← Tenzin Chogkyi

Dying Well Weekend (4 November 2007)

Tenzin Chogkyi · 4 November 2007 · 5 h 14 min · Tse Chen Ling via Internet Archive

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  • 9:41

    They absorb and dissolve from the periphery inward and then particularly from the left and right channels absorb and dissolve into the central channel. Then they end up dissolving into the heart chakra, into what's called the indestructible drop at the heart, which is the subtlest mind and body reside at this indestructible drop at the heart. And we'll go over this when we go through the stages again. So all of the winds dissolve into the central channel and then from the central channel they absorb into the subtle most mind and body.

  • 48:55

    Grocer levels of consciousness are completely dissolved and the subtler levels become manifest. Okay, after the breath has stopped. So remember the last stage, the outward breath had stopped and the wind element dissolved into consciousness and now we're dealing with subtler levels of consciousness. What's going on at this stage physically is the winds from the right and left channels are entering the central channel through the top of the central channel. Now there's a subtle, what's called a drop, white drop, which is an element that moves through the channel that's localized at the crown.

  • 1:11:46

    In the next phase, the wind element dissolves into consciousness. Physical action is impossible and the sense of touch is gone. The tongue contracts and turns bluish and

  • 1:40:36

    And that's practicing all the time, no matter what you're doing. We set our motivation in the beginning of the day with the power of determination. You know, not to lose sight of the fact that the purpose of our life is to serve others as much as possible, make others happy as much as possible. And then the power of familiarity says, get used to it, you know, all day long. Keep reminding yourself. And there's a little Kadampa trick of the trade that says every time you change positions, you know, think of this bodhicitta motivation.

  • 3:13:21

    The first is the power of regret. And you'll be getting a handout on this. The power of regret. The first part of the regret is recognizing and admitting to yourself the mistake you've made. Okay. There's no cleaning it up anymore. There's no putting a nice face on it or rationalizing it away. I did it. I really did that. You have to admit it to yourself.

0:17 Morning, everyone. We asked everybody to be on time, but then we forgot to tell everybody that the time was changing. I'm not quite sure what kind of karma that is, and I had to ask my friends about 50 times, is it, will they be early or will they be late? Is it fall forward, jump back? I never understand how they say it. But anyway, thank you all. It's the first time in my life I ever felt mathematically adept. Report an error

0:46 All that could go either way. Report an error

0:50 So let's just take a minute again to set our motivation for today's session. First sit quietly in your meditation position just for a minute or two. Report an error

1:04 Watching your breath to settle the mind. Get yourself here in your body, in the room, ready for the work today. Report an error

1:42 And now just take a minute to reflect on your motivation. For coming, Report an error

1:54 your motivation may be to learn how to prepare for your own peaceful death, to learn practices so that you can take the utmost opportunity of the death time and use it for your spiritual practice, to Report an error

2:18 learn techniques to help others that you care for. And always the highest level of motivation in the Mahāyāna is For all of our spiritual practices to enhance our ability to benefit all sentient beings and lead to our ultimate enlightenment. So try and reflect for a moment on this level of motivation. Report an error

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3:17 Okay, so for our first session this morning we're going to talk about the stages of death. And this is the part of the teaching that... Can I just... Oh yeah. Could I digress for a moment? Sure, go ahead. Sorry we didn't talk about this, but I'd like to know if anybody had any experiences after you left here, any reflections on the material from yesterday, anything that came up for you that we should speak about before we go even deeper? Report an error

3:56 Or did you just enjoy a pleasant Saturday night? Yes, yes. Report an error

4:06 There were two questions that came to mind. Last night for me. And one was building on something I think you said, Rick, about your next life depends on the merits you've accumulated in this life as well as what is occurring at the time of death. And obviously if you have an accident at the time of death, you don't have a big opportunity for that one. Report an error

4:36 How is that determined? How much weight one gets versus the other? You know, I think that that particular question that arose will be best answered after what you learned from Tenzin Chogky in her lectures today. It may answer some of your questions. And then if not, you'll have more material. to build the question on and please ask it later. Report an error

5:06 Okay, Report an error

5:32 so looks like we can proceed with a clean slate now. okay sure I just was if there were any lingering concerns or upsets or states of mind that you wanted to just bring here for us to look at because that often happens in this type particularly after some of the deep experiential meditations that we did yesterday so hold that question yeah Report an error

5:35 Okay. So I mentioned yesterday that when I was in this chaplaincy training program, one of the presenters said, well, the Tibetan tradition has about 35 different books on death and dying and the other traditions have one or two. And what I'm going to be talking about next explains this disparity because... Report an error

5:53 What the stages of death as explained and practiced in the Tibetan tradition and why the teachings are so rich is because it's based on teachings on the subtle body that are taught only in highest yoga tantra, which is only found in the Tibetan tradition. And those of you who've had some of these teachings that may have taken commentaries in Highest Yoga Tantra, for you this may be a very simplified review. Report an error

6:19 For some of you this may be, you know, the first time that you've heard some of this material. I am going to make it very simple. Discussion of the subtle levels of body and mind is a huge, huge topic as you can imagine. We've got about an hour and 20 minutes. Not to mention that we're going to meditate on it as well. So this is going to be vastly simplified, but it will explain the stages of death as they're presented in this tradition and also hopefully explain why the time of death is seen to be such a crucial time for practice. Report an error

