Four Immeasurables Retreat with B. Alan Wallace - Sydney 2014 (part 18)

· · · silence, 6 minutes

6:28 It becomes more explicit. And that, of course, is the awareness of awareness, the awareness of being aware. So rest in that awareness, the consciousness of consciousness. You Report an error in the passage at 6:28 Highlight the passage at 6:28

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7:27 can set your rhythm, sustain that rhythm independently of the breath. That's very good. But if, as a beginner in the practice, you find it helpful to maintain this peripheral awareness of the in-and-out breathing, then do so. Report an error in the passage at 7:27 Highlight the passage at 7:27

7:48 House, focus, concentrate your awareness right and upon the experience of being aware with every in-breath, Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

8:06 even as you release. Sustain gently this flow of awareness of awareness. See Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:17 that your respiration continues to flow in its natural rhythm, that you're not modifying it in any way. From Report an error in the passage at 8:17 Highlight the passage at 8:17

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9:43 shamatha, Report an error in the passage at 9:43 Highlight the passage at 9:43

9:50 let's cross the threshold into the paschana, whether it's Report an error in the passage at 9:50 Highlight the passage at 9:50

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10:28 going to do something you can. Invert your awareness in upon your lived experience of being the agent who can Report an error in the passage at 10:28 Highlight the passage at 10:28

10:43 simply see what you see. Do you see nothing as you're evacuated? Do you see an appearance of some kind, a presence of some kind? Just see what you see. Report an error in the passage at 10:43 Highlight the passage at 10:43

10:55 In virtue awareness, write in upon your experience of being the agent. Report an error in the passage at 10:55 Highlight the passage at 10:55

11:07 Focus and invert your awareness again. Report an error in the passage at 11:07 Highlight the passage at 11:07

· · · silence, 2 minutes

12:54 Never thoughts come on. Report an error in the passage at 12:54 Highlight the passage at 12:54

13:00 Don't even pay attention to them. Simply let them release themselves right back into the space of the mind. And sustain. Sustain this non-conceptual flow of knowing. Report an error in the passage at 13:00 Highlight the passage at 13:00

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14:06 Appearances of ours. Examine them closely. Are those appearances you? Are they a person? An agent? Or are they simply empty appearances like a rainbow or man closely? And Report an error in the passage at 14:06 Highlight the passage at 14:06

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16:28 invert your awareness right in upon your experience. is observing comes to mind. Report an error in the passage at 16:28 Highlight the passage at 16:28

16:40 into that experience, penetratingly. Report an error in the passage at 16:40 Highlight the passage at 16:40

16:48 all the totally relax. gently sustaining the flow of awareness of awareness. Report an error in the passage at 16:48 Highlight the passage at 16:48

· · · silence, 4 minutes

20:55 seems to represent you or reflect your very identity as the observer. Report an error in the passage at 20:55 Highlight the passage at 20:55

21:01 more deeply and observe that which is observing that Report an error in the passage at 21:01 Highlight the passage at 21:01

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22:04 Release them all into space, an objectless expanse. Release your mind in its entirety. Report an error in the passage at 22:04 Highlight the passage at 22:04

22:35 And as the breath flows in, accentuate the clarity of your awareness of being aware. So as the breath flows in, accentuate the luminosity of awareness. And as the breath flows out, release the mind and awareness itself into space with no object. Report an error in the passage at 22:35 Highlight the passage at 22:35

· · · silence, 4 minutes

26:45 So if at all possible, in the last three hours when we depart from here, I would love it if you could leave with confidence with respect to all the practices we've done. This is one of the subtlest, and so we could spend a few minutes if you like. If there's anything between you and confidence with respect to this practice of awareness of awareness, now is your chance. Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

27:11 The microphone's coming. Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:18 What you just did now, is there a podcast on that? Yes. I believe you. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:35 I believe you. Sure. what you said was Sure. Yeah, we just finished eight weeks of Dzogchen in Phuket, and this was the culminating practice prior to venturing into full-fledged Vipassanā and Dzogchen. It's right on the cusp, right on the cusp. So the answer is yes, it's there. And the podcast, for each of the podcasts, these would be in the morning meditations, the guided meditations. Report an error in the passage at 27:35 Highlight the passage at 27:35

27:59 And if I recall correctly, I think each of them has a bit of a description, so you shouldn't have to go through a whole bunch of them. Report an error in the passage at 27:59 Highlight the passage at 27:59

28:08 Say again? This one's also recorded, yeah. I will add this point. This practice that I just taught comes directly from the text Natural Liberation, and these are teachings of Padmasambhava. I translated it, the text itself, together with my Lama Gertrude, which is oral commentary. So it's very easy to find. It's called shamatha without a sign. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:30 And Padmasambhava makes a very remarkable comment or declaration about the method we've just done. He points out that... In this practice, when you're arousing, this tends to overcome the laxity. It just kind of takes care of it. As you're releasing, that tends to take care of the problem of excitation. Report an error in the passage at 28:30 Highlight the passage at 28:30

28:49 So every cycle of the oscillation is just balancing the mind finer and finer and finer without really any need to bring in outside help, like introspection coming in orthogonally and kind of keeping watch over the whole thing. If you're doing this practice, the remedies are built into the method itself. Report an error in the passage at 28:49 Highlight the passage at 28:49

29:07 So he makes no reference to introspection. It's quite unusual. So you can read, again, a more elaborate explanation of this in the text. But he makes this comment, and that is with this inversion of awareness, the inversion of awareness into your experience of being the agent, whatever you call it. You can call the agent the mind or yourself. But clearly, in some meaningful sense of the term, there has to be something that's controlling the mind. Report an error in the passage at 29:07 Highlight the passage at 29:07

29:33 Certainly not me, I can't control your mind, don't want to. So I gave a suggestion, I gave some instruction, and then presumably you chose to follow it, which means you were doing it, which means there was an agent. And so the question is, what's your experience of being the agent? That can be useful to probe into. And then more subtly, even when you're just sitting quietly, we do tend to have a strong sense of just being a presence here, someone in there, someone inside, who's looking at things that are not me. Report an error in the passage at 29:33 Highlight the passage at 29:33

30:03 Whether it's space or thoughts or anything else. And so probing into, I call it a cognoscopy. Instead of going into your colon, you go into cognition itself. Report an error in the passage at 30:03 Highlight the passage at 30:03

30:15 That is the idea, though. It's probing right into the very nature of being the agent, being the observer. The image that always comes to mind when I comment on this, we've seen it, I've only seen it in movies, I presume you probably also. But in medieval times, you know, those great big walled cities with the great big thick gates. Report an error in the passage at 30:15 Highlight the passage at 30:15

30:32 We've seen it, right? The big battering rim, like a great big tree trunk. And they just go boom, boom. Until just, you know, sooner or later, it just shatters. And then it's all the way through. That's called breakthrough to pristine awareness. Or cutting through to pristine awareness. And so you're kind of battering into this reified sense of I am. Report an error in the passage at 30:32 Highlight the passage at 30:32

30:56 I'm the agent. I'm in control. I'm at least in here. I'm the wizard of Oz behind the curtain. I'm really in here. Take my word for it. I really am in here. I'm the observer. I'm watching over everything. That sense of kind of a coagulated, reified, separate, polarized, subjective, agent, observer. And we're just back until it shatters. So Padmasambhava says of this practice that, of course, it can lead to your mind settling in its natural state, which means... Report an error in the passage at 30:56 Highlight the passage at 30:56

31:30 It simply dissolves and melts away. As you well know now, conceptually, it dissolves into the substrate consciousness. That's when your mind has settled in its natural state. You know what that means. But he makes this comment, too. With the practice we just did, which you found so easy, with this practice, with this practice alone, you may shatter right through your psyche, the coarse mind. Report an error in the passage at 31:30 Highlight the passage at 31:30

31:55 You may shatter right through that, right to the substrate consciousness. But then as you keep on probing in, Probing in, battering away, you may shatter also the reified sense of the substrate consciousness, the reified sense of consciousness itself as something in here. Shatter through that and then through this practice, one little practice we did for 24 minutes, that can be sufficient to break right through to pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 31:55 Highlight the passage at 31:55

32:22 And that's the whole point of Dzogchen. Dzogchen meditation, the great perfection. That's really it. That's the most important thing one can possibly do in meditation. And so this practice then can be a practice, one simple method, that was it. You can see if there's anything more to it. There's a little bit further elaboration, but we just took the core. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:42 This practice then is a shamatha practice. That's what it's called, shamatha without a sign. A sign means a target. If your attention has a vector, that which you're directing the vector to, that's a target, that's a sign. And all other methods of shamatha entail a sign, a target. This one doesn't, because you're not... Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

33:00 Going here and there, you're just resting right where it is. So it is a shamatha practice. At the same time, this has definitely crossed the threshold into Vipassanā territory. The fundamental difference between shamatha and Vipassanā is shamatha does not entail any inquiry. Vipassanā does. So simple mindfulness or bare attention, mindfulness meditation, mindfulness meditation, the word doesn't even exist in Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 33:00 Highlight the passage at 33:00

33:23 That's a new term. It's like introspection meditation. It doesn't mean anything in Buddhism. It's always become very popular in this extremely simplified form. But mindfulness meditation, if all one is doing is simply being aware of whatever is occurring, rising, falling and so forth, if one is simply maintaining and bare attention moment to moment, that's not Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 33:23 Highlight the passage at 33:23

33:44 A lot of people think it is, but they're wrong. They're just wrong. There's just no basis for that in Buddhism. You have to look. Look at the Buddha's great discourse on the four applications of mindfulness. There's no reference to bare attention at all. And there are a lot of references to really probing into, contemplating, examining the nature of phenomena. That's one heck of a lot more than simply bare attention. So, you know, there's an awful lot of dumbing down. Report an error in the passage at 33:44 Highlight the passage at 33:44

34:06 And that can be helpful for people who want something very, very simple. And that's good. It's helpful. But we should never really mistake the watered-down, popularized version for the real deal. They're really different. There's a professional level here that brings about radical irreversible transformation and not by doing the kindergarten level. Report an error in the passage at 34:06 Highlight the passage at 34:06

34:23 I don't mean to bejorative, but kindergarten is kindergarten. It's not bejorative, it's just kindergarten. And that's where most people are, which is why it's so popular. But there's so much more. So, so, so much more. So it kind of bugs me a little bit when people say, bear attention, just being present. This is the essence of all of Buddhist meditation. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:42 This is all, come give me a break. No, it's not. It's preschool. But it's a very good preschool. You graduate from that to shamatha, where you'll really learn how to focus your attention. In a professional way. And then you move from there into Vipassanā, as we did in that method. Definitely encroaching into. As soon as you're asking a question, what's the nature of the observer? Report an error in the passage at 34:42 Highlight the passage at 34:42

35:01 What's the nature of the agent? That's Vipassanā. That's Vipassanā. But then with this combined shamatha Vipassanā method, you may actually shatter through, into, or cut through into, or down to, pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, Buddha nature. In which case, this is Dzogchen meditation. That's what Dzogchen meditation is. It's called the texture cutting through. Report an error in the passage at 35:01 Highlight the passage at 35:01

35:21 That's the first of the two major phases of Dzogchen meditation. So this one method is shamatha, it's vipassanā, and it can also be, if you're quite gifted, also the practice of cutting through. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:35 Quite splendid, that. Okay, we're going to spend a bit more time. I would like to cover a bit more material, but we'll have two. We'll start with Chris. Microphone's coming. Report an error in the passage at 35:35 Highlight the passage at 35:35

36:00 liberation of life has two causes. first cause is hearing the word of the heart. Yes. And the second cause is, I don't know, I've got to be tripping with my body here. Report an error in the passage at 36:00 Highlight the passage at 36:00

36:14 which translates to doing the work of the mind. I just missed that. Is that going to? Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:44 I'm going onset of very profound secrets and secondly believe that it's a very strong pre-cognition lot of stuff is very, very, very much stuff. That's right. It changes everything. It changes everything. Why don't we just take a little teaspoon of Dzogchen and the great perfection. Report an error in the passage at 36:44 Highlight the passage at 36:44

37:13 Again, in the popularization of it, it so often gets watered down to almost homeopathic doses. But if we look at the authentic teachings, and many fine teachers do teach Dzogchen in a very authentic way, but in principle there's only one way to teach it authentically, in principle, in generality, and that is to teach Dzogchen, which for those who, in the Nima tradition, for example, is considered to be the pinnacle, the grand culmination of the Buddhist teachings. Report an error in the passage at 37:13 Highlight the passage at 37:13

37:41 And for which everything else is pointing in that direction, whether Pāli Canon, whether it's Mahāyāna, whether it's Zen, Chan, Vajrayana, whatever. And I actually believe this is true. And I think it's also beyond Buddhism. Aljo Asakli wrote the book, The Perennial Philosophy, which was life-transforming for me about 43 years ago, suggesting that there is some very profound convergence at the deepest level from Taoism, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta, Christianity, Buddhism and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 37:41 Highlight the passage at 37:41

38:08 And I think it converges on this. This dimension of consciousness. To teach it authentically. Then one teaches the Dzogchen view. That is, what does reality look like? It's not a belief system. Once again, it's not a belief system. Beliefs are cheap. They're actually cheap. I believe that exoplanets exist because the astronomers have very good research and that's what they say. That was so easy. Report an error in the passage at 38:08 Highlight the passage at 38:08

38:30 It wasn't easy for them because they actually know what they're talking about. That was a lot of work. But for me, I trust them. They've earned my trust. But it's cheap. And also it has no impact. I'm not doing anything different now that I believe in exoplanets. It hasn't changed anything. So useful, but really not very. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

38:49 I mean, it's good to know. I'm glad to know. So the first is the view of the Dzogchen, the view of the great perfection. And that actually, there's some, how do you say, resonance with what you were just there. It is the view of the great perfection to you from your perspective. Reality is arising as a great perfection moment by moment from you. Report an error in the passage at 38:49 Highlight the passage at 38:49

