the passage at 1:28:05

1:28:27 And boy, do I remember this one. They were all pretty young back then. This was more than 20 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:27 Highlight the passage at 1:28:27

1:28:37 No, it wasn't a cave, it was a cabin. And Geshe-la, Geshe-la, the scientists have come, the blessing of his holiness. Would you be willing to collaborate with us? We'd like to. So you test and so forth. He said, sure. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:37 Highlight the passage at 1:28:37

1:28:56 So they got to run all their tests. He watched the videos. They videotaped his face. They got the facial expressions. They got the EEG and so forth. Totally accommodating. Everything they wanted him to do. He said, sure, sure. So the scientists really took to him. And he was incredibly sweet. They were just moved by the sheer kindness. He just wanted to help any way he could. And so then one of them, I think it might have been Cliff Saron, because he was kind of the organizer of the whole expedition. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:56 Highlight the passage at 1:28:56

1:29:26 He asked, and that's where he asked this old Geshe who just embodied compassion. It was just such kindness, kind of like almost an effervescent field flowing out of him. I'm not exaggerating. He said, we're all moved by it. Whatever our worldview, we're just moved. It was such warmth. And Cliff Seren took a photo of him smiling. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:26 Highlight the passage at 1:29:26

1:29:47 And you just look at that face and you just see like your heart melts. It just shuts kindness and warmth and good cheer. It's a beautiful photo. And Cliff took it. But they ask this question, and that's what I've been building up to. Geshe Laha, he earned the Geshe degree as a Buddhist monk. When you experience compassion, because they knew this man really knew what he was talking about, when you experience compassion, in that moment, do you experience sadness? Report an error in the passage at 1:29:47 Highlight the passage at 1:29:47

1:30:21 Good question. It didn't take him long to respond at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:21 Highlight the passage at 1:30:21

1:30:30 And how do they relate? Well, what happens is, Report an error in the passage at 1:30:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30:30

1:30:40 you see they're in suffering, and as you're attending to them and knowing that they're in suffering, then arises the sadness. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:40 Highlight the passage at 1:30:40

1:30:51 Share with them their sadness, their pain. That's not compassion. But then from that, from that fertile ground of this shared, arises a vision that there could be freedom. In other words, this is not necessary. It's not intrinsic. It's not hardwired. It's not unavoidable. There's a possibility of freedom. Some possibility. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:51 Highlight the passage at 1:30:51

1:31:21 You could be free. And when you see that possibility, This person, these people, this community, this region of the globe where there's so much suffering, you could be free. And you see that light at the end of the tunnel. And then with that thought that arrives at the aspiration, may you be free. Because it's possible. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:21 Highlight the passage at 1:31:21

1:31:43 You're not going to really seriously arouse a desire, an aspiration that you think is flat out impossible. What intelligent person does that? You have better things to do than wish for things that are not going to happen. Just kind of... Pointless. But when you see it's possible, you see that possibility, then the aspiration arises. May you be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:43 Highlight the passage at 1:31:43

1:32:06 And when that arises, when that arises, then that lifts you out of the empathetic sadness. You emerge from that. And I'll just add this tiny bit of commentary. There's kind of a courage that comes with this. I think of like a lion coming out of a cage. That's just my own image. But there's a courage that comes up that you could be free. May you be free. And as that strength of mind, the Tibetan is called sem shuk, the strength of your heart. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:06 Highlight the passage at 1:32:06

1:32:36 When that strength of mind comes up and you're seeing the possibility of freedom of suffering and you're aspiring for it, then you kind of throw off the shackles of the sadness. You emerge from the sadness because now you have a vision. You could be free. I wish you could be free. Then you don't have time to wallow about in sadness. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:36 Highlight the passage at 1:32:36

1:32:57 Dead weight. So this aspiration, this heartfelt aspiration, wouldn't arise if he didn't have the empathy. It's not just an intellectual procedure. But you have to move beyond it. And so we see one of the, well, he's my Lama, so I'm just going to say that Dalai Lama is an incredibly compassionate person. And I have seen him weep on multiple occasions. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:57 Highlight the passage at 1:32:57

1:33:16 But that's not his ground state. That's not where he lives. Where he lives is this joyfulness, this buoyancy, this good cheer. Because that's compassion, not simply empathy. Compassion, not simply sympathy. So I think we were all very moved by that. I think everybody got it, all of these scientists. That was an insight that really meant a lot to us. Now I'll go back to an earlier point and then we'll take a break. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:16 Highlight the passage at 1:33:16

1:33:42 I mentioned there was secrets and I never finished the thought. In our modern world, and that's what got me on the whole tension of Augustine, remember? It's limited, limited, limited. Well, there is no such notion in the Indian tradition, neither in Hinduism or any school of Buddhism, that you can start your contemplative practice, start your spiritual practice, but sorry, you can't complete it in this lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:42 Highlight the passage at 1:33:42

1:34:01 No school. No school believes that. But what all these schools have, Hindu and Buddhist, what they all have is samādhi. They all have that. And samādhi, no matter what reality you're experiencing, whether it's Buddha mind or whether it's emptiness or nirvāṇa, whatever it may be, there is no reality that you can't bear if you have sufficient samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:01 Highlight the passage at 1:34:01

1:34:28 Samādhi, the whole point, is that union of the insight and samādhi, the union of shamatha vipassanā. And that's where the deep and absolutely irreversible transformation takes place. And you can sustain that as long as you like. And eventually, when the realization goes deep enough, then you're never actually separated from it. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:28 Highlight the passage at 1:34:28

1:34:45 And that's what Augustine sought when he converted from Manichaeism to Christianity. He'd already had some very deep contemplative realizations. But they were glimmers and then he'd lose them, glimmers and he'd lose them. And then he converted to Christianity with the hope that, when he entered into this new path, the Christian path, that there would be methods or wisdom there that would enable him to go back to the realization he had earlier, but sustain it. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:45 Highlight the passage at 1:34:45

1:35:08 So he'd never be parted from it. Well, they didn't find it. They didn't find it. They didn't have that much of a Samādhi tradition. And I've spoken to some very, very experienced Christian contentives, including a Greek Orthodox yogi, often Wales in the UK. And we sat down for five hours and talked once. He allowed me to come and visit him in his hermitage. And he knew of my writing, so we resonated immediately. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:08 Highlight the passage at 1:35:08

1:35:32 And I asked him, you know, in Christianity, that's Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox primarily, what do you have for a shamatha? And he said, well, not as good as what you have. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:32 Highlight the passage at 1:35:32

1:35:43 And it's true. They do have it. But to the level of sophistication, the depth of the 1st jhāna, 2nd through 4th jhāna, into the formless realm, they don't have that. And actually nobody does. The Chinese don't have it either. What they have, they got from India. And that's true for everybody else. If they got it, they got it from India. So I think that's absolutely crucial. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:43 Highlight the passage at 1:35:43

1:36:03 The deep levels of samādhi, that's what enables you to rise to the highest level of realization. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:03 Highlight the passage at 1:36:03