6:52 And why we prepare for it in the way that we do and why it's emphasized so much in the Tibetan tradition. And also why these great yogis can stay in this death absorption for sometimes days or weeks. So we'll go into that. And for those of you that have had these teachings, as I said, this may be a very simplified review. And so I apologize. Report an error

7:17 Please bear with me. So, first it's necessary to just speak a little bit about the subtle body, according to Highest Yoga Tantra. The subtle body exists, as the name indicates, at a subtler level than the gross body. There are three levels explained in these teachings. Gross body and mind, subtle body and mind, and very subtle body and mind. And we're going to be talking about all three during this. Report an error

7:50 Now the gross body and mind are the ones that we are most familiar with. You know, the body that shows up in x-rays and the, you know, kind of known to medical science. And the gross mind is our five sensory consciousnesses that we're familiar with, sight, taste, smell, touch. And also mental consciousness, gross mental consciousness. Report an error

8:14 So conceptual thought is what we call it in Buddhism. Then there's a subtle body that's composed of what's called channels, winds and drops. Channels, winds and drops. And this is the subtle body that's dealt with a lot in Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, Hinduism talking about chakras and channels and so forth. Report an error

8:36 So this shows up in many, many systems and it's utilized in the highest yoga tantra teachings. Report an error

8:48 So this subtle body, the main channels are that we're going to be talking about in this presentation. There's a central channel that runs right in front of the backbone, and then there are two side channels, the left and the right side channels, and then branching out from these are, they say, 72,000 channels. Report an error

9:11 Go throughout the body. And this again is a subtle level that's not, you know, you can't dissect and, you know, tune into this. It doesn't show up in x-rays. This is the subtle energy channels that exist in the body. Now what happens at the time of death, you know, these channels contain winds, also known as prāṇa, chi, energy winds, okay? Report an error

9:35 The time of death, these winds start to dissolve into the central channel. They absorb and dissolve from the periphery inward and then particularly from the left and right channels absorb and dissolve into the central channel. Then they end up dissolving into the heart chakra, into what's called the indestructible drop at the heart, which is the subtlest mind and body reside at this indestructible drop at the heart. Report an error

10:10 And we'll go over this when we go through the stages again. So all of the winds dissolve into the central channel and then from the central channel they absorb into the subtle most mind and body. And then that is what goes from life to life, according to Highest Yoga Tantra. Now, when the winds are moving in the other parts of the body, they give rise to conceptual thought delusions. Report an error

10:37 All of our conceptual thought, also our delusions. So when they absorb and dissolve into this subtle body, the subtlest consciousness is made manifest. These gross levels of consciousness, gross sensory consciousness, gross delusions are no longer manifest, are no longer active. So only this very, very subtle consciousness is manifested this time. And that is what can be used in meditation to penetrate the ultimate nature of reality and get a direct realization of emptiness. Report an error

11:11 So for yogis, they use, they try through yogic means, which is the goal of tantra, basically, the goal of tantric practices is through yogic means to dissolve all of these winds. Manifest this very subtle level of consciousness and use it for meditation. So those practices are done in what's called the completion stage of Highest Yoga Tantra. Report an error

11:36 Now, during the death process, this process happens naturally. Because of the death process, those winds dissolve into the central channel, absorb into the indestructible drop. That subtle level of consciousness is made manifest naturally during the death process, and we usually completely miss it. We're not conscious of it. It's just happening, but without training, you can't use it for your meditation. You're not conscious of it. Report an error

12:05 You miss it completely. Okay? So part of our training is to become familiar with those stages so that we can use that level of consciousness for meditation. It's taking advantage of the natural dissolution of the winds that happens during the death process and then... That subtle level of consciousness is made manifest and you use that for your meditation, which is why these yogis at the time of death, you may have heard some stories, will stay in meditation after the breath has stopped, sometimes for days, weeks, long periods of time. Report an error

12:44 We had a teacher who passed away about two years ago. And he stayed in that state for something like 14 days. After the breath has stopped, all of the winds absorb into that indestructible drop. Report an error

13:00 Only that subtle consciousness is manifest at that point. And then a highly trained yogi will go into meditation on the direct realization of emptiness, using that subtle consciousness, and then stay in that... So even though the breath has stopped, the heartbeat has stopped, and then the body doesn't decay, their flesh is that nice, flexible, rosy color, there's no decay, but there's no outer signs of respiration or heartbeat or anything like that. Report an error

13:33 And they can stay like that sometimes for weeks if they're highly trained. So that's the point. Of training in the stages of death. And that's the point of what's called generation stage of highest yoga tantra practices to rehearse over and over and over again. You know we use our meditation practice as a rehearsal for the death experience so that we can use it for our meditation. Report an error

14:00 So as I said... This is a huge topic and I've just tried to kind of give the highlights so that you understand why in the Tibetan tradition this is emphasized so much to really learn and train around the stages of death. Because it's very difficult to bring those winds in and dissolve them through yogic means. But as I said, the death process, it happens naturally. Report an error

14:23 So we're just trying to take the benefit of that natural process and through our conscious awareness use it for our practice. Report an error

14:32 Are there any questions about that up until this point? And we're going to go through all the stages of what actually happens. Was that completely incomprehensible? Okay. It's okay so far? Yeah, Janet. Report an error

14:49 When a person, like say, if it happens to be the ordinary person or a yogi, whoever is in that space, space In clear light space, if you... Do things to the body, can that disturb that meditation? Yeah, and that's exactly why that we try not to touch the body at all while that meditation would be happening because it disturbs that meditation. Report an error