39:08 Now, it's not suggesting that the refugees in the Syrian camps, you know, from Syria, that their experience is a great perfection. We're not doing something awful here. Like it's the best of all possible worlds, kind of a nutty idea. No, it's from ourselves in the center of our own mandala. In this world in which I'm the center, everything is arising to me as the great perfection. Report an error in the passage at 39:08 Highlight the passage at 39:08

39:28 But then to see really what that means. Because it is the view of reality from the perspective of pristine awareness. So that's view. Meditation. Meditation is the second component. And meditation in Dzogchen is nothing more than sustaining the view. You tap into, you cut through to pristine awareness, so that is your perspective. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

39:47 And meditation is now, it's called Buddhahood without meditation, one classic text that I've retranslated and translated to commentary. Once you are resting in rikpa, pristine awareness, viewing a reality from that perspective, there is absolutely nothing to do. You simply sustain that being, that view, from the perspective of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 39:47 Highlight the passage at 39:47

40:08 And everything happens to you, everything arises to you, and you don't do anything. And as soon as you think, I need to start doing something, there's something I need to achieve, something I need to abandon, you've just slipped out of that, back into your usual rut of thinking you're a sentient being. Report an error in the passage at 40:08 Highlight the passage at 40:08

40:21 So that relates to your comment. So both of these, once again, the theme is giving us choices where we thought we had none. So as soon as you study Buddhism and you learn about what it is to be a sentient being, your immediate conclusion may be, I don't have any choice in the matter. I am a sentient being. That is the full story, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Very easy to draw that conclusion until you encounter Dzogchen. Report an error in the passage at 40:21 Highlight the passage at 40:21

40:49 And the Dzogchen acknowledges that is a valid perspective, but it's not the only one. And you have a choice. If you understand that your identity as a sentient being is something conceptually constructed, and what you conceptually construct, you can conceptually deconstruct. Because it wasn't already there before. Report an error in the passage at 40:49 Highlight the passage at 40:49

41:08 You didn't just give a label to it or a concept to it of something that was already pre-existent. That would be an inherently existent sentient being. If you look for that inherently existent sentient being that you think you are, you'll be in for a wonderful surprise if you're ready for it, and that is you don't exist inherently, really, truly, by your own nature as a sentient being. Report an error in the passage at 41:08 Highlight the passage at 41:08

41:28 It's a fiction, and it's a fiction that your own mind has concocted and you've tricked yourself. And if you see that, if you know that, then you can deconstruct that which you constructed. Just like the silly example of a person develops a psychosis of thinking that he's Napoleon Bonaparte, right? But if a wise therapist shows him how, in fact, that is a concoction, a fabrication of his own mind, really shows him very skillfully, then that person can deconstruct that fabrication and overcome the silly idea that one is Napoleon Bonaparte. Report an error in the passage at 41:28 Highlight the passage at 41:28

42:00 And if you've done that, then you open the door to realizing, to making a choice. And that is you can go back and identify normally, conventionally, relatively with yourself as a sentient being, or you can simply dissolve that and let your awareness drop, descend into primordial consciousness. And there all that's left when you've released all identification with yourself as being a sentient being, released all the identification with substrate consciousness, then what's left when you're not grasping onto anything at all is pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 42:00 Highlight the passage at 42:00

42:34 And that's the perspective of a Buddha. And simply resting in that, doing nothing, achieving nothing, abandoning nothing, modifying nothing, doing nothing, then your Buddhahood becomes more and more manifest until it is completely manifest. So that's a meditation. But even the greatest yogis don't formally meditate 24 hours a day. Report an error in the passage at 42:34 Highlight the passage at 42:34

43:00 They will go for tea, they'll go to the bathroom, they'll wash their clothes or what have you. And so then we have way of life, the context. The context for your meditation, your whole way of life. And so then there is a Dzogchen way of life. So there's a Dzogchen way of viewing reality. There's a practice of simply resting in that view. And then there's a context of your way of life that is completely permeated by the view and your meditation. But it in turn is completely in harmony with, nurtures, supports, saturates your view and your meditation. Report an error in the passage at 43:00 Highlight the passage at 43:00

43:33 So it's one completely integrated. What do we call it? Package, system, path. And if one takes out any one of those components, the other two vanish. It's one of those things. So that's the integrated Dzogchen. One final question and we're going to return to the... Report an error in the passage at 43:33 Highlight the passage at 43:33

43:56 That's the word. Report an error in the passage at 43:56 Highlight the passage at 43:56

44:09 Yeah, it's about just energy surges. It is what it is. that's weird. Report an error in the passage at 44:09 Highlight the passage at 44:09

44:18 And the more that happens, the more you think, the more you're likely to draw the conclusion, gee, that prāṇa, maybe that's not a superstition after all. Report an error in the passage at 44:18 Highlight the passage at 44:18

44:29 I'm missing that. Report an error in the passage at 44:29 Highlight the passage at 44:29

44:36 Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 44:36 Highlight the passage at 44:36

44:42 Simply keep on releasing grasping and see what happens. No problem with that. No problem with joyfulness. There was a sense that I hadn't let go of my Report an error in the passage at 44:42 Highlight the passage at 44:42

44:54 That's not a problem. Report an error in the passage at 44:54 Highlight the passage at 44:54

44:58 Well, on Report an error in the passage at 44:58 Highlight the passage at 44:58

45:09 the one hand it's simply true, and that is on a relative level. Here we are with a shared vision, shared aspiration, shared practice, and we're having an intersubjective experience here. Report an error in the passage at 45:09 Highlight the passage at 45:09

45:22 And so this means right now, in Buddhist perspective, we're all accumulating collective karma. And it's quite good. I don't see any downside to this. But it's collective karma. other day I'm going to study this. Report an error in the passage at 45:22 Highlight the passage at 45:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

45:31 Which means that also our individual continua of consciousness, like the substrate consciousness in particular, they're intertwined here. They're intertwined. They don't fuse into one, but nor are they inherently separate. So they're not inherently one, nor inherently separate. They are entangled. A nice connection, isn't it, from quantum mechanics? The whole notion of entanglement. Report an error in the passage at 45:31 Highlight the passage at 45:31

45:52 It's really not a bad, it's a metaphor, of course, but it's not bad. So yeah, that's true. So there's a level of kind of something collective, a level of entanglement, and that's still on the level of mind and substrate consciousness, coarse mind and subtle mind. But then when you keep on just releasing, releasing, then the whole notion of one and many vanishes. So by the time you're simply resting in pristine awareness, then it simply literally transcends all conceptual categories, existence and non-existence, coming and going, one and many. Report an error in the passage at 45:52 Highlight the passage at 45:52

46:26 and arising and ceasing. I think the discussion Report an error in the passage at 46:26 Highlight the passage at 46:26

46:58 of equanimity is quite clear all the way down to H, the role of mindfulness, very, very meaningful, but I think it's quite clear by itself. So we'll just go to this final quote. One thing I really love doing, just as in the spirit of the combination practice of balancing earth and sky, which I think you now know, this infirmary, awareness of awareness, I really love that, where you take things that seem to be polar opposites and then you find the synthesis or the synergy between them. Report an error in the passage at 46:58 Highlight the passage at 46:58

47:26 And so in a similar fashion, something I really, really enjoy doing and I find very meaningful and helpful for myself is to keep coming back to the polycanon, this foundational bedrock. But it's uncontested for all the schools. So there's the ground, there's the earth. And then come up to Dzogchen, which is just space, just infinite space. Report an error in the passage at 47:26 Highlight the passage at 47:26

47:47 And to be balancing earth and sky, balancing the Pāli Canon with the most sublime teachings in the Dzogchen tradition. I find that very meaningful. We did that quite a number of times in the Phuket retreat we just finished. So with that in mind, I'd like to quote here a brief passage from... Again, the Pāli Canon, Udana, one of the classic texts, sayings of the Buddha. And so the Buddha states here, for one who clings, motion exists. Report an error in the passage at 47:47 Highlight the passage at 47:47

48:15 And when he says clings, you can read grasping, it's the same. So when there's grasping, motion exists. I think you'll have a very clear sense of what that means. Of course, that means different things on different levels. But just if you relate that to the practice of settling the mind in its natural state, then you know exactly what that means. Report an error in the passage at 48:15 Highlight the passage at 48:15

48:35 For one who clings, for one who grasps, motion exists, but for one who clings not, there is no motion. Where no motion is, there is stillness. Where stillness is, there is no craving. Where there's no craving, there's neither coming or going. Where there's no coming or going, there's neither arising or passing away. Report an error in the passage at 48:35 Highlight the passage at 48:35

48:54 Where there's neither arising or passing away, there is neither this world nor a world beyond, nor a state in between. This burial is the end of Saffron. Report an error in the passage at 48:54 Highlight the passage at 48:54

49:11 So no need to... Read the summary, but just so you have it in one place, the core nature or expressions of each of the four immeasurables. When I say may we all, of course the Tibetan, the Sanskrit reads may all sentient beings, so whichever you like, we all does cover all sentient beings, but either way you like, may all sentient beings be endowed with happiness and its causes and so on. Report an error in the passage at 49:11 Highlight the passage at 49:11

49:39 And then the next point. Very, very helpful, very useful, and I've not unpacked it fully, so I think now's a really good time to do so. It's part of the, I find, to my perspective, kind of the awesome wisdom of these four, which at first glance may look like just four very nice virtues that would be really good to cultivate. Report an error in the passage at 49:39 Highlight the passage at 49:39

50:00 And then the more one goes into them and sees the majesty of the sequence of them, the subtlety of them, the depth of them, And then recognizing also that each one has its own false facsimile, the way that it just kind of goes astray into something that looks like it but really is not. Report an error in the passage at 50:00 Highlight the passage at 50:00

50:17 So now part of the majesty of these four is it turns out that when any of the four goes astray and succumbs to its false facsimile, there's another one of the four that is a natural remedy for that. So, for example, when loving-kindness gets downgraded to self-centered attachment, back to the I-it relationship, right? Report an error in the passage at 50:17 Highlight the passage at 50:17

50:48 Back to self-centered attachment, where one is really focusing on oneself, that one's engagement with other people, when all is said and done, although we don't really want to say it publicly, but our engagement with other people especially, let alone animals, is really to fulfill our own self-interest. Report an error in the passage at 50:48 Highlight the passage at 50:48

51:06 That we are actually in a very subtle, perhaps quite clever, quite... Charismatic way, possibly, who knows? Manipulating other people as objects for our own well-being. That's called self-centered attachment. And so it's placing, when this occurs, we're clearly placing a greater priority, greater value in our own well-being, obviously, than the people that we're manipulating. Report an error in the passage at 51:06 Highlight the passage at 51:06

51:31 Otherwise we wouldn't manipulate them. So when that happens... Among the four immeasurables, is there one of the immeasurables that arises up and acts as a natural antibody, so to speak, almost like your body having diseases and within the body antibodies come out and then dispel that which is causing affliction? Report an error in the passage at 51:31 Highlight the passage at 51:31

51:50 And the answer is yes, happily we'll see this is true each time. And so, and this one makes also perfectly good sense. If you're coming to self-centered attachment, you have that sense of your own well-being being more important than others, so therefore it's justifiable to use, to exploit others for the sake of your own well-being, then meditate on equanimity. Report an error in the passage at 51:50 Highlight the passage at 51:50

52:13 It's the natural antibody. We're really focusing on the equality not only of friend, enemy and the neutral person. But at the very core, the equality between yourself and others, and not only believing it, not only thinking it, but actually viewing reality in this way, that you actually do not view your own well-being as any more important than anyone else. Report an error in the passage at 52:13 Highlight the passage at 52:13

52:38 And that actually is realistic for the simple reason is it's not more valuable than anyone else. It's the same. So that is a natural antibody. Report an error in the passage at 52:38 Highlight the passage at 52:38

52:49 Now when you cultivate equanimity, So you'll see the loop here. So the remedy for self-centered detachment was equanimity. Cultivate equanimity, that too can fall into its own rut. And its rut, its false facsimile, is aloof indifference. But when one falls, and this can happen for so many reasons, I think we're all aware, and I've even mentioned it here, it can happen in helping professions, whether it's school. Report an error in the passage at 52:49 Highlight the passage at 52:49

53:17 Whether it's medicine, whether it's psychotherapy, you're seeing how many? 10, 15 clients a day? And each one's coming to you only talking about negative stuff. I mean, pretty much they're not coming to talk about the weather and what a great time they've had. I assume, I'm not a psychotherapist, but I generally think they're probably talking about the problems and not how much they love you and enjoy their lives. Report an error in the passage at 53:17 Highlight the passage at 53:17

53:37 They don't need to pay for that, right? And so you're hearing that day after day after day. I can easily imagine how that could just after a while give a rise to a loop in difference. Being very professional. Report an error in the passage at 53:37 Highlight the passage at 53:37

53:51 And even, that is, you're treating each client very professionally, no harassment, no exploitation, not doing anything you would be sued for, because nobody gets sued for a loop of indifference. Report an error in the passage at 53:51 Highlight the passage at 53:51

54:03 You can get by on that one, you can get under the radar. So when that happens, and it can happen for Dharma teachers, it can happen for people working in the refugee camps, it can happen to anybody, really anybody at all. And it can happen not only, of course, in these so-called service professions, but it can also happen as a result of tragedy. Report an error in the passage at 54:03 Highlight the passage at 54:03

54:23 The loss of a spouse or just some personal tragedy and then just kind of the coldness comes in and there's kind of just general withdrawal. Report an error in the passage at 54:23 Highlight the passage at 54:23

54:34 That is the Report an error in the passage at 54:34 Highlight the passage at 54:34