1:36:16 And that's Christianity. That's where there really is such a thing as direct knowledge of God. But when we look into psychiatry and Freud's ever so famous statement that I paraphrase closely. And that is what we as human beings can hope for, is that our neuroses are managed, but never think about being free from them. He said, you can't be free, I mean, you're a human being. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:16 Highlight the passage at 1:36:16

1:36:38 So you can manage your neuroses, subdue them, have them contained. Yeah, that you can do. But I've read the quote itself, and he said, but don't think you can be free of neuroses. And that's a very widespread belief. I'm sure it's not universal, but it's common. And then we have the whole, so we're getting from... Report an error in the passage at 1:36:38 Highlight the passage at 1:36:38

1:36:57 Christianity, original sin, we're essentially evil, and if we try, we won't make it in this lifetime. The Jews don't really say anything different. And then we have the psychiatry saying, you know, get used to your neuroses, you're going to be around for a while. And there is no freedom from suffering. Just read Freud's Civilization and His Discontents. If you want to know his views on suffering, get used to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:57 Highlight the passage at 1:36:57

1:37:19 As long as you're alive, you're going to have it. And then we go to evolutionary biology, and they say, you're an animal, what do you expect? And so that's a lot of limitation of views of what is your potential for freedom from suffering. And none of us are telling us anything good except for those who said, well, after you're dead, it'll be fine then. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:19 Highlight the passage at 1:37:19

1:37:36 But then you can't report back whether it's true or not. So then I'm getting faith. So that's kind of it for the West. We have Christianity, Judaism, we have evolution in biology, psychiatry, is there anything else? None of those do I find very optimistic or liberating or wow, that inspires me. I can be a good neurotic animal. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:36 Highlight the passage at 1:37:36

1:37:58 And enjoy some hedonic pleasure now and then until I can't any longer. And then I die. I don't find that very uplifting. And that's going to limit. Wouldn't it be the case? If that's your worldview, any of those varieties are an amalgam of all three. I'm kind of still carrying the burden of original sin and all of that. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:58 Highlight the passage at 1:37:58

1:38:16 And I also believe in evolution and biology. I'm essentially a really smart chimp. And I've got a neurotic. I've got down there as libido and death wish driving everything. All that full pool of nasty things in my subconscious. And that's kind of who I am. Well, if you think that's where we max out, you know, within that framework, I think we can ask very seriously, how deep will compassion in us? Report an error in the passage at 1:38:16 Highlight the passage at 1:38:16

1:38:41 Because we won't aspire for things that we think are impossible. And in this regard, there's an awful lot that's impossible. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:41 Highlight the passage at 1:38:41

1:38:50 Whereas if we slip into this Buddhist mode, with the ethics, the Samādhi and wisdom, there's actually, you're looking up and it's just clear blue sky all the way up. There is no limit there. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:50 Highlight the passage at 1:38:50

1:39:00 There's no limit. The possibilities of freedom are infinite and irreversible, and therefore compassion could be as well. You have to see the possibility. If you don't see the possibility, you won't aspire for it. If you don't aspire for it, you're not going to act to realize an aspiration you're not even holding. So I think it's connection. The worldview keeps on cropping up big time. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:00 Highlight the passage at 1:39:00

1:39:22 In terms of the sequence, and then we'll take our break, in terms of the sequence... At any time, this is why loving kindness figures first of all in the sequence of poor measurables. We need vision. We need vision. Not just may I experience more hedonic pleasure more and more and more consistently and avoid all sufferings. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:22 Highlight the passage at 1:39:22

1:39:39 That's not going to work out no matter what. So that's just not realistic. May everybody have a good day every day for the rest of their lives. That just never happens. So why bother with that one? So we bring in eudaimonia and there is something of vision. That is not alien to us, not simply a leap of imagination or faith, but we say, yes, I've experienced that somewhat, I think I could more so, and then we started developing that. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:39 Highlight the passage at 1:39:39

1:40:01 But it's really a vision where this insatiable longing, I mean, I feel it, and I'm sure I'm not alone, but not satisfied. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:01 Highlight the passage at 1:40:01

1:40:11 Not satisfied. I've been practicing now pretty seriously for 44 years. Absolutely not satisfied. Very happily, but totally not satisfied. Am I willing to say, okay, I'm going to finish bodhicitta. I'm ready just to teach everybody now because I got where I wanted. Absolutely not. Unsatisfied. Dissatisfied. And if I'm in business, I think I need the next billion. I need one more corporation. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:11 Highlight the passage at 1:40:11

1:40:38 I need to acquire that. I need a better house. I need another vacation house. I don't even have a vacation house in the Caribbean. What was I thinking? Gotta have one. I have to have my own island. That's what I need. That will do it. My own island in the Caribbean. Work on that. Please. Buy it for me, I'll write a check. You know, there's just, there's never enough. And so when it goes hedonic, there's never enough. That's why 85 people, there's never enough. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:38 Highlight the passage at 1:40:38

1:41:05 Because we're always thinking, oh, a little bit more. No, actually a lot more. So when it goes insane, that's the direction it goes. Whereas you can take that insatiable longing for more, for greater, more deeper, more satisfying, direct that to eudaimonia, and that'll take you all the way to enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:05 Highlight the passage at 1:41:05

1:41:22 And then you actually will be satisfied. I've heard of no unhappy customers. It begins, some yaksambuddha, and perfectly enlightened beings, it says, this was it? Report an error in the passage at 1:41:22 Highlight the passage at 1:41:22

1:41:36 They seem to be very content. But of course, then, all that insatiability turns outwards. For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, so long shall I remain to alleviate the suffering of the world. So now you're just out of the pot and into the right path. Out of the pot of the insatiability of yourself, and you're totally content, totally fulfilled. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:36 Highlight the passage at 1:41:36

1:41:56 But, oh yes, I'm not alone. Okay, well then, roll up my sleeves. I'm going to be here for a while. Insatiable. So it has to shine with vision. And that's uplifting. That's uplifting. That we get out of the ruts. We get out of the blindfolds. We get out of the just that. I think we're all familiar with it. And have some vision that maybe this insatiable longing I've had along, maybe it was not in vain. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:56 Highlight the passage at 1:41:56

1:42:22 Maybe it's not just bad wiring in terms of genetics and evolutionary proclivities. Maybe there's a reason behind it. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe this is going to work out. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:22 Highlight the passage at 1:42:22

1:42:33 And then there's the vision. Loving kindness for oneself and others. So it uplifts. It lifts us out of the reality of actuality, the realm of actuality, what is already true. And it lifts us into the realm of possibility. This could be true. In fact, I think it is true for him and for her and him and her throughout history. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:33 Highlight the passage at 1:42:33

1:42:54 It's not my actuality yet, but that's promised. So with loving kindness, it lifts us up into a vision, into the realm. It gets us... So we're no longer limited by the realm of actuality because we're looking over the peak, over the horizon into the realm of possibility and saying, oh, that's wild. Let's go for it. So it's uplifting. It lifts us out of the actuality of the present moment, which can be very refreshing on occasion. But of course, if we keep on going there, just going, we're going to Wooland or La La Land. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:54 Highlight the passage at 1:42:54