15:22 And that's exactly the reason when we were talking yesterday about the different recommendations for what to be done at the time of death, don't move the body until the consciousness has left because exactly so it will disturb that meditation. Would it possibly cause anger to arise? No, it wouldn't be manifest anger at that point because the consciousness is dissolved to the point where manifest emotions like that would no longer be happening. Report an error

15:49 But it would just... But it would jar if the practitioner were absorbed into that direct realization of emptiness at that point, it could jar them out of that and cause the consciousness to then leave the body. And come out of that absorption. Because what happens then is after that absorption, then generally what happens is the consciousness will leave the body, hopefully through the crown chakra, which is why Lenny was saying yesterday, you know, you... Report an error

16:18 Pull on hairs, if you have hairs, if you're me, you poke on the top of the crown and just try and get the consciousness to leave that way and then that's what goes to the next rebirth. So you're basically interrupting that process and causing the consciousness to leave prematurely and you try and just maximize, especially if the yogi is in that absorption, you try and maximize the benefit of that meditation. Report an error

16:45 Ordinary people... Don't they sometimes stay in that state for maybe limited amounts of time? Sure, exactly, which is why we also, no matter who it is, if there's a way that you can keep the body undisturbed, which we try and do at Tara Home until the signs that that absorption has finished. And for example, even for ordinary people who aren't yogis, like this friend of ours who died just a few weeks ago, she... Report an error

17:12 It appeared to be in that state for about 26 hours after the breathing had stopped and for various, you know, even ordinary people it can be, if it's a peaceful death and their organs haven't degenerated too much and they can still kind of support that level of consciousness, it can be quite... It's prolonged sometimes, which is also why when we're talking yesterday about organ donation, this whole process is really speeded up in a sudden violent death. Report an error

17:43 And it's very difficult to become aware of the different levels that you're going through and stay in that meditative absorption. So it's quite a lot easier if the death is peaceful and the body isn't so ravaged by disease that can no longer support the consciousness. And we're going to get into that when we talk more about the stages. Any other questions so far? Yeah. Charlie. Report an error

18:12 Lenny, yesterday you were speaking about when you were with Lama Yeshe at the time of his death, and the idea was to have him experience this entire sequence of events in an American hospital, which would obviously preclude that... Ability to leave the body for an extended period of time. Correct. Undisturbed. What did you feel the lesson was in feeling about it that way? Report an error

18:43 Yes, well, what happened, as I said, is that his body was left undisturbed after it's wheeled through the hall and hopefully not jarred too much into a... A private chamber at the other end of the hospital where many of his students from the area came in and out all day and we sat in meditation and did the practices that Lama Zopa Rinpoche was leading. Report an error

19:09 And at about 9.30 that evening, Rinpoche said that the consciousness had exited. He said he saw a slight drop of blood in one of the nostrils and it appeared that the head had turned slightly. And he then pronounced that it was okay to remove the body to the mortuary. So I can only speculate that Lama Yeshi had so much control that he was able to complete this process in the time that was allotted by the hospital being aware of what was happening. Report an error

19:47 I don't know. But apparently the process did get completed to Lama Zopa's satisfaction. And there are also times that I've heard of, and I actually saw a videotape once, when the body needs to be moved for some reason, the Lama will be requested to finish his or her meditation. And this often happens, and I saw a videotape of this Lama who died in Canada, and for some reason they had to move the body, and they went in and did three prostrations, and here's the body sitting there, they made a formal request, please... Report an error

20:24 You know, finish your meditation and then they did certain practices to kind of ensure that that had happened before moving the body. So often when you'll hear about these lamas that have died, you'll hear something like, well the breath stopped on Tuesday afternoon and then he finished his meditation Friday morning, meaning that that was as long as this last process of meditation took. Report an error

20:46 So they can be requested to just finish and then they're conscious enough to go ahead and conclude the process. And Charlie had something and then Janet. Report an error

21:03 I'm a little confused about gross consciousness and subtle consciousness and the relationship between that and the body. What's not clear to me is if your gross consciousness has dissolved into subtle consciousness, Why does Why is there a relationship between that subtle consciousness and the gross body in terms of touching and moving the body and things like that? Report an error

21:30 It's just still because it's still residing in the body and hasn't left it any... Really jarring motion and things like that. It's not so much that it's a tactile consciousness or a sense consciousness, but it's still existing in relation with the body and the subtle body, because the subtle mind and subtle body are joined, so the subtle consciousness and subtle... Report an error

21:55 So even moving the gross physical body would influence, just like acupressure points and things, influences the subtle body. So any kind of jarring or moving even of what seems to us is the gross physical body would still have an influence on the subtle body. So that's how that would work. Yeah, Janet had something too. In that case where a body would have to be moved... Report an error

22:21 Possibly before the meditation is completed. Is that the kind of instance when you would tap on the head, pull the hair, just to encourage the... And you actually do, at that point, there's a practice called POA, transference of consciousness. And so what we try to do, for example, at Tara Homan, which is why it's such a unique circumstance, is try and get... Report an error

22:44 Someone to do the transference of consciousness before the body is moved, which is an elaborate practice that's found in this book. And then there's a simpler one that I'm going to be talking about later on this afternoon, which is basically what's involved there is transferring the consciousness from where it still is residing in the indestructible drop to you visualize a pure land of a Buddha, often Amitabha Buddha, and you kind of visualize it going through the crown of the head. Report an error