54:38 dissociation is probably the right word. So that can happen. Well, when that happens, for whatever reason, and it can happen through meditation. It happens through meditation. I have seen photos of Buddhist monks and I'm looking at the body language and facial expression and I've seen some Buddhist monks. It's not for me to judge. Report an error in the passage at 54:38 Highlight the passage at 54:38

54:58 I don't know their minds. But just looking at appearances, it looks like... They can be lay people, of course, it's not that special about being a monk. But if one goes really hardcore into Vipassanā, Vipassanā, Vipassanā, Vipassanā, maybe some shamatha, shamatha, Vipassanā, and never steps out of that into just being a human being, loving kindness and so forth, a loop of indifference can come right out of your Buddhist practice. Report an error in the passage at 54:58 Highlight the passage at 54:58

55:22 I read years ago also one, I'm going to keep it big, I don't want to point fingers, but I read, this one, I just mentioned Buddhism, I mentioned one other tradition, Christianity. I remember reading a long time ago about one monk who, Just totally absorbed himself in the Jesus prayer. Just total absorption. That was just like his life was permeated by the Jesus prayer. Sounds really good, like he became very adept and contemplative. Report an error in the passage at 55:22 Highlight the passage at 55:22

55:47 But as I was reading his biography, he was completely indifferent to everybody around him. He was just kind of immersed in his Jesus prayer. But like, get out of my way and do my Jesus prayer. Out of the way. Don't bug me. Don't irritate me. Come on, I'm just doing my Jesus prayer. And it can give you this kind of sweet spiritual cocoon that you slip into. You basically have only one request from the world. Report an error in the passage at 55:47 Highlight the passage at 55:47

56:10 Don't bother me. Report an error in the passage at 56:10 Highlight the passage at 56:10

56:14 So it can happen anywhere. Really, it can happen anywhere. And then what's the antidote? What's the antidote is compassion. Because when you're there, and if you should actually notice someone who's really in misery, and you don't just kind of glaze it over quickly like an automatic. Defense mechanism, just blaze it over and see that person as an it. Then you can, right? But if you can untrigger that mechanism and linger there and attend to another person who's suffering or a community who's suffering, it becomes real for you because you're attending to it. Report an error in the passage at 56:14 Highlight the passage at 56:14

56:58 So that's why compassion among the four measurables is the natural antibody or equanimity when it goes astray. But now cultivate compassion a lot. Where you really are then, maybe you get into the habit of it. And you're really attending to people and animals and people of all kinds, the elderly and the sick and the injured and the lonely and just kind of a lot stuck. Report an error in the passage at 56:58 Highlight the passage at 56:58

57:21 And the animals are just all eating each other. And when they're not eating each other, they're getting sick. And when they're not getting sick, they're dying. And just so, and when not dying, they're being used by somebody, by human beings or whatever. It's beasts of burden, you know, they're just being used as an object. And so when one simply, and then let alone the six realms of existence in Buddhism, it just adds more oil to the fire. Report an error in the passage at 57:21 Highlight the passage at 57:21

57:40 And so when one looks at all of that, it can be just crushing, just crushing, overwhelming, like a comment that Chris was making last night, Chris. Report an error in the passage at 57:40 Highlight the passage at 57:40

57:53 And so then you can fall into depression, you know, really easily. You can just see, you know, it's like out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, like, There's just no islands anywhere for 5,000 miles. Okay, you're going to flounder. And you just descend into depression. It can really easily happen. In which case, then you've already guessed this one. Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:11 There's a natural antibody among the four measurables, and that's an empathetic journey. Where you see, again and again with Chris, you see the islands. There's going to be one heck of a lot of depression. Already it's enormous. And it's growing. The kind of epidemic of global depression. I think it's the most costly disease right now, in terms of missing. Report an error in the passage at 58:11 Highlight the passage at 58:11

58:32 Missing work and all that kind of thing. Good old pragmatic approach to depression. A utilitarian approach. But I don't think one has to be much of a prophet to recognize that's probably going to increase. Because there's going to be just more and more things to be depressed about. Report an error in the passage at 58:32 Highlight the passage at 58:32

58:51 That is not Report an error in the passage at 58:51 Highlight the passage at 58:51

58:55 all just dark. And that's when islands are going to be really important. Individual islands, communities, places, shining with clarity, with virtue, with kindness, with wisdom. They'll be kind of like the only hope, I think, for many. And so, as the Buddha said, be an island unto yourself. Take no external refuge. Be an island that other people can take refuge in. So, empathetic joy. Report an error in the passage at 58:55 Highlight the passage at 58:55

59:21 Empathetic joy. Being able to direct your attention to someone. Hedonic well-being is fine, but it does come and go. It tends to be so ephemeral. But if you can focus on someone who's actually experiencing something meaningful, some dimension of yudamonia, whether from ethics, whether from samādhi or wisdom, that's really something to take delight in. Report an error in the passage at 59:21 Highlight the passage at 59:21

59:43 So that does lift one out. That's the liberator of depression is really focusing on dwelling in this awareness, this view of genuine happiness and virtue in the world and taking heart. Report an error in the passage at 59:43 Highlight the passage at 59:43

1:00:00 Then, of course, the cultivation of empathetic joy, that can go into a tailspin and go right into hedonic fixation. Everything's finally going well for you. You've got everything sorted out. Life is good. And so you're just fixating on that, which means now you're just immersed in the suffering of change because you feel really good. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:00 Highlight the passage at 1:00:00

1:00:17 You really love your life. Everything worked out. Saṃsāra really turned out to be pretty okay. But all of your sense of well-being, all your happiness, is all rooted in a whole network of attachments. And everything you're attached to will dissolve. It's only a matter of when. So one forgets about that. And one then falls into just sheer hedonism. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:17 Highlight the passage at 1:00:17

1:00:35 This is the most interesting and the most unexpected one. But of course you know there's only one immeasurable left that hasn't already been tagged as a remedy or antibody for others that have gone astray. But it's not just they have to think of some things where they thought of the one left over. This turns out to be the most interesting one, I think. And not immediately obvious, but as soon as you reflect upon it, I think you'll see that it is a really good choice. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:35 Highlight the passage at 1:00:35

1:00:58 And that is when you start fixating simply on hedonic well-being and being satisfied with that or simply wanting more of the same. More is better. Greater consumption, greater enjoyment, greater consumption, production. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:58 Highlight the passage at 1:00:58

1:01:15 Then where's the natural antibody? Well, you can see it. It's loving kindness. But now loving kindness, of course, is not simply hedonic loving kindness. Go for it. Go for it. Dude, be even happier. Get another car. Get a whole collection of cars. You'd be so much happier than if you only had three cars. It's not stupid. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:15 Highlight the passage at 1:01:15

1:01:35 The loving kindness here has to be loving kindness imbued with wisdom, which is really focusing on eudaimonia, bringing to mind, remembering. Your past experience, which has been obliterated by falling into hedonism. Remembering what, and it's a simple thing, it's not a spiritual thing or a lofty, knowable thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:35 Highlight the passage at 1:01:35

1:01:53 It's just being realistic. What actually makes you happy? What truly makes you happy? It's just a straight, honest question. Is this really doing it for you? Is this going right to your heart? Giving you a sense of satisfaction, of fulfillment, of meaning, really satisfying your deepest longing to have all these hedonic pleasures. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:53 Highlight the passage at 1:01:53

1:02:10 And are you actually finding that you are happier when you have more stuff, more stimulation, more, more, more? Is it working for you or not? This really is wisdom. And you pose that question in a loving way. And you say, you know, you really have hit a dead end here. It doesn't look like it from the outside, but you should know inside. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:10 Highlight the passage at 1:02:10

1:02:30 Look, look carefully. Are you really finding the happiness you're seeking? And you do this in a loving way, wishing for yourself to find happiness. Genuine. Wise, eudaimonic, loving kindness. And that will take you out of the rut. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:30 Highlight the passage at 1:02:30

1:02:48 So, there's an image I like a lot. It's probably corny, but I like it anyway. I like some corny thing. For these four, how they relate. The Buddha commented much earlier, remember in the Kalama Sutta, he said a person who recognizes mental afflictions as mental afflictions and really tries to attenuate them, good because they're toxic, and then goes to the cultivation of virtue, also tries to avoid... Report an error in the passage at 1:02:48 Highlight the passage at 1:02:48

1:03:16 -harmful behavior, non-virtuous behavior, but in terms of the positive side of the ledger, doing something really... He said, well, focus on these. These are good. Uncontestably good. And then, you remember what he said, if you do this, then regardless of your worldview, whether you believe there's an afterlife or not an afterlife, this is going to turn out well no matter what. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:16 Highlight the passage at 1:03:16

1:03:40 And even if you're right, it turns out the materialists are right, and the Buddha said, oh, gosh, I must have made a big mistake on that night of enlightenment. Even if that's true, the four immeasurables are still the best bet. So the question came up, no matter what, with the mountains crushing in all directions, well, this is one of the really best bets. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:40 Highlight the passage at 1:03:40

1:03:58 And that is whatever is happening, mountains crushing or not crushing, if you're cultivating the four immeasurables, that's definitely fail-safe. There's no way to look back on it and say, oh my goodness, why did I spend so much time cultivating loving kindness? Not going to happen, right? So that's very nice to have some kind of a security. Regardless of worldview, this is really good. And so then if one really kind of embraces that. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:58 Highlight the passage at 1:03:58

1:04:22 That one would really like to be cultivating these on an ongoing way, not just 20 minutes in the morning or have you, but let it more and more suffuse. The classroom, the business, the hospital, your psychologist's office and so forth, your family and so forth. If you'd really like to be having this suffuse, so that in every encounter you have with anything, that you'll find one of the four is definitely a suitable response. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:22 Highlight the passage at 1:04:22

1:04:49 So if you see someone, anyone, seeking happiness. Then you wish them to find happiness in its causes, whose loving kindness. If you see anyone suffering or perpetuating their own suffering by their minds becoming dominated by mental afflictions and then acting on them, it's very easy to be judgmental, but why not do the realistic thing and feel compassion? Report an error in the passage at 1:04:49 Highlight the passage at 1:04:49

1:05:09 You see anyone enjoying hedonic pleasure, children playing in a playground, people, yogis meditating for 40 years in solitude, whatever it may be. See, anybody finding joy, cultivating the causes of joy, of course, it's... Empathetic joy. And then she's at all times, in all circumstances, equanimity. So whatever the encounter is of any kind whatsoever with any sentient beings at all times and all places, one or more of the four measurables is going to be a very realistic and nurturing, helpful, transformative response. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:09 Highlight the passage at 1:05:09

1:05:42 So one may then take these four measurables if you consider your life to be like a carriage and you're venturing along the pathway of life. The carriage of your own identity, your body-mind. So let's say the carriage is your body-mind. That's our vehicle, so to speak. Then you may have the vehicle of your presence in the world drawn by the four great steeds of the four measures. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:42 Highlight the passage at 1:05:42

1:06:08 To in front, to in back. So I like to think of up there in front on the left-hand side is the great steed of loving kindness. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:08 Highlight the passage at 1:06:08

1:06:18 And right on the right, in front, compassion. So you're leading with love and compassion. That just can't go wrong. Whatever you're going to do, if you're leading, they say when you're walking, lead with your chest. You heard that one? Don't go like this. So you're leading with love and kindness and compassion. So that's how you're leading. That's the trail breaker. That's how you're covering new ground with the steeds, just carrying you right across into the new territory with love and kindness and compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:18 Highlight the passage at 1:06:18

1:06:43 But the backup right behind love and kindness is equanimity. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:43 Highlight the passage at 1:06:43

1:06:51 Compassion is empathetic joy. So loving kindness, compassion, equanimity and empathetic joy. That's nice. But here's how it gets better. And that is, as you're making your way on the great voyage of your life, if on occasion loving kindness stumbles, this great stallion, maybe a foot goes into a pothole or something and it stumbles, maybe it's about to fall over, then right behind loving kindness is equanimity. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:51 Highlight the passage at 1:06:51

1:07:21 And equanimity just calls out to loving kindness. Don't worry. You stumble. I've got your back. And I will rescue you. As soon as you start to stumble, I'm going to be right there to bring you back, help you back. I've got your back. I'm looking right at your rump. What can I do? And if compassion stumbles, starts to get really losing heart, losing hope, despair starting to come in, overwhelmed by the suffering, right behind it is that very chipper steed called empathetic joy. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:21 Highlight the passage at 1:07:21

1:07:49 Same thing. You start straying away, and I've got your back. I'm going to help you. I'll bring you right back again. But then empathetic joy, that one also can stumble. Starting going frivolous, hedonic and so forth. But then up there on the left-hand corner, there's loving kindness and says, I'm watching you. I'm watching out of the corner of my eye. I've got my eye on you at all times. And empathetic joy, if you ever stumble, start straying off the path, Report an error in the passage at 1:07:49 Highlight the passage at 1:07:49

1:08:21 it starts to stumble. And there's compassion up on the right, the front right, keeping an eye on you, taking care of you. You start to lose it, go into aloof indifference, apathy and so forth. I'll help you. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:21 Highlight the passage at 1:08:21

1:08:40 The teachings on Donglen I think are pretty straightforward. There it is. It's pretty clear English. Just one comment in this regard. The practice is an old one. It's very widely practiced, considered to be one of the most powerful practices in all of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. It's a Mahāyāna Buddhist practice. Many people find it very meaningful. I certainly do. I've been practicing for you. And in the midst of this, one can ask a very reasonable question. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:40 Highlight the passage at 1:08:40

1:09:14 And that is if you're focusing on a loved one or maybe someone distant who's having a difficult time or a region of the globe where there's real suffering, you know about it. And you're focusing your attention, you're practicing donna, you're sending out the light of love and kindness. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:14 Highlight the passage at 1:09:14