1:43:29 We can totally, you know, just spacing out. Love is all there is Dee-da-dee-dee Da-da-da-dee-dee-dee Just kind of like, whoa, whoa, I am just living in a field of love. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:29 Highlight the passage at 1:43:29

1:43:47 It can be a complete disconnect, call it dissociation from the realm of actuality. In which case, down boy, down boy. Okay, let's bring a little bit of gravitas to this, let's come back to the realm of reality, of actuality, and look around you, oh, two million refugees, you say, from Syria? Report an error in the passage at 1:43:47 Highlight the passage at 1:43:47

1:44:16 And then you recognize that not only for other people, but for yourself. I was lofting up there into loving-kindness land, but here I am still getting irritated, pissed off, jealous, angry, egotistical, and so forth, and saying, wow, this really ruins a party. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:16 Highlight the passage at 1:44:16

1:44:30 And so this is a realm of actuality. This is suffering, causes of suffering. That was awfully nice going into cloud nine of loving-kindness, but meanwhile back here, there's a lot of work to be done. I would like to be free of suffering, the cause of suffering, and I see that I have a lot of comfort. So that gives... Report an error in the passage at 1:44:30 Highlight the passage at 1:44:30

1:44:48 You're not forgetting about your loving kindness. It's still there. But now you have some balance that you really are tending to the realm of actuality here and now. And you say, whoa, I see why this is called the motion of suffering. So it balances. Give the whole sequence. Why stop? So this can be very sombering. This can be very sober ground. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:48 Highlight the passage at 1:44:48

1:45:18 Intelligence we bring to it. The more discernment we bring to it. The bigger it gets, the larger it gets. The scope, the breadth, the depth, the magnitude of suffering and the causes of suffering. Like you're just looking like it's like being midway between Australia and California. A lot of water. And you see every direction. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:18 Highlight the passage at 1:45:18

1:45:38 It's just like this is an ocean. And it can be just, I don't know for a while. When you see yourself as a single individual, just surrounded by this, and you're still there on that level of being the individual, it can be like, you can really start falling into a complete sense of helplessness and despair and dismay. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:38 Highlight the passage at 1:45:38

1:45:56 In which case, look out. Don't sink too low there. And the next one's empathetic joy, where you say, well, I wasn't getting the whole picture. What I was seeing was the truth, but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When we look around, it's not only suffering. It's not only craving hostility and delusion. There's a lot of it. Throw a rock in any direction, you'll hit something. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:56 Highlight the passage at 1:45:56

1:46:17 But that's not all. There is also virtue. Keep your eyes open, no way to look, but you will find virtue. And there's also joy, I'm not told. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:17 Highlight the passage at 1:46:17

1:46:31 And then get out of your own skin and take delight in it. So now another type of empathy coming in. Not sympathy, but now empathetic joy. That you're sharing in the delight. When you see a person like the Dalai Lama, whoever you like, it is embodying joy, virtue, kindness, just magnificent embodiment of the virtues that we cherish so deeply. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:31 Highlight the passage at 1:46:31

1:46:50 And whoever it is, religious, not religious, and you take delight in that, empathetic joy in that, and it's an actuality, it's not a hope. That's really important. You're looking at the realm of actuality when you're looking at suffering and its causes, not this could happen someday. So you need to meet actuality with actuality, not just one more nice pipe for you. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:50 Highlight the passage at 1:46:50

1:47:10 Well, it could be different. Yeah, but this is what's happening right now. But it's not the only thing that's happening right now. Not only suffering, there's joy, there's bliss, there's virtue, there's kindness, wisdom, generosity. And keep your eyes open, you're just going to see more and more of it. And then you're saying, okay, I'm just this individual, I'm just this person, but gosh, I can network with all these people. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:10 Highlight the passage at 1:47:10

1:47:29 I can collaborate with these people. I can take delight in their work. I can join them. I can help. I can pitch in. And now it's something much larger than me. I don't have to face the whole ocean of saṃsāra alone as this one individual. But there's so much out there. Historically and in the present moment, there's so much out there. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:29 Highlight the passage at 1:47:29

1:47:47 And then you see, whoa, yeah, there's an ocean of suffering, but there are a lot of islands of light. And if I attend to them, I think I can keep my head above water. I'm still aware of the ocean of suffering. But there's an island here and an island there and an island there and an island there. And so I think maybe we can work together here and something really meaningful can take place. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47:47

1:48:08 And that gives you joy. That's equanimity. Like the empathetic joy. And then equanimity is just simply the grand phenomenon. It's taking all the above, all the above, all the three, and now say, okay, now do it smoothly. In all directions. Your loving kindness going out without barrier. Your compassion without barrier. And whoever it is, when you see joy, when you see virtue. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:08 Highlight the passage at 1:48:08

1:48:29 Take delight with no bear. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:29 Highlight the passage at 1:48:29

1:48:34 So that's the sequence. At least that's my understanding. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:34 Highlight the passage at 1:48:34

1:48:45 Okay, let's take a break and come back in 11.05. We Report an error in the passage at 1:48:45 Highlight the passage at 1:48:45

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:49:40 turn to the meditative cultivation of compassion. And as I mentioned very briefly, this has become a topic that's gaining quite a rapid increase of interest in certain areas of the scientific community of whether compassion can be cultivated. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:40 Highlight the passage at 1:49:40

1:49:59 To my mind, the 20th century when it comes to the mind is almost like a pre-Darwinian century when it comes to the mind. Because so many things were thought to be static. For example, until Rusty Gage at Scripps, I think, what is it, in any case, La Jolla, California, until his research and that of his colleagues, it was assumed that once you've hit 20 or so, then your neurons are just dying off. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:59 Highlight the passage at 1:49:59

1:50:21 You're just going to be downhill from then on. And then they found, well, that's not true. I think it's a hippocampus, isn't it? A veritable generator of hundreds of millions of neurons, which is not entirely, it turns out not to be entirely trivial, even though the number is 200 billion. You think, well, what's 100 million here or there? It actually turns out to be significant. There's a very interesting story behind that, but we won't go there. But kind of the static notion, and William James, one of my heroes, writing the latter part of the 19th century, commenting, based on the best data that he had available, that attention is not a trainable skill. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:21 Highlight the passage at 1:50:21

1:50:54 Some people are scatterbrained, some people more composed, more focused, and what can you do? Some people are tall, some people short. But he really thought it was a fixed trait. There are a lot of people that think, I write this in multiple accounts, that there's a fixed level of happiness that you can't transcend. You have your happiness quotient, then you max out, you hit a ceiling, and you can't go beyond that. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:54 Highlight the passage at 1:50:54

1:51:16 It was a thought for a long time that IQ was static. And yet I read a study just recently that people trained in working memory, and I won't go into that, again, check with the expert here, and I think there are probably multiple ones here, but people trained in working memory for a relatively short period, their IQ went up by 20 points. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:16 Highlight the passage at 1:51:16