23:14 You make several, you shout a mantra loudly right in the person's ear to try and kind of traject the consciousness out of the body. So often in the ideal circumstance, even before you pull the hair on the crown of the head, you'll do a transference of consciousness and shout this mantra and then do that. Report an error

23:35 So all of that is sort of trying to direct the consciousness of the person out of the body. Yeah, yeah. Report an error

23:44 Could you clarify again the difference between the subtle body and the very subtle body? Okay, we're going to get to that because we'll go through the stages now. Yeah. Are there any? Yeah. Yeah. This could be an all day or a month long conversation here. Yes, definitely. Because, you know, a lot of what you're bringing up is, you know, I don't necessarily look at all that in my own practice. And so just kind of simplifying it. Report an error

24:11 I kind of feel like I can be a very simple person. The subtle bodies that we're also talking about in death is also kind of the same discussion of what is birth. When it goes around abortion, it's like when is someone born? When are they here? And I think that gets in our discussion of around that. And to me, a lot of it does become conjecture because what do we really know? Report an error

24:41 They'll have a belief system and it feels very positive to us. And, you know, subtle stages of, it's like I'm hearing like, what is death actually? Here's Western culture says it's this way, they didn't say it this way, Theravāda didn't say it this way, you know, over in, you know, this part of the world, they'll say it's this way. Report an error

24:58 And, you know, and if the body, you know, if there is something that's still alive, you know, it sounds to me like saying, you know, hey. Get away, don't touch them yet until they're dead, until they've decided. So, you know, it's just kind of being in a compassionate way. It's like someone wanting someone, thinking when they're dead when they may not be. Report an error

25:18 This is kind of, you know, again, it's like, it's kind of very compassionate in a way that, and if my belief system is, you know, they're really still alive, then it's like, oh. Get out and, you know, don't take them away. You're not going to put them anywhere in a bag until, you know, they decide until this has ended. You know, they're still alive. Report an error

25:39 And so that's kind of what it's feeling like for me in this practice. Again, I haven't had these discussions, so I don't want to take it way off. But there's a sense of this is your life, so like leave them alone until they're ready, until they've really passed on. And then you can dispose of them. bones and the cells and the blood. Sure. Report an error

26:00 And that's why I say I'm presenting, you know, and this conversation is unique to highest yoga tantra teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, which is also why it's so important for practitioners to specify what they want. You know, if I buy into this... Belief system, I need to fill out my five wishes and say, yes, please, you know, this is my belief and please leave my body untouched. Report an error

26:25 And then I can make that decision and other people don't have to. Try and make that decision or feel like, you know, by leaving me alone it's not going to be compassionate or whatever like that. So that's why it's so important if you get these teachings and if you kind of say, okay, you know, I kind of buy into this. Report an error

26:42 So to make it clear to everybody so that they don't have to make those choices about what they think is compassionate. Because in the Western society in general, this is unheard of. It's not something that's familiar to people like certain Catholic rites might be or certain Jewish rites might be. This is a big unknown in the common community. Report an error

27:07 And Rick, what you're saying about... It's the reverse at the time of birth. So this is clearly outlined in His Holiness' book, Mind of Clear Light, on page 120. And he talks about, as Tenzin Chogkyi is going to describe soon, the eight stages of dissolution in forward order. And then exactly that's what happens in reverse order at the time of conception. Report an error

27:36 So I think we'll go ahead and get into these eight stages now because I'm sure it will engender further questions. Okay, so according to these teachings, there are eight stages of death. Report an error

27:49 Four of them are dependent on what's called the four elements. So it's dependent on the gross body, on functioning of the gross body. And then four of them are dependent on subtler levels. You know, three on the subtle level of body and mind and then the last one on the very subtle level of body and mind. Report an error

28:09 And so we'll just go through them one by one, explaining what's going on with the outer physical body and then what's going on inwardly. At these different stages, okay? And I also have a handout that I want to give you after I go through. Go ahead and take notes, but I have a handout with an outline. Report an error

28:25 Okay, so in general... The grosser elements dissolve into the subtler elements. So it kind of goes at the time of death, everything goes from gross to subtle to extremely subtle. And then in the reverse order at conception, it goes in the opposite direction from subtler to grosser. So these elements refer to functions of the body. Report an error

28:49 They're described as elements in the Tibetan system, but you can kind of think of them as functions. Now the first one... It's described as the earth element dissolves into the water element. Now, by dissolves, it means that the earth element, which is the solidity of the body, okay, earth means solidity, okay, the solid, you know, functioning of the body, no longer can serve as a support for consciousness, okay? Report an error

29:18 So the water element takes over. That's a subtler element. And water just means the fluidity of the body. So the solidity of the body can no longer support the consciousness and the water or the fluidity of the body takes over. Now this is accompanied by certain signs in the outer body. You lose physical strength and vitality. Report an error

29:46 The body becomes dramatically thinner. The limbs loosen. The sight becomes unclear. And these points are in a handout I'm going to give you in a minute. You can no longer move or open or close your eyes. So that solid functioning of the body like movement is no longer manifest. Report an error

30:09 And this stage can happen weeks or months before death. We saw a photograph this morning of a friend's mother who's dying in a hospital in Germany. And she has been in a semi-vegetative state for... What did he say? A year and a half? A year and a half. A year and a half. And His Holiness in this amazing book. Report an error