1:09:29 You're drawing in and dissolving the darkness of suffering and its causes. One can say, well, what's the purpose of the practice? Why are we doing this? I mean, it's not just a light show, it's not just a conceptual exercise, it's not simply a rousing aspiration. What is the purpose? And the purpose, of course, is to overcome, now this is in my end of Buddhist practice, the purpose of this is to really overcome, undermine and eradicate this deeply ingrained tendency of what's called self-centeredness, self-centeredness. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:29 Highlight the passage at 1:09:29

1:09:57 And that's simply the sense of one's own well-being being most important. So this is the father that runs out of the house and leaves everybody behind. He didn't harm them, but he said, you know, if only one person can get out, maybe if I linger and try to get the kids out, maybe we'll all get torched. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:57 Highlight the passage at 1:09:57

1:10:18 I don't want that. So if only one person can get out, that's going to be me. I'm out. Well, this is why from the Mahāyāna perspective, I don't know if I agree or disagree on this, it's entirely your choice, but from the Mahāyāna perspective, the view of the Arhat is, even though the Arhat is free of Delusion, craving and hostility. The free poison, because the arhat is. If you're not free of the afflictions, you're not an arhat. And you have to be irreversibly and completely free, otherwise you're not an arhat. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:18 Highlight the passage at 1:10:18

1:10:51 And yet still the arhat's willing to leave and never come back. Not craving, not attachment. Because if you look at the definition, the arhat doesn't have that. Something subtler than craving or attachment is simply the bottom line sense, my well-being is more important. And if I can get out by myself, I'm going to do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:51 Highlight the passage at 1:10:51

1:11:12 I'm not attached to anything, but if I can get out, I will. And that's self-centeredness. And that just is considered to be inadequate from a Mahana perspective. It's just something that's not real. Because one's own well-being, as a matter of fact, is not more important than anybody else's. So to treat it as if it is more important than anybody else is not realistic. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:12 Highlight the passage at 1:11:12

1:11:34 That's why the bodhisattva ideal respects the person who so purifies the mind and is able to get out of saṃsāra and nevertheless is... That's not a satisfactory culmination of the path for me. If it is for you, bless you. May you be well. But what is often known? The sense of entanglement, the sense of interrelationship, it's just too vivid, too explicit, too overwhelming to even consider extracting yourself, getting your own liberation, leaving all the whole network behind. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:34 Highlight the passage at 1:11:34

1:12:03 And so the Dong Lin practice is really designed to undermine, to eliminate, to dampen, to soften, to... Ameliorate and then finally to eradicate the sense of self-centeredness. Just enhancing, deepening, deepening the sense of connectedness and, as you know, this cultivation of compassion and of loving kindness, but also with a sense of actually doing something, taking on the responsibility. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:03 Highlight the passage at 1:12:03

1:12:29 So is this helpful? To enhance one's own compassion, enhance one's own loving kindness, and enhance the genuine sense of caring for others and actually the exchange of self for others in the sense of prioritizing others' well-being over one's own. The answer is yes. Then we can ask, is that all there is to it? Or, a really good question is, if you do this meditation, sitting quietly in your room, just doing the meditation, and you're attending, let's say, to a loved one, a person suffering from bone cancer. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:29 Highlight the passage at 1:12:29

1:13:01 Might your meditation do any good for that person at all? Is it possible? And I'm not talking about coincidence. Might there actually be some causal link? You're doing this meditation and this person felt something. Is that possible? The Buddhist answer is yes. Yes, it is possible. Can you count on it happening if you pray very earnestly, sincerely, deeply, passionately, practicing Doman for another person who's sick? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:01 Highlight the passage at 1:13:01

1:13:26 Can you count on it that that person will get well? The answer is no. Can't count on that. Well, then is it just kind of like happenstance? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but just kind of basically coincident. Not that either. So the two easy ones not. It doesn't work like surefire technique. This is how I heal people. I just practice the meditation. Nor is it, well, sometimes yes, sometimes no, go figure. It's just coincidence. Neither one of those. It's something in between. And the Buddhist answer here is, and it makes sense only with the Buddhist worldview, but that's what I'm speaking from here, that... Report an error in the passage at 1:13:26 Highlight the passage at 1:13:26

1:13:58 But we, as individuals, we do have stronger karmic connections with some people than others. The Buddha Shakyamuni did. That's why he was in India at that time and that place. And many people had had karmic connections with him over past life. They were the ones that wound up being there at that time and at that place. And he was able then to bring about enormous transformation and liberation of so many. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:58 Highlight the passage at 1:13:58

1:14:20 So he had a karmic connection with him. And then when he'd done everything he could with that body, And he asked his attendant three times. You remember that? He asked Ananda three times, his closest attendant for like 25 years. Ananda had been at his side all the time, listening to every Dharma talk he ever gave. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:20 Highlight the passage at 1:14:20

1:14:38 Then on three occasions, separate occasions, the Buddha turned to Ananda and said, Ananda, a Buddha has the ability to live as long as he wishes. Ananda heard it once and said something like, so be a lord? Or just like, what? And the Buddha said it again in something modern vernacular like, that's impressive. And then the Buddha said it the third time. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:38 Highlight the passage at 1:14:38

1:15:13 Ananda sees it the same thing. And Ananda said the same thing. And the Buddha heard him and he said, Ananda, and he passed away in three months. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:13 Highlight the passage at 1:15:13

1:15:26 Ananda didn't say, please stay. He didn't ask him to stay. Which wasn't, I mean, later on some of the people got upset with him for being so dull. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:26 Highlight the passage at 1:15:26

1:15:37 But it's really not his fault. It's not his fault. I mean, if the Buddha saw there was more for him to do with that body, he would have stayed longer. He would have stayed longer. He didn't need to ask his prop. He didn't need to ask his attendant, you know, for permission to stay or whatever. That was symbolic. But he finished what he needed to do. The Tibetan call it Gomba Tsoppa. Your intention has been fulfilled for a particular lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:37 Highlight the passage at 1:15:37

1:16:00 Intention has been fulfilled. You've done what you needed to do, what you aspire to do with this body, and I can release it. So the third time then the Buddha addressed Ananda. Ananda in three months and now passing to Pada Nirvāṇa. And he let him know that so that everybody who wanted to have some final farewell, some final teaching. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:00 Highlight the passage at 1:16:00

1:16:32 So, karmic connection. If one is practicing Domen and directing sincerely, really wishing, actually wishing to give away your own happiness, like a mother does so often for children, or father also on occasion. You'd actually be happy to give away your own happiness, your own joy, even your own virtues, your own merit. You'd actually be happy to give that to another person so that they could find happiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:32 Highlight the passage at 1:16:32

1:16:57 And you'd actually be happy to take on their suffering if you could. And again, it happens all the time with parents, sometimes with friends. You'd be actually, if I could take on your suffering, I would take it on. And you imagine taking it on if it gets that sincere. And if, and this is one of those things that just can't be studied scientifically. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:57 Highlight the passage at 1:16:57

1:17:16 The answer to this question, if there's some strong karmic connection with that person, you can't study the scientific, but if there is, then as you're engaging in this practice, that person may actually find relief from the suffering. And it's also true, it can actually have some repercussions for yourself, that you may get some vestige, some reflection, some aspect of that suffering or illness yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:16 Highlight the passage at 1:17:16

1:17:41 That does happen. It can. So you want to be a bit careful with that. If you're not quite ready, And one has to be absolutely sincere with oneself in this regard. No hypocrisy. If one is genuinely wishing for the other person to be free of suffering, to find happiness, but you're not genuinely... I mean, if you've seen somebody die of bone cancer, it's going to take an enormously courageous person to think, if I could take that on myself, I would. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:41 Highlight the passage at 1:17:41

1:18:07 That's going to be an extremely rare individual. And if you're not there, then don't pretend you're there. In which case, here's how you practice. That is, if you're there, if you're actually there... Bone cancer, very intense. But maybe there's something lesser, you know, that you feel, that I could take on. Maybe the person has a cold. I wish I could, and the person has to do some major work here, and the cold is really, really a big problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:07 Highlight the passage at 1:18:07

1:18:30 Maybe you say, you're cold, I could take on. Bone cancer, I'm going to have to wait. But cold, yeah, I can take that on. If you actually have that sense, I could take it on, then you actually imagine it coming to you and taking it on gladly. But if you're not there, then don't pretend you are. And that's the practice we've done. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:30 Highlight the passage at 1:18:30

1:18:47 I never suggested, imagine actually taking on the suffering, the mental addiction and so forth of other people. I never suggested that. I don't think it's good at this level. But what you can do is exactly what we did. And that is you imagine your own Buddha nature as this fathomless orb of light at your heart. And when you imagine taking in the darkness of bone cancer, suffering, mental addictions, whatever it is, you imagine that that darkness is lifted, drawn into this orb of light at your heart, and ever so importantly, vanished without trace. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:47 Highlight the passage at 1:18:47

1:19:17 So then you're not really taking it upon yourself. You're not wishing, may I get your bone cancer. You probably can't wish that in your heart. But you can wish, might that just dissolve into my heart, the orb of light of the heart, and vanish without trace, so nobody has it. That one we can do. So on occasion, and there are cases throughout Buddhist history where this has worked, that you may actually indeed alleviate the suffering of another person through this practice. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:17 Highlight the passage at 1:19:17

1:19:45 Stepping outside the Buddhist context, just for a moment, The most famous and most public, widely renowned case of a person practicing Donglen that's known throughout the entire world. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:45 Highlight the passage at 1:19:45

1:20:00 That's up there. He's practicing Donglen. Read it. That's what he's doing. It had a pretty big impact on the world. Most of it good. So, and what wasn't, wasn't his fault. Just people screwing up as we so often do. So I thought I would give just a brief, just a kind of a glance through. Another whole dimension of the cultivation of these four qualities, but now, as I said, another dimension. And I've already unpacked one of them, so that will have implications for all the rest. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:00 Highlight the passage at 1:20:00

1:20:32 You have the three. And that having gone through this magnificent sequence of loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity, coming to this great alluvial plane of the heart being equally open with no barriers for your loving kindness, compassion, or empathetic joy, it's just even, even, unconditional in all directions. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:20:49 There is the foundation for bodhicitta, the aspiration of a bodhisattva. And on that basis, then you are perfectly poised to venture into the cultivation of great compassion, maha kuruna, great compassion. And I discussed that, I think, two days ago, where you raised the question, why couldn't all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering? May they be free. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:49 Highlight the passage at 1:20:49

1:21:13 I shall free them. And may I receive the blessings of all the enlightened ones, all the gurus, all the teachers, that I may be enabled to do so. And so that sequence. But it's taking upon oneself responsibility, but of course when one does so, I shall free them all. When you do that, and it's not megalomania, it's not an expression of psychosis, then of course here we need perspective. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:13 Highlight the passage at 1:21:13

1:21:37 It can't be from the perspective of a human being. It's going to be dead soon. It's a silly... A silly pledge. It's a pledge you'll not possibly be able to repay. It'd be like looking at the national debt of Brazil and saying, I'll pay it all off. No, you won't. So why are you talking that way? But if you're speaking from the perspective of your own Buddha nature, then that becomes realistic. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:37 Highlight the passage at 1:21:37

1:22:01 And arousing that aspiration and making that pledge actually can serve to plunge your sense of identity, shattering right through your ordinary sense of identity, shattering right through the substrate consciousness. And it may plummet you right down to a reality ground, which is your own pristine awareness. And so it has this skillful means. Great compassion, great loving kindness. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:01 Highlight the passage at 1:22:01

1:22:24 Why couldn't all sentient beings find happiness in the causes of happiness? May they find it. I shall help them. I shall do it. I shall enable them to find happiness in the causes of happiness. May I be blessed. By the enlightened ones so that I may be enabled to do so. Empathetic joy now becomes not a feeling or an emotion here in this context. Now it too is an aspiration. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:24 Highlight the passage at 1:22:24

1:22:46 Why couldn't all such beings experience sublime happiness? And that's genuine happiness. Sublime happiness free of suffering, devoid of suffering. Why couldn't they? May they find such sublime happiness, devoid of suffering. I shall enable them to find it. And may I be blessed so that I may be enabled to do so. And then finally, why couldn't all sentient beings be free or dwell in? Report an error in the passage at 1:22:46 Highlight the passage at 1:22:46

1:23:14 Why could they not dwell in great equanimity, free of attachment to the near and aversion to the far? May they dwell. May I help them to dwell. May I be blessed so that I may be so enabled. So those are the four greats. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:14 Highlight the passage at 1:23:14

1:23:35 So there's a knife metaphor. It's a true story. I've told it many times. I'm going to tell it one more. And I learned this actually from two sources. First from Geshe Raptan, who was one of my primary teachers in the 1970s. And then years later, many, many years later, like last year or the year before, I met a fellow who was a Western who actually witnessed it for himself. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:35 Highlight the passage at 1:23:35

1:23:54 He saw it. And here's the story. Geshe Raptan, great, great Geshe, great Lama, told me this story back in the 1970s about a cowper in Dharmasala, Dharmasala, India. This happened not long ago, a few decades ago. There's a cowherder, and as he was herding his cows, belonging to somebody else, a brachman, the cowherder was definitely a lower caste. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:54 Highlight the passage at 1:23:54

1:24:22 The calf in that little herd of cows somehow fell into an open sewer. I lived there for a few years. I never saw it, but it definitely exists. It's a true story. The calf fell into this open sewer, and it was like up to its neck and feces. It was just incredibly disgusting, and it couldn't get out. It was all slippery, and it was just... Report an error in the passage at 1:24:22 Highlight the passage at 1:24:22

1:24:44 Frantic, trying to get out of this and scrambling and scrambling, head maybe going down into the dreck, but just couldn't get out. And the cowherder, he knows his job may be on the line. You don't lose a calf. That's an expensive creature. And so the cowherder is really frantic, trying to pull that calf out and clean him up and don't tell the boss. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:44 Highlight the passage at 1:24:44