1:51:32 So point after point after point, where there was a widespread assumption throughout the entire 20th century, static, static, static, almost like pre-Darganian species, you know, it's always been a giraffe since Noah, that notion that the mind also is kind of static, not much upward mobility. Well, these are just falling right, left and center. And these are important issues. I mean, really, they're telling about our own nature as human beings, whether our potential as human beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:32 Highlight the passage at 1:51:32

1:51:59 So here's another good juicy one. We've all witnessed, maybe even know personally, some very compassionate people. We know some people that are pretty cold, pretty cold cucumbers, not much warmth, connectedness and things like that. We know that. And the question comes up, a really good question. And we also know, again, there's a biological imperative for compassion within a certain bandwidth. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:59 Highlight the passage at 1:51:59

1:52:19 Within a certain range, right? But then it tapers off really quickly for most people. So overall, if you're not a terribly compassionate person, might you do things, change your mind, train your mind, so that you can become more compassionate? Might that be a good thing? It's a good question. It's an empirical question. And then likewise, could you extend the scope, the range of your compassion? It extends beyond your immediate family, beyond those who are carrying your DNA. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:19 Highlight the passage at 1:52:19

1:52:47 Because the DNA is covered. I already had that one covered. But how about those who don't share their DNA? How about other species? And so forth. So these are really good questions, empirical questions, and they're being addressed empirically and not theologically or dogmatically. And Buddhism then rises to the challenge and said, well, let's work together. Because we have had our working hypothesis for more than two millennia that all of these qualities, attention, intelligence, compassion, empathy. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:47 Highlight the passage at 1:52:47

1:53:13 And so forth, that these all are very trainable skills. And one very important one, since we have just come out of that practice of settling the mind in this natural state, exactly, extremely important, and it doesn't come up at all in modern psychology. Not yet. Maybe it will come tomorrow. And that is when it comes to our five sensory modes of perception, there's malleability, but not an awful lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:13 Highlight the passage at 1:53:13

1:53:36 So I've been told that, you know, I have just ordinary 64-year-old eyes, so I have actually very good, I'm good. I'm farsighted, but I need these when I'm reading ordinary print, like a lot of people my age. But I've heard that if I'm willing to do a lot of exercises, eye exercises, I can actually improve that. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:36 Highlight the passage at 1:53:36

1:53:57 I'm just too busy. But I've heard it's possible. And then my father, his hearing is really poor, and I have his genes, so I kind of expect when I'm 80 and so forth, if I get that far, I'll probably be saying, eh, or I'll have one that looks really cool. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:57 Highlight the passage at 1:53:57

1:54:12 And I'm not sure that there's a whole lot I can do about that. Maybe there is, but I'm not quite sure. And for the olfactory, gustatory and tactile, well, somewhat, somewhat, but not a whole lot of play, is my sense, relatively speaking. Now let's come to the sixth mode of perception, the one that doesn't even get listed in modern cognitive psychology textbooks, except we tried it and it didn't work, introspection, it failed. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:12 Highlight the passage at 1:54:12

1:54:38 Mental perception, it's so obvious we have it, and so astonishing that it's not acknowledged, and then astonishing that I mean, there are people here and there, yes, but in terms of mainstream, textbook, cognitive psychology, it's not there. Or if it is, it's so recent that I haven't noticed it yet. I haven't found it yet. Mental perception. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:38 Highlight the passage at 1:54:38

1:54:55 Our ability to observe thoughts, images, desires, and get better at it. Just like Galileo went from an 8-power, 20-power, 30-power telescope in his lifetime. That's how far he got. That's not bad. Not bad. And so, obviously, seeing with greater resolution and so forth with this more powerful telescope, then onto the Hubble telescope and so forth, that's technology. So what about this? Report an error in the passage at 1:54:55 Highlight the passage at 1:54:55

1:55:19 For this telescope on our own mind, the space of the mind and the events arising within it, that ability is that mental perception, can that be refined? High definition, sharp focus, depth, penetration, can it be refined? Or, no, it's just folk psychology, introspection, it's pretty flawed. Well, the Buddha said, well, we got that one figured out a long time ago. You want to listen? Because the West has nothing. I mean, it just has nothing in terms of really rigorous methods for developing mental perception. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:19 Highlight the passage at 1:55:19

1:55:50 Just barely started in this century, the last 10 years or so, actually raising the issue, can attention be trained? And I've been involved in some of the studies that show it can be. That's good news, because it was assumed for the whole 20th century it can be. Cannot be. There was virtually many, many studies of attention and virtually nothing on whether attention could be trained, which is dumbfounding, because William James wrote so eloquently about the importance of what he called sustained voluntary attention, how good it would be if it could be cultivated, developed. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:50 Highlight the passage at 1:55:50

1:56:18 Didn't know how, so he said, okay, next, he dies, and then nothing happened for 100 years. It's quite astonishing how curious scientists can be in some areas and completely devoid of curiosity. And I guess we're all that way. But there it is. So, can a potential be trained? Yep, now the scientific evidence is in, and that's very nice to add that on to the 3,000 years of evidence from contemplatives who already know that. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:18 Highlight the passage at 1:56:18

1:56:45 Why is compassion? There are templates like Lintutubla, knows for sure, absolutely for sure, but then how do you convey that apart from a warm smile, a very compassionate way of behaving? How do you know? And that's where the science comes in. To make something that's already known, to some people, the practitioners, known, Publicly. To my mind, that's one of the greatest rationales for bringing contemplative and scientific inquiry together. Because the contemplatives know an awful lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:45 Highlight the passage at 1:56:45

1:57:14 The scientists don't. The scientists know a lot. The contemplatives don't. But the scientific knowledge is public. Anybody who can read, who's sufficiently trained, who can read the scientific articles, or at least the watered-down version in the popular press, like Scientific American or New York Times, and then you say, oh, then it becomes public. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:14 Highlight the passage at 1:57:14

1:57:30 Well, now we know this. There are exoplanets. So it's public. That's the nature of science. It's public. Whereas the nature of contemplative experience, contemplative discovery, it's private. You can pass it on by teaching other people how to do it for themselves, but you can't just kind of open you up to your breasts and look at all my discoveries. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:30 Highlight the passage at 1:57:30

1:57:47 Because all you can do is make claims and then people say, yeah, whatever. You're religious people. And how do you know? And so this collaboration, this vision of a center that's very clear in my mind in Tuscany, it will be, if it happens, and I think it will, we're just moving every day closer to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:47 Highlight the passage at 1:57:47

1:58:08 It could be utterly revolutionary, because there's no center like it. Outstanding scientists sprinkled all over the place, and very good contemplatives sprinkled all over the place. But one place created specifically to bring top-notch scientists and contemplatives together, where they're actually meeting as collaborators and not simply scientists and subjects. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:08 Highlight the passage at 1:58:08