30:36 Which is a must read for all of us, describes that it can happen even in ordinary beings a couple of years before the actual death. And I think that's what we were looking at this morning. This woman who looks like she's not here, but she's still alive. And the earth element is probably unable to support the consciousness. Every now and then she has moments of lucidity. Report an error

31:02 Yeah, and for all of these eight stages, as Lenny mentioned, they can happen over long stretches of time if it's a slow, you know, some sort of slow disease, or it can happen almost instantaneously in a violent car accident or shooting or heart attack or something like that. So it can happen almost instantaneously or very, very slowly over time. Report an error

31:24 So at this point, the person may have a sense of sinking, falling or being buried or trapped under a weight and struggle upward. And so I mentioned this yesterday, this phase that often people think the person is in extreme pain. And I've seen this with every person in the hospice that I've been with and in hospitals. Report an error

31:44 There's always this stage that they're kind of struggling and trying to push the covers up or just trying to get up. And generally what's happening at this point is this stage that the earth... So their body just feels like it's sinking or there's a weight because of the solidity absorbing or dissolving. Report an error

32:03 So often when they thrash around, they might seem agitated, it might seem like pain, but often it's just that feeling and no sedative or pain medication is really going to help because what's happening is this earth element is absorbing. Report an error

32:20 Now, there's an inner vision that accompanies each of these stages. And when we do our meditation practice and tantric practice, we're usually meditating on the inner vision that accompanies... These stages of dissolution. And that's why if you become familiar in meditation, then you'll recognize when it starts happening to you because you recognize the inner vision, you'll recognize what's going on with the body. Report an error

32:47 So the inner vision that accompanies this first phase is of a silvery-blue shimmering mirage. So the inner vision, meaning in the mind's eye, you'll get a vision of this shimmering blue mirage. Report an error

33:05 Second stage, the water element dissolves into the fire element. So the fluidity of the body is starting to absorb and dissolve and become less manifest and can no longer support the consciousness, which then dissolves into the fire element. And that's the heat of the body, the body heat. That's easy to understand, also known as the fire element. That's the heat that drives digestion. Report an error

33:33 You know, just the physical sensation of body heat. So what's happening during this phase physically? You no longer feel experiences of pleasure or pain due to senses or mental consciousness. The mouth, tongue and throat dry up due to loss of saliva. Other fluids such as urine, blood and sweat dry up. Report an error

33:56 And often you'll see this in people that are... Dying, right? They're no longer urinating, you know, they seem to be, often you need to swab the mouth because the mouth is becoming extremely dry. So the bodily fluids are basically drying up during this stage. You can no longer hear sounds, even the normal ringing in the ears stops. Report an error

34:18 So the gross auditory consciousness is no longer manifest. And the inner vision at this stage is that of thin smoke, like that from a stick of incense. So it's like a room filled with incense smoke. Report an error

34:37 The third phase is when the fire element dissolves into the wind element, and the wind element represents motility. Report an error

34:48 And at this phase, the warmth of the body diminishes with the hands and feet becoming cold. And many of us who've been around dying people, often the nurse will come in and feel the feet to see how close they are to the time of death. This is one of the traditional signs that they use to tell how close the person is to death, is feeling the warmth of the extremities. So the warmth of the body starts diminishing, usually from the extremities inward. Report an error

35:15 Digestion ceases because the fire element is the element that's responsible for digestion. So digestion ceases at this point. And excuse me, this is why people that are dying, sometimes weeks before they die, this is happening and they refuse food or if they eat, they vomit and their bowels stop working. Report an error

35:38 And this is why families who are wanting to force food onto people. Need to be gently discouraged. It is not helpful. It will make them more uncomfortable. Yeah, because their body just can't support the function of digestion anymore. Report an error

35:55 This is when the inhalation becomes weak and the exhalation becomes long. And this is one of the signs that we look for also when we're near people in the death process. Paying attention to the relative strength of the inhalation and the exhalation. So the inhalation becomes weaker and shorter and the exhalation becomes longer. Report an error

36:15 The sense of smell ceases and the person is no longer to recognize faces or remember the names of their friends and relatives if they're still conscious. And then the inner vision that accompanies this stage is that of sparks or fireflies. Report an error

36:35 Little sparks or fireflies. Now the fourth phase, which is the last phase that involves the gross elements and the wind element dissolves into consciousness. So that motility, that last of the gross elements dissolves during this stage. The tongue contracts and turns bluish. Report an error

37:00 Physical action is impossible in the sense of touch is gone. The sense of taste is also gone. And this is the stage where the breath through the nostrils ceases. Okay, so this is usually what Western medical science calls death. And according to this system, it's only halfway through, you know, in terms of phases. Report an error

37:27 So this is generally when, you know, all the alarms and buzzers go off and they... The family leaves and says it's finished and according to this system for a yogi this is just the beginning of the real work of the consciousness. So the breath through the nostrils ceases and then through the last four stages the consciousness is subtler and subtler. Report an error

37:53 So no longer any gross consciousness and now we're dealing with three stages of subtle consciousness. So are there any questions about these first four stages? Report an error

38:02 Oh, sorry. The inner vision is that of, they say flickering light over a butter lamp or a candle. So you can think, you know when you have a little tea light in one of those containers that's opaque that you can't actually see the flame, but you just see that kind of flickering? It's like that. It's like that. So not the flame itself, but just sort of that flickering that happens over a flame. It's the inner vision. Report an error