1:25:04 So he's got him by the tail and trying to pull this calf out of the sewer. But everything's slippery. He can't get traction. He doesn't want to go into the sewer himself. He's trying to keep clean over here. Got the calf's tail, trying to pull it up, but he can't get traction. And the calf is heavy. And so he's just getting nowhere. He's pulling, pulling, and the calf is just having his tail yanked. Not enjoying that either. He's up to his neck and crap, and now he's got his tail yanked, so he's having a really bad day. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:04 Highlight the passage at 1:25:04

1:25:28 And the cowherder is getting really frantic because he just doesn't see any way to get this calf out. And he's going to be in deep trouble if he loses the calf. It's a merchandise. Along comes a Buddhist monk, and he was actually the attendant to Geshe Ratham, a monk of very high calorie. He was a Geshe himself, Geshe Pemba. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:28 Highlight the passage at 1:25:28

1:25:47 I knew him well. Geshe Pemba comes walking along, and then I learned there was actually a westerner with him, and he gave me the second account of the same story, and everything I'm saying is literally true. He saw it. Geshe Pemba, he is one of the most humble people I've ever met in my life. Utterly, just egoless, completely egoless. And incredibly sweet and gentle. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:47 Highlight the passage at 1:25:47

1:26:06 I never saw him in any other way. He's just walking along. And he sees everything. He takes it all in. I mean, it's obvious. It's not difficult to figure out. So Geshe Pampa comes over. And he lifts up his robes. And he just strides right into the sewer. Right up to his chest. He gets in there. You can imagine it. He gets in there. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:06 Highlight the passage at 1:26:06

1:26:27 And he just bodily takes the calf in his arms. All covered with feces. He takes the calf and he pulls it out to safety. In the meantime, the owner, the brahman, is watching the whole thing. Because he's not going near it. They wear white. They're pure. He's not going near that thing. But Geshe Pemba, and of course he has nothing to do with that calf, it's just a sense of being. But he comes in, gets himself covered with filth, saves the calf, the owner's relieved, the cowherder's relieved, the calf is happy. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:27 Highlight the passage at 1:26:27

1:26:57 And then Geshe Pemba simply continues on his way as if nothing's happened. Probably heading for a bath. So Geshe Pemba, he was telling us this story, I think it was 1976, to a small group of his disciples, who I think were all monks, or at least very serious practitioners. And I was translating for him. I translated for all of them on behalf of the 70s. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:57 Highlight the passage at 1:26:57

1:27:17 And someone else, I can't remember what it was, said, Geshe-la, Geshe-la, are we like that monk who's so courageous, so compassionate? And Geshe-la said, now you're the calf. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:17 Highlight the passage at 1:27:17

1:27:34 So Geshe-temba's action there was just, it's actually a true story, but it's also quintessentially symbolic of what the bodhisattvas will need to do. Go back into saṃsāra, back into the sewer, getting dirty, all the messiness of saṃsāra in Report an error in the passage at 1:27:34 Highlight the passage at 1:27:34

1:27:55 order to relieve suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:55 Highlight the passage at 1:27:55

1:27:59 Here's the phrase, it's very, very often quoted, the Dalai Lama quotes it ever so frequently, in the final chapter of the guide of the Bodhisattva Way of Life, the dedication chapter, for as long as space endures, and for as long as sentient beings remain, may I continue to dispel the mysteries of food. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:59 Highlight the passage at 1:27:59

1:28:14 So that's the Bodhisattva's aspiration. It is not true that the Bodhisattva actually postpones his or her enlightenment, because that actually doesn't make any sense. It would be of greater benefit to serve the needs of sentient beings if you're a Buddha, rather than staying by. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:14 Highlight the passage at 1:28:14

1:28:29 Oh, let's linger there a little bit. But it comes up. It's not simply a mistake. If you look into the sutras, you'll get that intimation that will say that here or there, that the bodhisattva postpones his enlightenment in order to stay in saṃsāra and serve the needs of sentry beings, on the one hand. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:29 Highlight the passage at 1:28:29

1:28:44 But you'll also say, hey, the whole point of being a bodhisattva is to achieve enlightenment. So from the vantage point of being a perfectly enlightened being, then you are much more empowered to serve the needs of sentry beings than you are before you're entirely enlightened. It's kind of common sense. But you do find both. So what's up with that? And I can tell you. The core theme of the whole bodhisattva path, or at least a core theme on the skillful mean side, the compassion side, is to overcome this tremendously deeply ingrained tendency of prioritizing one's own well-being over that of others. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:44 Highlight the passage at 1:28:44

1:29:16 Even the arhat hasn't overcome that. And so it's a big deal to actually exchange self for other. To place a greater priority, greater value on the well-being of others over one's own, and not only one's family, not only one's own countrymen, not only one's own squad in the warfare, that you'll be willing to jump on the hand grenade for them, but you'll be very happy to throw that hand grenade at somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:16 Highlight the passage at 1:29:16

1:29:39 No, it's actually larger than that. It's on that basis of equanimity of your plane of caring. And so, Report an error in the passage at 1:29:39 Highlight the passage at 1:29:39

1:29:59 oh yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. So in order to overcome this deeply ingrained... Tendency of prioritizing one's own well-being over that of others. Then there are said to be three types of bodhicitta in sequence. The first one is called shepherd-like bodhicitta. In a certain phase of one's practice, one seeks to cultivate shepherd-like bodhicitta. Very simple. It's very easy to understand. And that is, a shepherd takes out his flock, let's say a hundred sheep, and he's just watching over them as they graze. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:59 Highlight the passage at 1:29:59

1:30:29 He protects them from wolves and so forth. And at the end of the day, he brings them all back to the pen. He beds them down, maybe gives them extra food, who knows, but he sees that every single one of them is back, safe and secure for the night. And only when they're all taken care of, and his shepherd dog is also taken care of, everybody's taken care of. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:29 Highlight the passage at 1:30:29

1:30:46 Everybody okay? All right. Then he goes for his dinner. Then he beds down, but only after he's taken care of all the sheep. So for some phase, when one's self-centered and still pretty strong, then one cultivates a shepherd-like bodhicitta. And when one seeks to arouse authentically the aspiration, I shall liberate everyone else before me. And when everybody else is liberated, then I'll step over into freedom. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:46 Highlight the passage at 1:30:46

1:31:16 But I'll see that everybody is taken care of first. So just the opposite. Just the opposite. I'll make sure the house is empty. Empty of pets, empty of everybody. It's an empty house. When everybody totally empty, okay, now it's time for me to get out. Shepherd-like. In other words, you've just put a total whang, 180 degrees on self-centeredness. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:16 Highlight the passage at 1:31:16

1:31:36 Everybody before me. So that's one. But of course, as one cultivates that, one brings in a reality check. And that is, if I've not achieved enlightenment, then how effective am I going to be in bringing others to that which I've not realized for myself? So then you shift into the navigator. The navigator kind of bodhicitta. Is it all right? I'll be like the navigator. And that is, I'll invite all the sentry beings onto my vessel, onto my ship. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:36 Highlight the passage at 1:31:36

1:32:03 And then I will... Navigators to the far shore. And I'll make sure we're all together. Because I have to guide you. I have to be the navigator. But we'll all get there together. Arriving on the far shore together, same time. So navigator. And leaving nobody behind, but we're all getting there together. So that's aspiration. So you're not coming in last. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:03 Highlight the passage at 1:32:03

1:32:26 But you keep on reflecting about that. But still the same problem. How can I lead others to that which I've not realized myself? Surely it would be better. If you were like in the American West, they'd have these... These, what do you call it, wagon trains. Remember, wagon trains. And anybody who wanted to join a wagon train, you want to make absolutely sure that the guide had already made it to the Pacific Ocean, wherever you want to go, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:32:26 Highlight the passage at 1:32:26

1:32:51 That he knew all the steps. He'd been there and back. And so if he's guiding your whole wagon train, he's not going to say, where am I, where am I? Let's ask a Native American. You want to make sure that the guide has been there and back. And then you'd have a confidence, okay, now lead us to where you've already been, rather than kind of like, let's work this out together, shall we, guys? Report an error in the passage at 1:32:51 Highlight the passage at 1:32:51

1:33:09 Not so much confidence in that. And so that's navigator bodhicitta then evolves into king-like bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:09 Highlight the passage at 1:33:09

1:33:22 And that is, I see, there's no choice in the matter. I have to achieve enlightenment myself first. And then I'll be in the best position to bring everybody to that state of awakening. Not because it's me first, it's just that's the most effective way to help everybody else find enlightenment. The person who's leading the wagon train. So that's how it works out. Is that the non-abiding? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:22 Highlight the passage at 1:33:22

1:33:51 So once you've achieved enlightenment, then you achieve what's called the non-abiding nirvāṇa. And you don't find that anywhere in the Pāli Canon, but it's actually central to the Mahana, the Bodhisattva. And that is, when you achieve awakening, then it's a non-abiding nirvāṇa. And that is, unlike the arhat, you're not simply dissolved into and vanish into nirvāṇa with no trace, no remainder. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:51 Highlight the passage at 1:33:51

1:34:13 Never to come back. It's not that. But nor are you abiding. So you're not abiding in nirvāṇa. But you're not abiding in saṃsāra like all the sentient beings just wandering around in confusion. So you're neither abiding in nirvāṇa nor in saṃsāra. And in a way that is truly inconceivable for a sentient being, you are simultaneously experiencing nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:13 Highlight the passage at 1:34:13

1:34:33 And you see them as non-dual. You're never separated from nirvāṇa. You're never disengaged from saṃsāra and all the beings in saṃsāra. You're aware of simultaneously your own immutable bliss because you're never separated from Nirvāṇa. You're always aware of your own immutable bliss, timeless bliss of Nirvāṇa and simultaneously you're aware of the suffering, the joys, hopes and fears of every sentient being from their perspective because you've completely transcended dualistic grasping. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:33 Highlight the passage at 1:34:33

1:35:07 You're not viewing them as being over there. So the suffering of the Buddha, the compassion of the Buddha for you is from your perspective. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:07 Highlight the passage at 1:35:07

1:35:17 Because your mind and Buddha's mind, indivisible. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:17 Highlight the passage at 1:35:17

1:35:27 No, no, he lives out his life and then he evaporates. Yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:27 Highlight the passage at 1:35:27

1:35:41 A nice statement from His Holiness, but I think it's completely self-explanatory. This is interesting. You might try it out. I read this in one text. In terms of times you want to cultivate great, morning, afternoon, evening and night. It's interesting. It's quite self-explanatory. in the Theravāda tradition. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:41 Highlight the passage at 1:35:41

1:35:28 doesn't evacuate as soon as he comes to that era. No, Report an error in the passage at 1:35:28 Highlight the passage at 1:35:28

1:35:58 Atisha, one of the great ones that I so deeply, fathomously revere, he chided the Tibetans in many cases. He was this grand master of Buddhism in India, one of the greatest pundits, maybe the greatest of his time. And he chided the Tibetans. He said, only you Tibetans know how to develop bodhicitta without developing the four immeasurables. He was being sarcastic. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:58 Highlight the passage at 1:35:58

1:36:23 So let's just read a little bit more. Just some nice verses of a guide to the bodhisattva way of life. And we'll take our break. So my wife and I translated this. She translated it from the Sanskrit, I translated it from the Tibetan. There are a number of good translations. Ours is the only one translated from both languages. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:23 Highlight the passage at 1:36:23

1:36:40 So Shantideva writes, those who long to overcome the abundant miseries of mundane existence, those who wish to dispel the adversities of sentient beings and those who yearn to experience a myriad of joy should never forsake bodhicitta, which we translated back then as the spirit of awakening. I think it's as good a translation as any, but why not just say bodhicitta? So he focuses on the centrality of bodhicitta for every meaningful aspiration. He continues, when bodhicitta is arisen in an instant, a wretch who is bound in the prison of saṃsāra is called the child of the sugatas, as an epithet of the Buddhas, is called the child of the Buddhas and becomes worthy of reverence in the worlds of gods and humans. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:40 Highlight the passage at 1:36:40

1:37:22 So something just profoundly ennobling in an instant is when the bodhicitta is arisen. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:22 Highlight the passage at 1:37:22

1:37:30 And then we slip right over in the Dzogchen, just to spice it up a little bit. Dzogchen, this is the Vajra Essence. It's a text, one of several texts that I've translated. 19th century. And this shows the relative and ultimate bodhicitta, the realization of pristine awareness or primordial consciousness and bodhicitta, as I've been discussing. So here the speaker is Patmasambhava in a visionary revelation that a 19th century master named Dujum Lingba was having. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:30 Highlight the passage at 1:37:30

1:37:58 But the speaker was actually Patmasambhava. And then he... He had this visionary experience and wrote it down. And Padmasambhava states, to speak of having bodhicitta greater than the vision of great all-seeing primordial consciousness. It's Buddha nature, it's pristine awareness. To think of having bodhicitta greater than the vision of great all-seeing primordial consciousness would be like already having water and then saying you must seek liquid elsewhere. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:58 Highlight the passage at 1:37:58

1:38:25 So what he means by this is very clear. And that is, if you have... If your mind has dissolved, your coarse mind, your psyche has dissolved into the substrate consciousness, and then you've cut through to primordial consciousness, which is a synonym of pristine awareness, Buddha nature, if you've done so, then to think that you need to look outside of that or need to look elsewhere to cultivate bodhicitta would Report an error in the passage at 1:38:25 Highlight the passage at 1:38:25

1:38:53 be like already having water and then thinking you have to look liquid elsewhere. I mean, relative bodhicitta emerges from, emerges from. So you don't need to add some extra methods for that. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:53 Highlight the passage at 1:38:53