1:58:24 And we also have in the backyard maybe 20 or 30 contemplatives practicing full-time for months or years, getting professional training. And then they're meeting with the scientists with maybe 20,000 hours of meditation behind them. That's never happened. I've spoken with Richard Davis and others. Do you think it's a good idea? Yeah, yeah, it's a really good idea. Really important. Longitudinal studies, deep collaboration. But everybody has their own priorities, and that's fair enough. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:24 Highlight the passage at 1:58:24

1:58:49 This is my priority. This is my priority. Created. Invite the scientists. Invite contemplatives. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:49 Highlight the passage at 1:58:49

1:59:00 But that's the way that insights, discoveries, legitimate discoveries that have been made and replicated and replicated with very rigorous, rational, precise, sophisticated methodologies can finally become public. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:00 Highlight the passage at 1:59:00

1:59:15 We can take account of this stuff, but it keeps on being private every time. The Buddhists believe. The Hindus believe. But you don't say the scientists believe. They believe a lot of stuff that may not be true, but let's give them a break here. They know a lot of stuff. It's not belief. There's consensual knowledge, and they can show you how to do it. So bringing those together. I love situations that are win-win. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:15 Highlight the passage at 1:59:15

1:59:37 Win-win. Everybody wins. The scientists have their understanding deepened. The contemplatives may learn very valuable. Knowledge from the scientists that may accentuate, help them in their practice, and then by that collaboration, humanity as a whole. Maybe even the planet as a whole. So that was my little sermon. But I'm rather excited about it because even this morning I have a long conversation on Skype, more emails going back and forth. I'll probably go to Italy twice. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:37 Highlight the passage at 1:59:37

2:00:02 It's a tough job, you know, but somebody's got to do it. Tuscany in December. Nobody else wanted to go. So I'll be there for a couple of weeks. If all turns out, I'll probably go there for a couple of weeks in December, come back for Christmas with my family, and then come back and finish off the job. Things go well. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:02 Highlight the passage at 2:00:02

2:00:21 That's our aspiration. So now we turn to the practice, the meditation, and we are addressing the question, can compassion be cultivated? That's the big question. And we should know, we need to know ourselves. It's like with shamatha, can attention be trained? Well, many of you know the answer to that, because you found out yourself. Can empathy, first of all, and then compassion, can that be cultivated through practice? Report an error in the passage at 2:00:21 Highlight the passage at 2:00:21

2:00:45 Of course, the answer is known for a very, very long time, but we do need to recognize where we are in the 21st century because there are anomalies here that were just not present in the history of Buddhism. They're weird. They're new. And that is in Buddhism, like in Tibetan language, which I'm pretty fluent. There is no way of saying this phrase or this term, self-contempt. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:45 Highlight the passage at 2:00:45

2:01:05 You can't say it. It sounds like an idiot. You can say self and you say contempt. Translate it into Tibetan? It sounds like you're saying gibberish. That's not possible. You care about yourself. You have no choice in the matter. You care about yourself. That's given. It's basic. It's fundamental. It's primal. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:05 Highlight the passage at 2:01:05

2:01:25 You can't care about yourself and hold yourself in contempt. That means you hate yourself. But you can't do that. You care about yourself. So what are you talking about self-contempt? It doesn't mean anything. People can't experience that. It's impossible. Except when it's not. And so there's something very strange happening. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:25 Highlight the passage at 2:01:25

2:01:42 I don't know exactly when it happened, but it certainly has happened and it's common. Self-contempt, self-loathing, these awful terms. And whether you can translate them into Tibetan or not, they don't make any sense. But if you explain them in detail, as was done for the Dalai Lama in 1990, he learned what self-contempt means by getting a whole primer in what that means, because he didn't really have a clue. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:42 Highlight the passage at 2:01:42

2:02:05 No experience whatsoever. And nor did the other Tibetans in the room. Self-contempt, self-loathing, lack of self-worth. They said, what? What was that? And then a lot of explanation. And then he got it conceptually. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:05 Highlight the passage at 2:02:05

2:02:21 That's some... Remedial work we have to go. It's some very strange kind of alienation there, kind of a dissociation, isn't it? Because here we are, I'm feeling contempt for someone. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:21 Highlight the passage at 2:02:21

2:02:34 Who's feeling the contempt? The other me. Because it's not quite directed here, it's directed there. But I hold you, Alan, in contempt. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:34 Highlight the passage at 2:02:34

2:02:44 I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted. It's so disappointing. You let me down. Big, huge disappointment. I'm just sick and tired of you. I've had it with you. But there's somebody up here who's okay. At least relatively okay, not quite as bad as that one. And so this bifurcation, internal system, of finding a way to dissociate yourself from the person that you hold in contempt, that you may not feel good about that person, but at least that person is not as bad as this person. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:44 Highlight the passage at 2:02:44

2:03:13 It's very weird. And it's not common. If we thought that was universal throughout time and space, it's not. It really isn't. Tibetans have mental addiction like anybody else. They're not saints, they're not holier than anybody else. They have good Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:13 Highlight the passage at 2:03:13

2:03:27 But they just don't even know what you're talking about. So that's come out. That's somehow a Eurocentric dysfunction that we now know. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:27 Highlight the passage at 2:03:27

2:03:38 And so that needs to be addressed. When we screw up, when we identify with our mental afflictions, when we identify with our behavior, and our behavior on occasion is really rotten, our mental afflictions are really harsh, and then we identify with them. I am that angry person. I am that person who did that, and it's deplorable, and so forth and so on. And then I'm looking back from this perspective. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:38 Highlight the passage at 2:03:38

2:04:00 I did that. I'm that kind of person. I'm so disappointed. I'm disgusted, in fact. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:00 Highlight the passage at 2:04:00

2:04:12 And so there is no such word also for self-compassion. It doesn't mean anything in Tibet. You can still, again, say self and compassion. Say, what are you putting those two words together? They don't fit. You can't feel compassion for yourself. Compassion is for others. You care for yourself, of course. But compassion for yourself. Why are you saying that? Report an error in the passage at 2:04:12 Highlight the passage at 2:04:12

2:04:31 And so there is no word. But there is this word. Nganjung. Ngenjung in Tibetan, and Ngenjung Ngenjung Isen, this mindset, this sort of mindset is okay, of aspiring for a definite emergence from, you can call it saṃsāra to use the Buddhist term, this aspiration to definitely emerge, to rise above, to transcend suffering and its causes. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:31 Highlight the passage at 2:04:31

2:04:59 That's there. It's called Ngenjung Renunciation. That's there. That's really deeply ingrained in the whole culture. Everybody doesn't practice it, but pretty much everybody knows what it means. And that's recognizing the extent, the scope, the multiple bandwidths of the suffering to which one is vulnerable. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:59 Highlight the passage at 2:04:59

2:05:15 Recognizing that. And it's a big bandwidth. All the way down to this pervasive existential suffering. Recognizing that I'm right here. I'm up to my neck in the ocean of saṃsāra. And I'm vulnerable to any kind of suffering that comes along. But one's sixteenth of an inch of skin here. That's not much protection from the physical. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:15 Highlight the passage at 2:05:15