38:28 Yeah, thank you. And did you have something, Carla? Report an error

38:38 On the third stage, the feet get cold, so that's okay to touch the body only after stop breathing? Yeah, after the breath stops, then you shouldn't touch the body, but at that point it's okay. While the gross breath is still happening, it's okay to touch the body. Report an error

38:58 But then the resuscitation, wouldn't that be trying your best touching the body? It has stopped breathing. But if you try the resuscitation, you're touching the body everywhere. Oh, absolutely. And that's why that's to be avoided. Yeah. That's why you do a do not resuscitate order. You know, if you know, I mean, you know, it depends what you're dying from, but if you know that you have some kind of terminal disease, you would choose to put a do not resuscitate because all of those means and the paddles and all of that stuff definitely would... Report an error

39:37 Absolutely, yeah. And then also, because icy cold feet are so common in the dawning person, and that can last for many days, that phase, is that what we do in Tar Home is use a hot water bottle or wrap a heating pad or blankets or warm socks or down comforter around the feet because people's feet are cold. Report an error

39:59 And if they're still conscious, they feel that and it's very uncomfortable. So there are many, many care measures that can be taken during these stages, which are sometimes lengthy, to increase the comfort of the dying person. Report an error

40:17 So I have a question. So let's say someone's on an operating table and all their systems stop. So should we just say, don't try to resuscitate the body? No. Report an error

40:32 Resuscitate the body if you can. Absolutely, absolutely. When resuscitation is not indicated by people of awareness is when the person is brain dead, there's no possibility of any quality of life, and it's just empty heroics for the sake of life-saving, scientific advancement, you know, like that. And desperate... Report an error

40:59 Families that want their people to remain alive at all costs. This is so common. So there's a huge difference between, for example, someone with a terminal illness who, you know, only has a certain amount of time left and is trying to die consciously, but obviously somebody who's in the middle of a surgery and with every expectation that they would recover, of course you would resuscitate. Report an error

41:22 And that's a completely different... We're talking now about if someone has a terminal illness, not to interfere with that natural process, just to give them an extra 24 hours hooked up to some kind of machine or something like that. Report an error

41:40 No, I do not resuscitate water. It's just very specific circumstances. I had a quick other question that slipped out of my mind real quick as you were talking. Report an error

41:57 Maybe it'll come back. It'll dissolve into the earth element. Okay. I'm not sure where. It's close, but I'm not sure where. Okay, well if it pops back up again. It'll pop, yeah. Yeah, Don had something in the back. Just a question. I've seen people become febrile in the last day or two, which has always been presumed to be related to the brainstem, not functioning, maintaining normal regulation. Report an error

42:25 But would that be one dissolving into two? Or the earth dissolving into fire. Fever. Have a fever. You know that? I don't know. No, I'm sure it's related to the fire element and the heat of the body, that particular dissolution. And I have not seen it described in the Tibetan teachings, but I know that that happens. Report an error

42:49 And I'm sure it's related because there's no other reason for it except the brain stem. And is there any contraindication to treat it? I wouldn't think so because, you see, these stages don't go in marching order. And this one's half an hour and this one's an hour like that. This can be occurring over days and weeks and months. And if somebody has a fever and they're uncomfortable and there's a medication that will bring down the fever, they can tolerate that medication or it can be given in a suppository. Report an error

43:20 It will make them more comfortable because you know if you're lying burning up and sweating. You can't be relaxed and at peace, not comfortable. So comfort measures, there's so many that are helpful, and on the scene you employ which one's in the moment. Report an error

43:42 I think I just got my answer to my question, but I want to check. I mean, in my own head, but that's where I got the answer, so I want to check with you. So my background... As I explained yesterday, I do elder care now, but I was a body worker for many years. So my question is about space and touch. Report an error

44:09 So because things go in, the elements are going in. See, in my world, touch sometimes isn't actually touching a body. It's coming into someone's field. And at the... Report an error

44:06 Mm-hmm. Um... Report an error

44:24 Mm-hmm. So... When you die, touching is really touching. Is that true? Do you understand the question? Yes, I understand the question. I've done a lot of body work. So there's a lot of body work systems that work on the energy field without the necessity of touching the skin. And you're asking if that's interfering with the internal process? Report an error

44:50 For example, if I'm present at my father's death, And I'm there and my dog's there and no one else is there and I know not to touch the body. I would keep my dog back because he would go straight up to the body and touch the body. But I would stay probably quite far away because I'm in tuned. So for those of us that are in tuned to these things, how far away should we stay? Report an error

45:25 I think that depends on the ability of the person that's working with the energy and how developed you are. So some people can be, you know, across the world and direct their energy and other people can be across the room and like that. And I also think, in answer to what I think you're asking, that it depends what you're doing with your energy and how you're attempting to penetrate their energy field. Report an error

45:53 Now, when my mother died in 1984, I really didn't know what I was doing, but I was deeply involved in healing work. And she was in the coronary care unit, as I mentioned. And I had been awakened in the middle of the night, the night before. She woke me up. She woke me up 3 o 'clock in the morning. I sat up in bed and she was calling me to help her. And what I did is I sat in bed and I did a distant chakra balancing. Report an error

46:28 I went through all of her chakras and smoothed out. And she was very tense. She had a perpetual frown mark and she was like that for the three days that she was comatose. Report an error