1:39:10 There's a nice table at the back, some of my students prepared. I'm not much good at tables, but they are. And so, let's take a break and come back at 10.55. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:10 Highlight the passage at 1:39:10

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:40:19 Before we go into Report an error in the passage at 1:40:19 Highlight the passage at 1:40:19

1:40:37 the last meditation, just a couple of comments, one theme really. Tracing back to Atisha that he really represents, especially the whole Mahāyāna tradition, in a point that he makes in his seven-point mind training, Wanda is a system of practice, Wanda being practiced by all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. I've written two commentaries on it, so taken by it. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:37 Highlight the passage at 1:40:37

1:41:00 And in this classic text, there's a phrase very easy to remember in Tibetan, there are two tasks, two activities at the beginning and the end. So they're just these short, pithy aphorisms. And so what's to be done at the beginning of any meaningful endeavor? It is, I guess, up to us. But when we are embarking on something, any kind of activity that you can see, okay, now we're starting. Then he says, well, there's something really important when you're just starting, and that is bring forth the most meaningful motivation you possibly can, because the nature of the task will be qualitatively very different depending on what type of motivation you bring to bear. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:00 Highlight the passage at 1:41:00

1:41:43 How meaningful it is, and also the long-term consequences of our actions, is not determined simply by the nature of the actions. But also is strongly qualified by the motivation. So it says that when we engage in a certain action, that the action is imbued with, somehow there's a strain or something that goes with it. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:43 Highlight the passage at 1:41:43

1:42:02 It's imbued with the motivation. It's just that, probably the best verb I can find. And so we take something trivial like giving a saucer. If you give a saucer, it's maybe like a saucer. It may be because you really don't want it anymore. Throw it away or give it like a saucer. In which case, you're basically just, it's garbage disposal. You just didn't want it in your kitchen anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:02 Highlight the passage at 1:42:02

1:42:29 It kind of looked like generosity, because some people might actually want a saucer. But you're just giving it, kind of like basically throwing it out. So there it is, you're giving. So imagine I'm giving to Jamala here. But there's just, actually it's just a completely neutral action. It's not a virtuous action, not non-virtuous. It's kind of nothing. It's kind of like sniffing. Just nothing. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:29 Highlight the passage at 1:42:29

1:42:48 So the consequences, even though he gets a saucer out of it, maybe he really needed one. It could happen, you know, symbolically, of course. He might really need that, might be of great service to him. But from my perspective, I did the act of giving him. He may have gotten a lot of benefit, but I didn't. Because my motivation is just throwing at his direction, and there's no benefit for me at all, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:42:48 Highlight the passage at 1:42:48

1:43:08 But I may have found that something's really wrong with this, and I don't want it around anymore, because it's really yucky. But would you like it? Report an error in the passage at 1:43:08 Highlight the passage at 1:43:08

1:43:20 And now I'm actually doing him as a disservice because when he finds out the defect, obviously this is just a symbol, right? But when he finds out the defect, he says, oh man, he really gave me something crappy. So that was actually giving the same saucer, some defective saucer, that actually could be a non-versual state because you're giving something to somebody who's really rotten. It's a disservice. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:20 Highlight the passage at 1:43:20

1:43:38 Like giving somebody a car that's broken. Or when I was, brief anecdote, 1970. We started out hitchhiking around Europe with a couple of buddies from college. And one of them decided, I'll buy a car that we can just buy at the beginning of the summer and sell at the end of the summer. And all four of us guys packing it into the car. It was a little VW Bug. And he bought this car from a used cars dealer in Germany. And it went for about five miles. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:38 Highlight the passage at 1:43:38

1:44:08 Got a really good deal on it. But they literally, you know, the men especially, men know more about cars than women, right? I don't know anything about cars. But I know this, if the car is totally busted, you can put sawdust in the cylinders. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:08 Highlight the passage at 1:44:08

1:44:22 You put sawdust in the cylinders and it will run a little bit before the whole engine just melts down. But it will give you the impression for a little while that the car is going fine. Instead of oil, put in sawdust. And that's what the used car dealer did. He actually put sawdust in the syllabus of a totally broken car. We got about five miles down the road and then... And it was dead as a doornail, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:22 Highlight the passage at 1:44:22

1:44:44 And then the tow truck came over and he asked this poor fellow, how much did he pay for the car? And the guy, he was so embarrassed, he told him half of what he actually paid. And the guy said, oh man, you got gypped. So that was a really crummy saucer. That was a car with sawdust in the cylinder, which means if you turn the ignition on and run, it will now destroy that car completely, because you can't rebuild the engine. You have to have a totally new engine put in. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44:44

1:45:16 It wound up spending three times as much for still the used car. So that was that, getting a really dirty saucer. So you can give it something that really looks nice, but it in fact was not. It could be totally neutral. And then you can just see the whole gradations. I can be giving it to him, I see I really like his mala. I give you the saucer and I can agree with mala. It can be kind of a trick. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:16 Highlight the passage at 1:45:16

1:45:38 I mean, just see how many ways you can give a saucer. The saucer could be anything. And the nature of the act, although it's simply a transfer of goods from here to there, is qualitatively totally different, all depending on motivation. So as that is true for giving away a saucer, so is it true for meditating. How many motivations could there be for following your breath? Report an error in the passage at 1:45:38 Highlight the passage at 1:45:38

1:45:58 Be a better sniper, make more money, more sex, more anything. It could be negative, it could be neutral, it could be kind of virtuous, or you could practice it with bodhicitta, in which case breathing in, breathing out mindfully is actually leading you on the bodhisattva way of life. It's not a matter of technique, it's a matter of motivation. So this is why it said at the beginning of endeavor, bring forth the most meaningful motivation you can, and of course in the Mahāyāna context, that's bodhicitta for everything. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:58 Highlight the passage at 1:45:58

1:46:27 And that is getting up in the morning. If you're kind of tired, you're pooped out, you're working very hard over the course of the day, you come home and you just kind of like need some rest. For the sake of all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment, I'm going to not watch television for half an hour. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:27 Highlight the passage at 1:46:27

1:46:40 You could. You could practice bodhicitta. Now you wouldn't watch something that just destroys the mind, dirties the mind. It craps out the mind. You wouldn't do that. But often there's things on television that are pretty neutral or actually could be beneficial, meaningful. So you choose something that's meaningful. And then if you're watching it with a bodhisattva motivation, then it's a bodhisattva deed. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:40 Highlight the passage at 1:46:40

1:47:00 Watching TV or taking a nap. You can take a bodhisattva nap if the motivation is bodhicitta. It's that simple. Or you can be engaging in the most esoteric, sublime, advanced, you know, incredible, profound teachings like stage of completion of Bajri Kini or Dzogchen and what have you. You could be going for the loftiest practices in all of Buddhism, and you could be doing it for any motivation, in which case it's all a joke, if it's anything other than bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:00 Highlight the passage at 1:47:00

1:47:28 You're going through the outer ritual, maybe you know how to do the visualization, ring the bells and chant and everything, and it's all just a facade. If it's not bodhicitta, there's nothing special. So this is a big theme in the whole theme of karma altogether. It's actually quite important. If one considers these so seriously, gosh, maybe these are true. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:28 Highlight the passage at 1:47:28

1:47:48 It's said, for example, that If one makes a gift and is not with strings attached, something sleazy, that you're actually giving something as an act of generosity. So that's virtue. That's good. You gave it with simply a motivation. I'd like to be a benefit. Would you like a cell phone? You give a cell phone. So there's some virtues, like money in the bank, some virtue, some merit, some kind of positive energy that's now stored in your mind stream. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:48 Highlight the passage at 1:47:48

1:48:12 So that's good. It's going to turn out well. It's going to turn out to give you something you want. The question is, what do you want? And if you don't have any particular Dharma motivation, no motivation for liberation, no motivation for bodhicitta, it just seemed like you wanted to do something nice, and it is nice, it is good. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:12 Highlight the passage at 1:48:12

1:48:29 And the flat-out karmic consequences of an act of generosity, with no particular motivation, except for just a nice motivation, like a cell phone, the karmic consequences of that fully place itself out is, what goes around and comes around, affluence. That stuff will come your way. You'll be having an economically comfortable situation, probably in some future life. So there's that. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:29 Highlight the passage at 1:48:29

1:48:55 But then we can see, when we stand back and say, but now, is that going to actually make me happy? If in the future lifetime I have a whole lot of wealth, because I've been very generous in this lifetime, is that going to make me actually happy? Is that going to lead me towards enlightenment or liberation? Report an error in the passage at 1:48:55 Highlight the passage at 1:48:55

1:49:09 And then we see how many wealthy people there are who don't have any real happiness at all. Then one might want to go back to the drawing board and say, well, certainly simply to give something as an act of kindness is good. Nothing wrong with that at all. But I would actually like this to go in a direction that's as meaningful as possible for myself and other sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:09 Highlight the passage at 1:49:09

1:49:30 So you're not using other sentient beings for your own purposes. That's not it. But if you do arouse the aspiration for freedom, for liberation, to achieve nirvāṇa and to escape from saṃsāra, if you have that motivation, and with that motivation you engage in an act of generosity, number one, it's still a selfless act. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:30 Highlight the passage at 1:49:30

1:49:48 You're not expecting some dividends here. But that capital, that energy, that positive energy, or they call it merit, is now actually going to not your being simply affluent in a future lifetime, but actually that's going to be propelling you along to encountering fortuitous circumstances. In the future, to find liberation. So that's where your wealth will go, is what your early aspiration is. This was a nice, clean gift. There were no strings attached. But where the momentum of that is going is to encounter the wealth of finding circumstances to really be able to continue on a path. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:48 Highlight the passage at 1:49:48

1:50:19 And then finally, if one's motivation is really bodhicitta, your prime directive, your core motivation, is to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, and you give away the same cell phone, then that now, that... Positive energy, that merit, then goes right in and it comes around to propel you along the path to perfect awakening. So motivation, as they say in real estate, three things that are really important. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:19 Highlight the passage at 1:50:19

1:50:46 Location, location, location. In Dharma practice, it's motivation, motivation, motivation. The most important thing, motivation. A simple act like taking a nap can be a virtuous act. And an act of writing a $10 million check for some philanthropic endeavor could just be trivial. Beneficial of other people. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:46 Highlight the passage at 1:50:46

1:51:04 But not for the person who writes the check. It all depends on motivation. So that's at the beginning. But there's something important at the beginning and at the end. And it's kind of this symmetry. It's like an initiation and then a closure. Like, all right, now it's complete. We just finished something, and that's what we will be finishing about 50 minutes or so. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:04 Highlight the passage at 1:51:04

1:51:23 Something will come to an end. This particular retreat had a beginning, and it does have an end. The end is the beginning of something else, of course. But this particular phase comes to an end. So when you see you're coming to an end of some meaningful endeavor, and especially if you see there was maybe some virtue there, something good, something positive, then what comes at the end is dedication. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:23 Highlight the passage at 1:51:23

1:51:40 And it's kind of looking back now on what has been done, what was virtuous, what was positive, what was beneficial for yourself and others. You know you have some real positive energy there. It's a modern way of saying it. They say sunam, we say merit. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:40 Highlight the passage at 1:51:40

1:51:55 But there's something there that can be directed. It's like gasoline in the tank. You can go this direction and that direction. And so as you started with your most meaningful motivation, you could, and then your action was imbued with that motivation, and then that action comes to a completion, then to cap it, to complete it, then you can dedicate the merit of that. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:55 Highlight the passage at 1:51:55

1:52:16 And that simply means now bring to mind your most meaningful aspirations and consciously dedicate. Whatever good there is, whatever merit, whatever virtue, whatever benefit there is from what we just completed, may this go in this direction. And you can choose more than one. And then you just bring to mind, you can bring one, five, ten, as many as you like, really meaningful aspirations that are heartfelt and say, may all the good of this go... Report an error in the passage at 1:52:16 Highlight the passage at 1:52:16

1:52:44 For this, may it lead to this, whether it's world peace or the balancing of the ecosphere, your own enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, the flourishing of Dharma, whatever it is, but something really meaningful, and then that directs that energy in that direction. So you won't get sidetracked to having your virtue just, so you just wind up being beautiful and wealthy and famous in a future lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:44 Highlight the passage at 1:52:44

1:53:08 Because virtue leads to that also. And if you look at really wealthy, glamorous, famous people. Some of them are really happy. It seems almost like by accident. You know, there's no homogeneity there at all. So it would be kind of, I mean, I think whatever ritual I've done, if whatever comes across my life, if I wind up being some really incredibly handsome movie star who's got lots and lots of money, I'll be so disappointed. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:08 Highlight the passage at 1:53:08

1:53:36 I think this is all I get. I'm like, jeez. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:36 Highlight the passage at 1:53:36

1:53:42 The man who is, the man who is, he bent, he... He bankrolled the whole of Tanya Puta, where we just had the retreat. It was supposed to be a $45 million complex. It turned out to be $100 million. This magnificent sports center, world-class. It's incredibly beautiful. And then it's got a school. It's right in the process of turning into a world-class school. They have the Mind Center, which is more for meditation and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:42 Highlight the passage at 1:53:42

1:54:07 Magnificent, wonderful restaurant there. And so this was part of his vision. How can I be of greatest benefit to the world? And he did that. It turned out to be extremely time-consuming for him because it went way over budget and then it was losing money a lot. But he's a very astute businessman. Obviously, he has a lot of money. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:07 Highlight the passage at 1:54:07

1:54:27 And so he turned to me a year or two ago. We've been friends now for years. And he said, Alan, this lifetime I am very successful. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:27 Highlight the passage at 1:54:27

1:54:40 But next time, how about you swap? You be the really rich guy. And I'll be the monk. I'll be the yogi. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:40 Highlight the passage at 1:54:40