2:05:31 And moreover, I'm looking in there, any anger in there, any craving, delusion, pride, jealousy, oh man, I've got the whole set. Yikes. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:31 Highlight the passage at 2:05:31

2:05:42 And so not feeling disgust, contempt, self-loathing, lack of self-worth, saying, boy, that's quite a problem. I would really like to be free of that, the aspiration to be free of suffering. You've actually hit the target. You're actually recognizing that it's not your spouse, it's not your parents, it's not the Republican Party, it's not geopolitics. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:42 Highlight the passage at 2:05:42

2:06:04 It's just not any of those things that we love to blame. They can all be capitalists, but if you really want to find the true culprit, the true source, primary causes, you just can't look outside. You're looking in the wrong place. You have to look inside, and then you have to be discerning. It's not because I'm a bad person or because I'm a primate or... Report an error in the passage at 2:06:04 Highlight the passage at 2:06:04

2:06:22 No, it's not I, I, I. It's in fact this mental affliction, that mental affliction. There's the root one. That's delusion. Okay, now we've got it. That's it. If you can cut that one, all the other ones are going to dry up on the vine. If you can cut right through to delusion, then all the other ones will vanish. And you will have severed this fruit of suffering. And then all of the outflow from that, all the derivative will dry up. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:22 Highlight the passage at 2:06:22

2:06:43 And you'll be free. And so, instead of self-contempt, one directs one's... attention to not oneself the suffering and the causes of suffering And that's not called compassion, but it's called renunciation, or a spirit of definite emergence. But since we have the word self-loathing, it rolls right off the tongue, everybody knows what I mean, then I think probably we need English and probably other European languages, self-compassion may be okay. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:43 Highlight the passage at 2:06:43

2:07:18 As an antidote to self-loathing, because this one's crazy. Where is that going to lead you if you loathe yourself? Exactly how is that going to be an exit strategy for anything? Because wherever you go, there you are, and the person you brought along with you is the person you loathe. Bad company. And so if we have self-loathing, then we need self-compassion. And this whole issue that is so appealing in the modern mindfulness movement, and I say that with respect, the appealing element is very problematic, but nevertheless they're addressing a very real issue, which I respect. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:18 Highlight the passage at 2:07:18

2:07:51 John Capesina deserves enormous credit for this, is you're maintaining the moment-to-moment awareness, non-judgmental awareness. Whatever's coming up in your mind, whatever's coming, he's addressing a very real problem that's ubiquitous, and that is just thoughts you can't stand, desires you feel unworthy, emotions you feel are really harmful and detrimental, behavior you find. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:51 Highlight the passage at 2:07:51

2:08:16 And we just tend to, in this modern world, sort of slam ourselves, slam ourselves, judging and judging and judging. Again, you let me down. Again, you screwed up. Again, I'm frustrated. Again, you failed. And just, you know, just body punch after body punch, day after day after day. And if we get some help, then it gets more compounded. You really are. And so outside, parents, whoever it is, spouses sometimes when their marriage is going sour, all this hammering, you really are no good. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:16 Highlight the passage at 2:08:16

2:08:43 You really feel. You're such a disappointment. Oh, you let me down. And so when it's being generated, they'll get reinforced from the side. And so no wonder John Cabot said. And so many of these mindfulness teachers, they say, give it a rest. Just whatever is coming up, just be present with it for seven seconds. Why don't you just give it a rest? Report an error in the passage at 2:08:43 Highlight the passage at 2:08:43

2:09:05 Don't slam it so quickly, even if it's really harmful, toxic. Try just being present with it for a while, rather than identifying with it and then beating yourself up over it. I really sympathize with that. We need to do more than simply accept. But boy, when there's such a widespread tendency of this severe, harsh... Report an error in the passage at 2:09:05 Highlight the passage at 2:09:05

2:09:26 judgmentalism towards ourselves and of course if we do it here internally I'm such a disappointment. Well, at least I'm not alone. You're a big disappointment, too. And then it goes out. And so American public right now, I think 85 % of them are totally fed up with the government. They like to just fire them all, except they don't have any good replacements. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:26 Highlight the passage at 2:09:26

2:09:47 But it's that. It's just fed up. You Republicans, you Democrats, you independents, you all just sicken me. That's pretty much the attitude in America right now. Hardly anybody thinks, oh yeah, we've got a really good government, it's going well. Hardly anybody. I'm not one of those people. I think it's just a disaster. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:47 Highlight the passage at 2:09:47

2:10:08 So we come to the meditation. It's how the first practice be. You look at the classic, it doesn't start there at all. The classic one going back with a ghost of 1,500 years ago, first of all, attend to a person who's really suffering. Empathy arises easily. In our world, where self-loathing means something, we have to get things sorted out there. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:08 Highlight the passage at 2:10:08

2:10:33 That we can be present with our limitations, our defects, our mental afflictions and sometimes really harmful behavior. And recognize, and this is where I do edge away a little bit from the ongoing relentless, be non-judgmental, not judgmental. Move away from the adjective now. Exercise sound judgment. And that's not a bad thing. Recognize wholesome behavior and unwholesome. Mental addictions and wholesome mental state. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:33 Highlight the passage at 2:10:33

2:10:56 Because that often gets overlooked. But fair enough, they're dealing with one level and I'm going to another level. Now, good, now be discerning without again going back into the rut of slamming yourself and being judgmental, but discerning, recognizing that's actually a source of suffering. I don't want to go with, this is a source of eudaimonia. And so this then will be addressing where we are in the 21st century. And then we can move from there and actually start expanding. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:56 Highlight the passage at 2:10:56

2:11:24 If Report an error in the passage at 2:11:24 Highlight the passage at 2:11:24

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:12:35 you could to pause and make this system of the mind serviceable by Report an error in the passage at 2:12:35 Highlight the passage at 2:12:35

2:12:44 settling body, speech and mind in their natural states, imbued with the three qualities of relaxation, stillness and clarity. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:44 Highlight the passage at 2:12:44

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:13:40 positive breathing, releasing with every out-breath. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:40 Highlight the passage at 2:13:40

· · · silence, 3 minutes

2:16:29 aspirations, your and fears, joys and songs. So Report an error in the passage at 2:16:29 Highlight the passage at 2:16:29

2:16:39 the aspiration Report an error in the passage at 2:16:39 Highlight the passage at 2:16:39

2:17:00 to be free of suffering is already there. We don't really need to cultivate it. It's already there as a given. We care. whether we suffer or not. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:00 Highlight the passage at 2:17:00

2:17:18 clearly we identify the causes of suffering, sources of suffering, and not merely the cooperative condition or catalysts, are too many to But Report an error in the passage at 2:17:18 Highlight the passage at 2:17:18

2:17:32 why does Report an error in the passage at 2:17:32 Highlight the passage at 2:17:32

2:17:40 it Report an error in the passage at 2:17:40 Highlight the passage at 2:17:40

2:18:12 get to us? Why does it become unbearable? explicit suffering, blatant suffering, obvious Report an error in the passage at 2:18:12 Highlight the passage at 2:18:12