46:43 It took me about half an hour. I gave it my best, and then I went back to sleep. And we went to the hospital in the morning, and I saw that she was in a worse condition, and I asked if I could have some time alone with her, and I did the same thing. Touching her body and then I sat on a chair in her room and I meditated and I had no idea at that point in my spiritual career, if you will, of any of the practices for the dying to do there. Report an error

47:16 So what I did was I visualized Vajrasattva on the crown of her head and I went through some kind of whatever purification meditation I could invent and I felt that it wouldn't harm her in any way. And it could be helpful. And then I was asked to leave the room. They had to do something with her. And about 15 minutes later, I heard on the PA system, code blue, CCU, code blue. Report an error

47:43 All these people came rushing. And she tried to revive her, but she died. So I feel that the work that I did with her allowed her to let go. And hopefully the purification was helpful. And I made that up. So I don't know if it's... But I understand. I know you do, yeah. I've seen Lamas actually recently kind of do movements above the crown of the head of the person, so I would suggest if you did any kind of energy work that it should be localized around the crown of the head rather than other parts of the body. Report an error

48:20 But, you know, kind of be careful about tuning in like that unless you really know. In this situation, I know I need to... Stand back a little bit because I worked with him when he had a stent put in his heart and it was successful and so we've got a thing going on. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's go through the last four stages. So now, as I said, the gross... Report an error

48:55 Grocer levels of consciousness are completely dissolved and the subtler levels become manifest. Okay, after the breath has stopped. So remember the last stage, the outward breath had stopped and the wind element dissolved into consciousness and now we're dealing with subtler levels of consciousness. Report an error

49:11 What's going on at this stage physically is the winds from the right and left channels are entering the central channel through the top of the central channel. Now there's a subtle, what's called a drop, white drop, which is an element that moves through the channel that's localized at the crown. As the winds come into the central channel through the crown, this drop starts to melt and flow down the central channel. The white drop starts to melt. Report an error

49:43 And again, this is a lot of detail. There's more detail in His Holiness. This is about all that we have time for now. So what's happening now, the inner vision is that it's called white appearance. Due to this white drop or this white substance dissolving through the central channel as the winds enter through the crown, this white drop starts to melt and the inner appearance is that of a white, just a white appearance. Report an error

50:12 And they say it's like... Moonlight on an autumn night. You know, the sky suffused with a full moon, moonlight. So that's the fifth level, fifth phase. Report an error

50:26 And the sixth phase, more of the winds enter the central channel at this point through the lower part of the central channel. Report an error

50:36 And then there's a white substance. At the navel that starts, sorry, red substance at the navel that starts to dissolve and move upward. And so the inner vision is that of a red appearance, okay? It's called red increase in the text. And they say it's like a brilliant red sunset, like when the sky is completely filled with brilliant red sunset, okay? Report an error

51:00 So the winds are entering through the bottom of the central channel. This red drop is dissolving, moving upward. And then you get this red appearance. So that's the sixth phase. The seventh phase is when this white substance and the red substance meet at the heart. So all the winds now are meeting at the level of the heart. And so the appearance has two phases. Report an error

51:32 The first is called black near attainment. Black near attainment. So this red appearance subsides and is replaced by blackness and then the second half of this seventh phase is like a blackout, complete unconsciousness. And this is the point that people usually, you know, do not realize this next most crucial step because out of that unconsciousness, then you arise into the most crucial step for meditation, which is the most subtle mind becoming manifest, which most people miss altogether. Report an error

52:07 Because once this unconsciousness of the white and red drops meeting at the heart, you know, that's it. Okay, so the seventh level is this black near attainment. With the white and red meeting at the heart. And now the eighth phase is called the subtlest mind of clear light. Report an error

52:29 And that's when the white and red are completely dissolved into what's called the indestructible drop at the heart, which is the seat of the subtlest body and mind. Report an error

52:41 And now this is the point where if you're trained, you can utilize the subtlest level of consciousness for your meditation. Okay, so this is this eighth phase, is the most important phase and the one that's most often missed if you're untrained. And this is the one where you can use that subtlest level of consciousness to meditate on the ultimate nature of reality, you know, and hopefully become an Arya, Bodhisattva and so forth if you're really well trained, you know. Report an error

53:11 That's the wish and that's why we train over and over and over again for the moment of death because as I said, all of these winds, you know, Come and dissolve into the central channel anyway, and we might as well use that opportunity. So this is the subtlest mind of clear light, where the white and red drops are dissolving into the indestructible drop. Report an error

53:34 And in this stage, as we've mentioned, even in ordinary people can last days, and in highly trained yogis can last weeks. I've heard about weeks that this phase has happened. Yeah, Rick and then Chogky. A couple questions for you. So in a Theravadan practice, if we're practicing on jhānas, jhāna levels, it sounds like this could be a similar practice. Report an error

54:00 I don't think it corresponds with... Or no, because you're getting to such a high state. The subtlety of the jhānas, like the form and formless realm jhānas, are completely different. Report an error

54:13 Yeah, there's not a direct correspondence. Because the jhānas aren't really talking about what's going on with the subtle consciousness and the most subtle consciousness. In the same way, it's still using the gross consciousness. From my understanding, I haven't studied the jhānas much, but I heard a Tibetan Lama was asked about the correspondences between the jhānas and he said it's just a completely different system. Report an error