1:54:50 I'm not swapping. And I meant it. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:50 Highlight the passage at 1:54:50

1:54:58 So let's have our final meditation together. What I'd like to do is return to the four questions, loving-kindness practice. But now as we bring this slowly to a close, in the spirit of dedication, in the spirit of dedication, just bring forth your most meaningful aspirations. And so if there are 50 people in the room, there will be 50 unique meditations. So please find a comfortable position. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:58 Highlight the passage at 1:54:58

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:56:13 The motivation of loving-kindness for ourselves. To find greater happiness to cultivate the causes of genuine happiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:13 Highlight the passage at 1:56:13

1:56:22 And settle your body, speech and mind in the natural states and calm the mind and make it serviceable with mindfulness of breathing for a few minutes. You may, if you wish, count 21 breaths as a common practice in Tibetan Buddhism, if you like to count. But Report an error in the passage at 1:56:22 Highlight the passage at 1:56:22

· · · silence, 2 minutes

1:58:58 in the spirit of dedicating the virtue, the benefit of these last six days we spent together, let's return to the question, what is your vision of your own flourishing? Fulfillment, genuine happiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:58 Highlight the passage at 1:58:58

1:59:44 Lives are defined by our vision of what we seek. So what is it you seek? What would fully satisfy your deepest yearnings for yourself and others? So Report an error in the passage at 1:59:44 Highlight the passage at 1:59:44

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:00:32 there's this marvelous assertion that each of us indeed has the capacity to become perfectly awake. If you wish, you may visualize this symbolically as this radiant orb of white light at your heart, suggesting infinite capacity to realize your greatest Wild as aspirations. And with every out-breath, imagine as you breathe out, rays of light cascade forth from this orb of light at your heart, filling, saturating, permeating your entire being, your body, your mind, filling your whole being with this light of love and kindness. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:32 Highlight the passage at 2:00:32

2:01:19 Breath by breath, arouse the aspiration. May it be so. May I realize such well-being and cultivate its causes. And Report an error in the passage at 2:01:19 Highlight the passage at 2:01:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:02:23 imagine breath by breath, realizing here and now the Report an error in the passage at 2:02:23 Highlight the passage at 2:02:23

2:02:31 sense of well-being that is your innermost heart still. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:31 Highlight the passage at 2:02:31

2:02:38 With the awareness Report an error in the passage at 2:02:38 Highlight the passage at 2:02:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:04:07 that it is really not possible for any of us to realize our aspirations with no help whatsoever, relying only on ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:07 Highlight the passage at 2:04:07

2:04:17 We need help from the outside world, from other people. So raise the second question, what would you love to receive from the world around you to enable you to realize your greatest and most meaningful aspirations? What would you love to receive from those who are near and far in the short term and the long term? Report an error in the passage at 2:04:17 Highlight the passage at 2:04:17

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:05:30 To arouse the aspiration, may it be so, may I receive all that I truly need. From moment to moment, day to day, year to year, may reality rise up to meet me, to enable me, to help me, fulfill my most meaningful aspirations. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:30 Highlight the passage at 2:05:30

2:05:59 With each inhalation you may, if you wish, imagine light converging in upon you from all sides. From our fellow sentient beings rising up to help us when we are in need. From the enlightened ones, the Buddhas, the Buddha-satthas, showering us with blessing. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:59 Highlight the passage at 2:05:59

2:06:22 We need our hedonic and eudaimonic well-being flowing in from all sides. With each inner inhalation, as we arouse the aspiration, may it be so. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:22 Highlight the passage at 2:06:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:07:23 And breath by breath, imagine it being so here and now. Moment by moment, coming days and months, day by day, imagine receiving all that you truly need to proceed along a path of freedom and awakening. With Report an error in the passage at 2:07:23 Highlight the passage at 2:07:23

· · · silence, 2 minutes

2:09:20 the observation that there is no possible way we can realize such well-being without transformation taking place from within. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:20 Highlight the passage at 2:09:20

2:09:32 So in the same spirit of loving kindness, same motivation, imagine now how would you love to transform, not how should you, but how would you love to transform, to evolve and mature psychologically, spiritually, from what qualities would you love to be free, with what qualities would you love to be richly, perfectly imbued, Report an error in the passage at 2:09:32 Highlight the passage at 2:09:32

2:09:59 to transform so that you may realize your heart's desire, the Report an error in the passage at 2:09:59 Highlight the passage at 2:09:59

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:10:50 aspiration that it may be so, Report an error in the passage at 2:10:50 Highlight the passage at 2:10:50

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:11:26 as if you are watching time-lapse photography and you are watching this rapid transformation. It may take months, years or even lifetimes, but imagine it all taking place now. Breath by breath does Report an error in the passage at 2:11:26 Highlight the passage at 2:11:26

· · · silence, 3 minutes

2:14:11 exist in isolation. We do not stand alone. Our very existence is one of interdependence. Report an error in the passage at 2:14:11 Highlight the passage at 2:14:11

2:14:21 So the very notion of striving for our individual well-being, awakening, separate from everyone else, is something of a fiction. Report an error in the passage at 2:14:21 Highlight the passage at 2:14:21

2:14:33 So again, with the same motivation, arouse the question now, if you will, for your own sake, in order to bring... The greatest possible meaning to your own life, enlightened self-interest, so to speak. What would you love to offer to the world, in the near term and the long term, to those who are near and far? Report an error in the passage at 2:14:33 Highlight the passage at 2:14:33

2:14:57 What is the greatest good you can imagine bringing to the world, drawing on your own unique background, your gifts, your interests? What would you love to offer to the world, Report an error in the passage at 2:14:57 Highlight the passage at 2:14:57

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:15:50 by breath around the aspiration that you may do so? And Report an error in the passage at 2:15:50 Highlight the passage at 2:15:50

2:16:17 breath by breath, imagine once again life forth from your heart, spreading out in all directions. And letting your imagination play, imagine the light taking on the forms of the goods you would love to offer. Imagine this light in all that produces, enriching the lives of others, alleviating the suffering of others, leading others on the path of their own fulfillment, the greatest gift. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:17 Highlight the passage at 2:16:17

· · · silence, 2 minutes

2:19:01 Aspirations all appear. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:01 Highlight the passage at 2:19:01

· · · silence, 3 minutes

2:21:39 Time is drawing to a close. Before we do part, I would just like to share some of my aspirations. I've been coming to Australia for a number of years now. I don't know how many, but it's a fair number. I've enjoyed every single visit. It's been always just a joy, with no exception. Kind of like homogenously. And next year, I think, I know I've mentioned, I plan to be almost a settler. Report an error in the passage at 2:21:39 Highlight the passage at 2:21:39

2:22:07 Come here, I think, something like June or July. And my wonderful co-teacher, Eve Ekman, who's Paul Ekman's daughter and champion, carrying his legacy, his lineage. She's a marvellous gentleman. She and I will be co-teaching the Cultivating Emotional Balance teacher training. I mentioned just a bit north of here. For five weeks, I'll teach the first three weeks, teaching the contemplative part, and then she teaches the final two weeks. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:07 Highlight the passage at 2:22:07

2:22:37 I really want to kind of give a boost because there's a lot of energy here in Australia. It's very progressive and it's secular. Not the CEPTT, I have to be very careful here. The five-week training is to teach teachers that they get certified if they complete it and want their certification. When I'm teaching, the teachers, Then I give them all the sources so they know where it's coming from. So there's a lot of Buddhism there. That's not just trying to convert people to Buddhism. It's just an act of honesty. So people are being trained to teach CEB, which is just an eight-week training, 42 hours, that after the five-week training is over, if they'd like to deepen their understanding and so forth, they know where to go. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:37 Highlight the passage at 2:22:37

2:23:13 They know that I didn't make up all this stuff myself. So in the spirit of full disclosure, then when I'm teaching my material, then I'm giving a lot of Buddhist sources. But the full intention is that when they are teaching, wherever they may be, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, wherever it may be, when they are going into hospitals or going just to the general community or into businesses or anything like that, when they're offering the 42-hour training, which is designed to take place over eight weeks but can be abbreviated, when they're doing that, the whole idea, and this is directly from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, is that what they're teaching is secular. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:13 Highlight the passage at 2:23:13

2:23:47 So there really doesn't need to be and really shouldn't be any references to Buddhism. Because we want this to be equally inviting, accessible and helpful to conservative Christians, to very committed atheists, to anybody, regardless of worldview. Because the core themes there of developing a mental balance, well, cognitive, attentional, cognitive and emotional balance, that really is for everybody. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:47 Highlight the passage at 2:23:47

2:24:11 And nobody should feel that they're alienated or they can't come in because of their belief system. If they don't want to cultivate mental balance, then that's fine when they wouldn't come. So this is a five-week training. But we found really kind of the welcome mats laid out by one friend of mine who's disseminating the word out to the, I think it's the Australian Psychological Community or Association, something like that. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:11 Highlight the passage at 2:24:11

2:24:31 He's getting the word out. So looking forward to having quite a number of, we're hoping, a number of Australian psychologists, psychotherapists and so forth coming. So I think it's going to be very rich. I suspect there will be a fair number of people coming from the psychology side. And there will certainly be people with a contemplative side. And also certainly some from overseas. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:31 Highlight the passage at 2:24:31

2:24:49 So it won't be just a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis. So that'll be for five weeks. Then I'm taking off to Singapore for ten days, coming back, and then we'll have the eight-week retreat. We've just signed the contract, or at least we've made the agreement. So that's just up there on the Sunshine Coast. And the material is just fantastic. It's so good. It's giving me Mahamudra, which is just the parallel to Dzogchen. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:49 Highlight the passage at 2:24:49

2:25:13 A lot of overlap, but a classic text. So I'll be teaching that for eight weeks up there on the Sunshine Coast, August, September. I've been coming back to Sydney to teach this delightful text, The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothes in Mud and Feathers. I think it's just the best quintessential text I've ever seen. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:13 Highlight the passage at 2:25:13

2:25:32 It's just spectacular. It's only like 10 pages long. I can teach it in six days. So that'll be kind of the grand finale. And I can teach these anywhere. Last year we taught this Cultivating Emotional Boundless teacher training in Mexico. A few years before that. And this year we taught it in Scotland. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:32 Highlight the passage at 2:25:32

2:25:50 Last year in Mexico, three years before, we taught it in Phuket, Thailand. Next year, who knows, I haven't decided yet, but it won't be here. We'll choose another continent someplace, take our little dog and pony show off and teach it someplace else. And likewise, the eight-week retreats, this is kind of, for the foreseeable future, this is kind of, we call it one-off, do it once, and then we're off to Italy or off to someplace else to lead the eight-week retreat. Report an error in the passage at 2:25:50 Highlight the passage at 2:25:50

2:26:15 But I really was very happy to think, well, next year, let's really just pour energy into Australia. Or I just think of the Aussies and the Kiwis. I kind of think he was kind of a bottle. And so that was the aspiration. And there is, it's not an agenda, it's simply an aspiration. That out of the kind of the momentum that comes from that, if a number of people are inspired, and Randa knows very well there are quite a number of people already inspired, to create something of an oasis, something of a... Report an error in the passage at 2:26:15 Highlight the passage at 2:26:15

2:26:46 A place that is just designed to be conducive for deep, transformative and liberating practice. Neuroscientists need neuroscience labs. Astronomers need observatories. Medical doctors need all the stuff that goes along with medical diagnosis and treatment and so forth. You can't just do it all on your own. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:46 Highlight the passage at 2:26:46

2:27:03 You can't be a neuroscientist walking on the streets and doing neuroscience, right? You need environments. And it's not different from meditation. It's perfectly good. It's wonderful to take your meditative practice and integrate it into daily life. Wonderful. That's breathing out, remember? Breathing out. But it's so helpful. I know it myself over now more than 40 years. It's so helpful to have the time to breathe in. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:03 Highlight the passage at 2:27:03

2:27:24 And I've done it numerous times now, breathing in for six months at a time. That just turns out to be my pattern. I'll breathe out for a few years and then breathe in for six months. And breathing in means going into total solitude and meditating 9, 10, 11, 12 hours a day and just saying, this is what I'm doing for the time being, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:24 Highlight the passage at 2:27:24

2:27:42 And having a conducive environment, and I've been in an awful lot of unconducive environments, and it's just a drag, you know, it's just a drag. And so, in my own experience now doing this for about 35 years, going to a sequence of quite a number of solitary retreats, and then having trained other people for the last seven years, they're coming out of a three-month retreat, eight-week retreat, and then getting very gung-ho, and then going into solitude. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:42 Highlight the passage at 2:27:42

2:28:07 As I mentioned before, I know it's repetition. The biggest problem they've encountered over the last seven years is not they get lonely or they stay overwhelmed by lust or they want more money or any of that stuff. The biggest problem has always been environmental. By and large, you don't find a conducive environment. You have to create them. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:07 Highlight the passage at 2:28:07

2:28:26 You don't find neuroscience labs just kind of dropping out of a tree. You have to create them. And even though this is much cheaper than a neuroscience lab, having a place that's quiet, that shouldn't be too expensive, quiet, easy access to food, But it's just, it's so, you just... Report an error in the passage at 2:28:26 Highlight the passage at 2:28:26

2:28:39 It's clean, it's not dangerous. Have a few, at least a few, half dozen, dozen, fellow, likes-minded, kindred souls, shared vision, very congenial, friendly with each other, supporting each other in practice, access to a teacher. And Rondo and I know somebody really good. I'm happy to keep on coming back, but it's really helpful to have somebody residential who's there. You can count on them, not just Skype with them, not just email. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:39 Highlight the passage at 2:28:39