2:18:09 many causes and conditions, but why does it... Report an error in the passage at 2:18:09 Highlight the passage at 2:18:09

2:18:20 And the Buddhist response is because we identify with the basis of such suffering. We identify with the body and in so doing make ourselves vulnerable to all the suffering that comes to the body. We identify with our minds and thereby make ourselves vulnerable to the entire range of mental distress. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:20 Highlight the passage at 2:18:20

2:18:49 Consider the possibility of freedom. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:49 Highlight the passage at 2:18:49

2:18:57 A freedom to be present in the world, still engaged, but free of grasping. Free of grasping under that which is not by its own nature intrinsically I or mine. As being I or mine, and thereby laying ourselves open to suffering. Imagine freedom. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:57 Highlight the passage at 2:18:57

2:19:25 Imagine freedom from the explicit suffering, blatant suffering to which you're presently prone. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:25 Highlight the passage at 2:19:25

2:19:44 Imagine freedom from suffering from mine that's caused by the afflictions of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:44 Highlight the passage at 2:19:44

2:20:00 And if you will, with every in-breath, arouse the aspiration. We just lost the battery. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:00 Highlight the passage at 2:20:00

2:20:13 I'll continue to finish the sentence, though. With the in-breath, arouse the aspiration. As you attend to yourself, subject to such suffering. Arouse the aspiration, may I be free, free of suffering and its underlying causes. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:13 Highlight the passage at 2:20:13

2:20:54 The aspiration, the yearning, to be free of suffering and its causes on this most evident level. With each inbreath, imagine just letting your imagination play. Imagine the veil of darkness, the veil of such suffering and its causes, lifting, fading away. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:54 Highlight the passage at 2:20:54

2:21:18 With each inbreath, imagine it dissolving. Imagine finding relief. The Report an error in the passage at 2:21:18 Highlight the passage at 2:21:18

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:22:09 deeper dimension of suffering than we experience is good fortune. The pleasure is of good fortune, but the type of well-being, the type of happiness that is completely bound up and attached to thinking, craving, grasping. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:09 Highlight the passage at 2:22:09

2:22:46 Imagine being free of these delusional tendencies of craving and attachment, Report an error in the passage at 2:22:46 Highlight the passage at 2:22:46

2:22:56 mistaking that which is not a true source of happiness for being a true source of happiness by recognizing the true sources of well-being, focusing there, cultivating there, and thereby becoming free. What Report an error in the passage at 2:22:56 Highlight the passage at 2:22:56

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:24:03 might that be like? To be fully functioning, having to reach emotional life, to be very engaged with the world, the tented, to enjoy the pleasures that arise in life, but to be free of attachment. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:03 Highlight the passage at 2:24:03

2:24:23 Such freedom. And thereby free of the anxiety, the ups and downs that stems from attachment. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:23 Highlight the passage at 2:24:23

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:26:00 As if you were thoroughly lucid and Report an error in the passage at 2:26:00 Highlight the passage at 2:26:00

2:26:08 engaged with the dream. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:08 Highlight the passage at 2:26:08

2:26:18 This is an analogy. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:18 Highlight the passage at 2:26:18

2:26:24 Thoroughly comprehending a dream while in the dream. And there's a joy in such knowledge, a kind of euphoria. Of knowing the nature of reality you're experiencing. And in that bliss, in that euphoria, there is a sense of freedom. A little fearlessness that nothing here can harm. No possibility. A profound existential sense of relaxation, of ease. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:24 Highlight the passage at 2:26:24

2:26:56 Really nothing to hope for, nothing to fear. Anality as it is, is quite enough. The freedom is already there. It's Report an error in the passage at 2:26:56 Highlight the passage at 2:26:56

2:27:08 a powerful analogy. Bring it back to this waking reality, which is not a dream, but does have dreamlike qualities. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:08 Highlight the passage at 2:27:08

2:27:24 Such freedom in the waking state. With your physical body, your mind, a physical environment, and a world filled with people, mental afflictions, harshness, suffering, Report an error in the passage at 2:27:24 Highlight the passage at 2:27:24

2:27:41 a waking state. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:41 Highlight the passage at 2:27:41

2:27:46 Such freedom. Freedom from grasping. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:46 Highlight the passage at 2:27:46

· · · silence, 2 minutes

2:30:04 All directionality, if you're looking outside or inside, not here, Report an error in the passage at 2:30:04 Highlight the passage at 2:30:04

2:30:17 from your core, release all grasping, all desires, and simply let your awareness rest right where it is, Report an error in the passage at 2:30:17 Highlight the passage at 2:30:17

2:30:30 resting in its ground state, Report an error in the passage at 2:30:30 Highlight the passage at 2:30:30

2:30:38 not directing the light of awareness in any direction, Report an error in the passage at 2:30:38 Highlight the passage at 2:30:38

2:30:47 but you simply are aware. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:47 Highlight the passage at 2:30:47

2:30:55 As you're not deliberately focusing your attention or your awareness to any object, then something is bound to become more and more evident, unveiled. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:55 Highlight the passage at 2:30:55

2:31:10 And that is a sheer unmediated experience of being aware. Just that. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:10 Highlight the passage at 2:31:10

2:31:20 So rest in that indubitable knowing, Report an error in the passage at 2:31:20 Highlight the passage at 2:31:20

2:31:34 still, over Report an error in the passage at 2:31:34 Highlight the passage at 2:31:34

2:31:38 fear, nothing to be achieved. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:38 Highlight the passage at 2:31:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:32:39 Just release them. You don't have to do anything to them. Just let them release themselves. As you rest in stillness, this self-cognizing, self-illuminating stillness, awareness, being aware of itself. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:39 Highlight the passage at 2:32:39

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:34:12 this a bit abstract, so if you'd like a bit of something to hold on to. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:12 Highlight the passage at 2:34:12

2:34:23 you're resting there in the stillness of awareness, maintain something very And as the breath Report an error in the passage at 2:34:23 Highlight the passage at 2:34:23

2:34:35 flows in, take that as your cue to arouse, to focus, to concentrate your awareness right in upon itself, to be vividly, explicitly, sharply, pointedly aware. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:35 Highlight the passage at 2:34:35

2:35:06 the flow of awareness of awareness. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:06 Highlight the passage at 2:35:06

2:35:32 This awareness of awareness, there's so little to hold on to, and finally nothing to hold Report an error in the passage at 2:35:32 Highlight the passage at 2:35:32

2:35:41 let's practice with the remaining time in Quite Report an error in the passage at 2:35:41 Highlight the passage at 2:35:41

· · · silence, 2 minutes

2:37:42 quickly evident that the degree of wisdom one brings to the cultivation of compassion is directly correlated with the depth of the compassion itself. People just watching the media, watching the tragedies, human-made, natural calamities taking place in the world, many people, just decent people who are attending, feel at the very least empathy, sorrow that other people are suffering, and then perhaps on occasion, well of course it does on occasion, then it actually catalyzes compassion, perhaps even some action plan, maybe they can write a check to the Red Cross or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:42 Highlight the passage at 2:37:42