2:29:04 Sit in the room and go back and forth. We know somebody really good. I know him well. I respect him a lot. He's an Aussie. He's really good. He might be persuaded, at least to spend a good deal of time there. I think he might. You know, good friends. So creating environments like that. And I want to emphasize, this is not an empire. I'm not trying to create an empire of my Dharma centers all over. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:04 Highlight the passage at 2:29:04

2:29:25 I don't even have a Dharma center. I have a name, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness. And its office is one of the rooms in my home. It's a virtual, you know, we've done a lot of stuff. It's not an empty... It's not a vacuum. But we don't even have a place. Now, it looks like we will. Tuscany's rising strong and Santa Barbara's rising strong. It looks like there might be two places. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:25 Highlight the passage at 2:29:25

2:29:46 But for the whole network, there's no hierarchy, there's no ownership. That is, it's my whole vision here in this ARCS, this Association for Research and Contemplative Science, which is for very deep, transformative, authentic, contemplative practice. And whenever they're interested, invite the scientist in. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:46 Highlight the passage at 2:29:46

2:30:02 Through collaboration, the insights can be public, the scientists benefit, the meditators may benefit from the scientists. That it's simply a network of friends. That's the vision. They're not my centers. If a center starts here, it will not be my center. I'm happy to come. I'm happy to be networking. But it will be the Australian center. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:02 Highlight the passage at 2:30:02

2:30:22 It will be your center. It will be grassroots. You'll raise the money for it. You'll create it. You'll design it. And you'll have as much help from me as you'd like, but it will be your baby. And if it's not needed, then it won't happen. That's really simple, because I'm not a salesman. I don't try to persuade people to want something they don't really want. Life is too short. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:22 Highlight the passage at 2:30:22

2:30:43 But if there's shared vision, oh, then I'm happy to help. So something is happening in Mongolia. I'm happy to help. Singapore, happy to help. Brazil, happy to help. Mexico, already happened. I worked 10 years on that one. Kept on saying for 10 years, viva la revolución, viva la revolución. They finally did it, you know. They got the land, they put up the cabin. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:43 Highlight the passage at 2:30:43

2:31:02 Now we have eight yogis there. You know, pounding away, hitting the shamatha asphalt. So it's happening. It is happening. But it would be really, I'll be, I'll just tell you this, my aspiration. If at the end of next year, like whenever it is, early October or something, when I've just offered my best for those months, if there's some real clear galvanized energy to do something here in Australia for the Australians and anybody else who wants to come, that's going to really make my day. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:02 Highlight the passage at 2:31:02

2:31:32 That will make him really happy. Because it would be good for him. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:32 Highlight the passage at 2:31:32

2:31:40 And it's tough to practice on your own. Bring about deep transformation. To really think about a path. Because we can practice Dharma anywhere. You don't need a Dharma center for that. Go home, practice Dharma. I'm going to go to an airplane. I'll practice Dharma in the airplane. How do I need a Dharma center? But if we raise the vision, I'm a Madhagavadan, Theravadan, Chittamatrams and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:40 Highlight the passage at 2:31:40

2:32:03 I'm a Madhagavadan. That's my sect. A Madhagavadan is a person who's propounding, advocating a path. Because that's what the Buddha did. That's what all the great teachers through history have done. But a path is not simply practicing Dharma. Practicing Dharma is good. Remember the issue of motivation, though? And that is motivation to actually proceed on a path, and a path means transformation that's irreversible. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:03 Highlight the passage at 2:32:03

2:32:28 Now that's a big deal. Not easy. But it really is possible. But then you need to know what is indispensable, what needs to be done to bring about shifts that you don't fall back. And then another shift and you don't fall back. And then another shift. And then after a while you actually are proceeding along the path to awakening. And then if you keep on, then you're going to come to its culmination. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:28 Highlight the passage at 2:32:28

2:32:49 Whatever culmination you want. As a shrava-arhat, it's noble. I bow. Want to follow the bodhisattva path? I bow deeply. Want to follow the Dzogchen path? This is simply one expression of the Mahayama. Well, that's actually practical. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:49 Highlight the passage at 2:32:49

2:33:06 So I've had enormous satisfaction over the last, wow, quite a few years now. 16, 17 years. Not full time, but off and on, and a lot of time spent translating all of the Dzogchen texts from one of the greatest 19th century Dzogchen masters named Zhu Zhu Lingba. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:06 Highlight the passage at 2:33:06

2:33:24 I think it was when I was in Phuket, I did the final publishing. A thousand pages, three volumes. It's pretty much done. With some publications, we'll publish it next year in a boxed three-volume set. There's enough for everybody here in this room to achieve enlightenment by reading those texts. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:24 Highlight the passage at 2:33:24

2:33:45 It would be very good to read things outside of those texts, but if what you want to do is achieve enlightenment in this lifetime and manifest rainbow body, what's taught in those texts is completely sufficient. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:45 Highlight the passage at 2:33:45

2:33:56 And they're all translated, they'll be published, and it's really well edited. I had such good companions, such good help. I'd kind of be embarrassed. If I didn't have that help and just my work were published, I'd be embarrassed, because there'd be so many little mistakes all over the place. I had superb help. My fellow has all the qualities I don't have. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:56 Highlight the passage at 2:33:56

2:34:14 He's patient, he's meticulous, he's precise, relentless and working out the tiniest details. I have no patience. I have tiger energy. I don't have that kind of... Report an error in the passage at 2:34:14 Highlight the passage at 2:34:14

2:34:28 So they're all going to be out next year, next summer. All of that will be out. Now there's many magnificent texts. I'm not suggesting this is all in a class by itself, but I know it speaks to my heart. And I know also there are prophecies around these, and the prophecies from the 19th century saying these teachings will be of great benefit to people living in the cities of the West. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:28 Highlight the passage at 2:34:28

2:34:47 That's what it says. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:47 Highlight the passage at 2:34:47

2:34:51 There was also a prophecy that 13 of his disciples would achieve rainbow body, and they did during his lifetime. 13. So he was a consummate teacher, an incredible teacher. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:51 Highlight the passage at 2:34:51

2:35:02 And I've heard, but have not yet verified. I've asked Sogir Rinpoche. He's writing the foreword for all three volumes. He was very close with the Dujum family. I've asked him. We're going to find out. But I've heard more hearsay that the prophecy also went on, 13 in Tibet, but in the future, a total of 100 people achieving rainbow body on the basis of such teachings. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:02 Highlight the passage at 2:35:02

2:35:25 I want to know whether that's true or not. And I'll not know if I just sit around and say, well, let's see. Spectator sport. That's not going to work out. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:25 Highlight the passage at 2:35:25

2:35:35 So I'm getting to be old, geezerish. Getting there. You can see the hair. As Gatridama told me, Alan, you're no longer a young man. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:35 Highlight the passage at 2:35:35

2:35:54 But I have this sense. It's really weird. It's probably silly, a bit crazy. But I really do have this sense, both individually and in terms of Dharma. Not the big picture, but the fine picture. I have this wild... Crazy I'd sense that the best is yet to come. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:54 Highlight the passage at 2:35:54

2:36:14 So let's see. Rhonda, Claudio, thank you so much for all your help. Thank you all for coming. It's been very good. I've enjoyed it as always. Delighted to engage with you. Hope we meet again. I'm finished. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:14 Highlight the passage at 2:36:14

2:36:32 I have a request for people to tell the story. The story of the foolish. The foolish print, uh-huh. And the wise things. Sure. Oh, that's a great parable. Sure. I'm happy to. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:32 Highlight the passage at 2:36:32

2:36:50 I just rained my battery down to zero, so I have to breathe a little bit. I'm finished. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:50 Highlight the passage at 2:36:50

2:37:00 Okay. So the parable of the foolish prince. There was once a young man. He was the crown prince, and he was a young foolish man. And one day he went out with his entourage from the palace to watch a spectacle in classical India. There were these sorcerers. They were illusionists. People nowadays with all their technology, back then they would do it with mantra, a substance and samādhi. And they would, by the power of their minds, so the legend goes, widespread belief in the Buddhist and Hindu world, these great adepts, as entertainers really, they would create these fantastically entertaining illusions, like 3D illusions. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:00 Highlight the passage at 2:37:00

2:37:43 And so the illusion is coming to town, it's a big celebration, everybody come out, watch the show, like a circus. Illusions created with the mind. So this young prince was very keen to see this great entertainment. So he went out there and he just got, he watched it and he watched it. He became so absorbed, mesmerized by these illusions that he, just that, he got totally absorbed in them. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:43 Highlight the passage at 2:37:43

2:38:07 And finally when the show was over, all the illusions were finished. He'd completely forgotten who he was. Just amnesia set. And then he looked around and... Report an error in the passage at 2:38:07 Highlight the passage at 2:38:07

2:38:17 Somehow he separated from his entourage. So they didn't know where he was. He didn't even know who he was. He didn't know what an entourage was. He was just there in this very fine attire. And everybody's going home. The show's over. The illusionist is heading off to the next town or whatever. Totally bewildered. He just, what? Report an error in the passage at 2:38:17 Highlight the passage at 2:38:17

2:38:37 Doesn't know who he is. Doesn't know anything. There's just nobody around. And he's getting hungry. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:37 Highlight the passage at 2:38:37

2:38:46 And he doesn't have anything on him. No money, no food, nothing. Just fancy clothes. And then he sees some wandering beggars over there. And he sees them begging. He sees them getting some food. So he walks over to them and says, hey, friends, can I join you? I'm really hungry. And, you know, they're businessmen. He said, what do you got? If you want to join our troop, what do you got? And I like your clothes. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:46 Highlight the passage at 2:38:46

2:39:13 Say, want my clothes? Sure. Have my clothes. I'm hungry. So he swaps his royal garb for some of the old beggar's rags. Now he looks like a beggar. They all go off and sell his clothes. But then they teach him how to beg. Teach him the craft. And he still doesn't remember who he is, but he's a smart guy. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:13 Highlight the passage at 2:39:13

2:39:32 And he gradually learns the craft. How do you beg? What's the strategy here? And then the days go by, weeks, months go by. And now he knows who he is. He's figured it out. He's a beggar, and he's pretty good at it. He looks like a beggar, walks like a beggar, talks like a beggar. He is a beggar. So now he's more comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:32 Highlight the passage at 2:39:32

2:39:52 Now he knows who he is. And so he's just wandering about. After a while, he can just beg on his own. He knows the trade. And then in the source of his migrations around about, one day he comes to quite an impressive house, quite a mansion. And they've got some good grub. I bet they have something spelled, get a good meal here. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:52 Highlight the passage at 2:39:52

2:40:13 So he boldly comes up at the front door and knocks. And a very majestic man comes to the door. And he calls up to him and says, Master, could you spare some food? I'm really, really hungry. Well, it turns out the master who came to the door, he's answering his own door. He was the chief minister of the king. And, of course, the palace has been just complete frantic. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:13 Highlight the passage at 2:40:13

2:40:37 They've lost their crown of prince. Everything is total disarray. The future of the whole kingdom. Because he was the only one. And here's the chief minister, and he's seeing through all the grubbiness and all the cruddy clothes and so forth, he recognized the young man immediately. He recognized it's the crown prince. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:37 Highlight the passage at 2:40:37

2:40:57 And so his face just lights up, like, Your Highness, fantastic. Welcome, welcome, welcome, come in here. I mean, the king will be so incredibly delighted to see you. Please come in, Your Highness. And the prince, he just immediately, he just cringes. He says, wait, wait, I was just asking for some, I don't need your sarcasm. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:57 Highlight the passage at 2:40:57

2:41:17 I just wanted some food, you know. Don't ridicule me. He said, you don't want to give me food? Just say you don't want to give me food. And Report an error in the passage at 2:41:17 Highlight the passage at 2:41:17

2:41:29 the chief minister says, he really doesn't get it. He's lost it. He really doesn't know who he is. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:29 Highlight the passage at 2:41:29

2:41:38 So he's a very smart minister. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I wasn't mean. I'm sorry. I was just, I mistake. Don't worry about it. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:38 Highlight the passage at 2:41:38

2:41:48 There's some real fast shuffling to speak. He said, but by the way, before, sure, I'll give you some food. Don't worry about it. I'll give you some food. But before I do, I've got a couple of questions for you. Oh, Mr. Beggar Man. Where were you born? Where were you born? Tell me, I'm just curious, I'll give you some, don't worry, but where were you born? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? Who were your childhood friends? Report an error in the passage at 2:41:48 Highlight the passage at 2:41:48

2:42:10 Tell me where you came from. Simple question, that's a decent question to ask. And the young beggar, he knows that, yeah, okay. And then he's going back in his memory and he's probing back, where did I come from? Where was I as a child? And Report an error in the passage at 2:42:10 Highlight the passage at 2:42:10

2:42:33 he's seeing that not only he cannot remember, but he's remembering that there is nothing to remember. of his origins as a beggar. He recognized the absence of his origins as a beggar. And in that moment, he broke through his amnesia and recognized who he was. And as soon as the light went on, when his eyes kind of like that, then the chief minister recognized, aha, now you know who you are. Report an error in the passage at 2:42:33 Highlight the passage at 2:42:33

2:43:06 So come, come, your highness, and come into the royal chamber. Everybody will welcome you. He attired him in royal garb and enthroned him. And in an instant, then he became king. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:06 Highlight the passage at 2:43:06

2:43:25 So, that's the story. I think you've already figured it out. Your identity as a sentry being that we take so seriously, we've gotten accustomed to it, and think that's really all there is to us. When you probe into your origins as a sentry being, when did you become a sentry being? Where is that sentry being? And when you see the very emptiness of your own identity as a truly existent sentry being, you're right on the cusp of realizing where you've always been. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:25 Highlight the passage at 2:43:25

2:43:57 That's the story. The Buddhist parable of the prodigal son. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:57 Highlight the passage at 2:43:57

2:44:04 And it brings it right to noon. Good timing. Claudia, off to you. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:04 Highlight the passage at 2:44:04