2:38:16 Virtually everything that is regarded as compassion in our modern world. is compassion for people or other sentient beings, animals for example, who are experiencing what the Buddhists call blatant suffering. And such compassion tends to be episodic. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:16 Highlight the passage at 2:38:16

2:38:37 And that is, there's the Ebola outbreak. Well, it looks like in Nigeria, I think it is, they've got it contained. That's good. And I've heard there's a vaccine that's maybe on this way. Well, that would be really, really good. And so who knows, maybe they can contain it. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:37 Highlight the passage at 2:38:37

2:38:51 Then we can ease back, oh good, that could have been really, really big. Maybe these wonderful medical researchers and so forth, maybe they can contain it, a lot of damage, but it's not, of course, a world endemic. So then we ease off again, oh, okay, now it's okay, now Africa's okay. And then something else comes up, so it's episodic, episodic, and then it goes down again. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:51 Highlight the passage at 2:38:51

2:39:15 So that's actually the most superficial level of connection. I'll tell one more anecdote from the time the neuroscientists and I were up with the yogis. There was one yogi, he was the new kid on the block. He'd only been there for, he was a younger man, maybe late 30s or so. And he'd only been up there for maybe six years. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:15 Highlight the passage at 2:39:15

2:39:34 Novice meditator. But we heard that he was actually practicing shamatha, which not many actually do. It's odd, but that's the reality of it. Not many Tibetan yogis really practice shamatha. That might have been bizarre. But he was. And so we thought, oh boy, you know, the neuroscientist kind of salivating. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:34 Highlight the passage at 2:39:34

2:39:54 We've got a live one. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:54 Highlight the passage at 2:39:54

2:39:58 But the first thing, and he invited us in and we sat with him. What came up immediately was, well, we're also setting compassion. They'd like to know their neural correlates, facial expressions also. So they had video cameras. And one of the tests, it's based on Paul Ekman's work, is you'd show a video of something that's very painful to watch because you've seen people harmed. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:58 Highlight the passage at 2:39:58

2:40:20 It's not play, it's real, it's documentary. And then you have the yogi gaze at this little television LCD screen. And then while he's watching it, then there's a video camera focused on his face. And then if you do the whole nine yards, we obviously didn't have MRI up there, but with EEG input, but the facial expressions. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:20 Highlight the passage at 2:40:20

2:40:40 Because it's a very, very sophisticated kind of analysis of facial expression based on Paul Eckenberg and a colleague of it. And so we asked the yogi, would you be willing to watch a really difficult, difficult to watch, a video. In fact, they might have told him it's a video from 1987. So relatively recent, this was 1992 that we did this, just five years earlier there had been big demonstrations in Lhasa. Anybody who follows Tibetan news, big demonstrations. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:40 Highlight the passage at 2:40:40

2:41:07 And the retaliation from the Chinese Communist government was really, really brutal. And somebody there managed to take a video looking down on the street where there were these policemen, military, whatever. And they had their truncheons and there was a Buddhist monk and he's just cowering and they're just beating. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:07 Highlight the passage at 2:41:07

2:41:28 And just dressed like he's a baseball, just beating and beating and kicking and beating. He's cowering and just trying to, he's not fighting back at all. He's just cowering. He's just really, they're just mugging him. It's really hard to watch. And so they had that video and they said, can we watch this? Can we show this to you? Report an error in the passage at 2:41:28 Highlight the passage at 2:41:28

2:41:46 We'd like to do some measurements. He said, here we go. It was a black and white video. So all the scientists have gathered around. The yogis got the video. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:46 Highlight the passage at 2:41:46

2:41:58 All the scientists, they got the video camera on his face, of course, but they're also watching. How's it going to turn out? What's he going to express? Because they all know Paul Ekman's work. They're going to see something there. And so the yogi is sitting there. And I will do a very good imitation of what happened to his face as he's watching it. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:58 Highlight the passage at 2:41:58

2:42:22 He watched the whole video and that was his expression. There was nothing. Not happy, not sadness, nothing. Quite a surprise. And so they turned the video off. And they turned to him and they said, I'm an interpreter for all of this. And he said, well... What was going through your mind? Were you expected to see sorrow or anger or dismay or fear? I mean, all kinds of emotions could come up. These are monks just like him. They're just over the mountains. Report an error in the passage at 2:42:22 Highlight the passage at 2:42:22

2:42:48 What were you experiencing? Because we didn't see anything. And his response was, well, I Report an error in the passage at 2:42:48 Highlight the passage at 2:42:48

2:42:58 was watching a video a Report an error in the passage at 2:42:58 Highlight the passage at 2:42:58

2:43:04 long time ago. And so I'm watching a video. I'm not going to feel compassion for a video. You asked me to look at the video. I was seeing the video as a video. And there's nobody in there suffering. Those are flickering images on the screen. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:04 Highlight the passage at 2:43:04

2:43:19 But what were you feeling? Nothing that I wasn't already feeling. Because I knew about this years ago. Everybody knew about it. And so I'm not getting any new information here. I already knew about it. I'm living without awareness all the time. But it's not just the monks here in Tibet that are being beaten, but there's suffering taking place all over the world. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:19 Highlight the passage at 2:43:19

2:43:39 And it's all the time. And I'm always aware of the suffering in the world. So you're showing me a video, and I'm getting no new information, and I'm watching flickering images on the screen. So that's what I saw. I saw a flickering image on the screen in a world that is filled with suffering and this is outdated information that I already know about and therefore I didn't really feel much of any perturbation because throughout the whole course of the day I'm aware of the suffering of the world and that's why I'm here. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:39 Highlight the passage at 2:43:39

2:44:08 That's why I'm in retreat because I'm always aware of the suffering. That's my motivation to go into solitude, purify my mind, develop my mind so I can return and be of greater benefit. It's quite shocking. A response very kind of analytical. But that was his response. And so what we see on the news are these images. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:08 Highlight the passage at 2:44:08

2:44:35 And they may indeed, since we know they are referring to reality, they may indeed arouse this episodic compassion, some movement, at least sympathy. And then we change the channel. The news is over. The 22 minutes this has gone by. Okay, now what sitcom? What entertainment? Let's see a new spy throat. Lots of blood. I like that. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:35 Highlight the passage at 2:44:35

2:44:54 So the level of compassion corresponds to one's understanding of what's going on. And this deeper level of suffering that pertains to change, to attachment and so forth, the deeper level, that's where very, very deep and abiding compassion comes in. So I didn't get to know this monk very well, but I had a sense that he was living at a deeper level. And seeing these flickering images on the screen just didn't do anything for him one way or another. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:54 Highlight the passage at 2:44:54

2:45:23 Did it make him happier or sadder? Because he's working down here, and that's what kept him in retreat, and that's deeper. Report an error in the passage at 2:45:23 Highlight the passage at 2:45:23

2:45:33 Enjoy your lunch. Report an error in the passage at 2:45:33 Highlight the passage at 2:45:33