54:37 Can I here? Yeah. In His Holiness' book on this topic, he's speaking of the eight dissolutions and he says, Remember, the presentation of the phases of death is a mapping of deeper states of mind that occur throughout daily life and usually go unnoticed. These eight phases proceed in forward order when dying, going to sleep, ending a dream, Sneezing, fainting and during orgasm. And in reverse order, after the process of death completely ends as well as when waking from sleep, when beginning a dream and when sneezing, fainting and orgasm end. Report an error

55:27 So this is not something that we haven't experienced without being aware of or partially aware of many times. I find this fascinating. It's not like a... A once-in-a-lifetime or a once-in-a-death-time experience. It's natural. And as Tenzin Chogky said, mostly it goes unnoticed during the death process because one is not trained. Report an error

55:54 Yeah, I guess it just seems like, because if I know in the teachings, in the Theravāda teachings, and you're moving up through the jhānas in that place in the higher jhānas, there's actually just pure awareness of being. It's actually not awareness of a physical body. Report an error

56:10 Whatever little practice I've had, just noticing different levels or wherever, which seems when you're saying the yogas are practicing into emptiness to get into this place. And you can have a direct realization of emptiness. They're saying it's, yeah, they just seem. And you can have a direct realization of emptiness with your gross consciousness, which is what people who aren't practicing highest yoga tantra do. Report an error

56:36 So it's just a different level of consciousness accessing that direct realization of emptiness in these tantric methods versus non-tantric methods. Definitely that same level of awareness of penetrating the ultimate nature of reality is possible with gross consciousness. It's just said to be... Quicker and more direct through these subtle levels of consciousness. And who said that? Well, yeah, of course, the Tibetan lamas. Report an error

57:05 I'm not saying it's not. I'm presenting a certain system. You know who would be a good person to ask? I'm curious. As I'm hearing all this, you're actually bringing up so many more questions for me. You know who would be a great person to ask who's trained in Tibetan methods and also, obviously, Theravad methods is Achan Amro, who's the co-abbot of Abayagiri Monastery in Ukiah. Report an error

57:24 He would know. Yeah, Ask Achan Amro. He'll know. Tell him I sent you to him. He's a good friend of mine. No, I know him and my sitting group goes up there a couple of times a year. Great, because he's trained in all of these Tibetan methods and knows far more about Janus than I do, so he'll be a great person to ask this question. Report an error

57:44 That's actually great. And then I did remember my other question. I don't mean to take up a lot of time. So it's like when, because I know we can study a lot of stuff through MRIs and things when people are dying, so I'm wondering if some of these body levels, if there's also been things hooked up to someone's brain when they're dying and when the body's gone, if we're still seeing some sort of activity happening. Report an error

58:09 His Holiness is working with neurologists. Let's wait until this is finished. He said so far that the subtle and most subtle levels of consciousness, so far they have not been able to measure through any kind of electrical impulses or brain activity, but they're still working on it because His Holiness is very interested in having scientific correlations for these subtler levels of consciousness, so that's a big interest of... Report an error

58:38 And he's working with neurologists on this research. But so far, as far as I understand, and I kind of try to keep on top of that, they haven't really been able to find scientific correlates yet with the measuring techniques that they have. And as Tenzin Chogkyi says, she's presenting a method of arriving at a certain state. Report an error

59:02 In my personal belief, that is not a state of mind that's reserved for Tibetan Buddhists. I mean, I feel like, you know, there have been many enlightened beings throughout the ages and that probably there are doors that lead to the same. This is just a very complete method that most other traditions have not gone into to this depth. That's my personal opinion. Report an error

59:26 And Chogky had a question. Report an error

59:31 I just have a question about in this final state of... When you are in the black near attainment and the second part of it is when you have the sort of swoon or almost like going unconscious and then the clear light. Do you know what causes that swoon? I've had that question come up. Is it the indestructible drop opening? Report an error

59:55 Yeah. That was my thinking that it was, but I don't think I've actually ever read that. It's in this book. The red drop and the white drop. Report an error

1:00:05 Merge and the indestructible drop opens. So when it opens is when the actual moment of unconsciousness. Yeah, when they meet, when they merge, wrap around the indestructible drop, it opens. Report an error

1:00:19 Any other questions? That rose a question and the answer brought up a question in my mind. Is that like just a partial opening? It's not a complete separation of the two. Well, they do separate then when the consciousness finally leaves the body. So during the clear light, it's just like a partial opening. Now that I'm not sure. Report an error

1:00:43 I'm not sure whether the absorption of the clear light. Do you know from that book? I'm not sure about that either. I've not read that particular point. Because you did say that it was when it opened, it caused that swoon, and then you have the clear light, so something... Yeah, that's another detail. I can check on that and let you know because I know which resources would have that. I just don't remember off the top of my head. Report an error

1:01:12 Okay, so now what I'd like to do is take us through this in meditation to get a little taste of it and an experience. And as I mentioned before, for many of you, you already are very practiced. Oh, Allison has something. Yeah, we've got one more over here. Report an error

1:01:34 Sorry, then Janet's last question is suddenly becoming clear for me. So the white and the red appearance merge, then you have the blackout, then the swoon, and then the clear light. Then the clear light, that's right. That's right, yeah. That's the order. And as I said before, this is really, you know, simplified. There's so much more that you can learn about all of these different... Report an error

1:02:04 details, and we just kind of have had to fit it into an So if you're interested, as we mentioned this book, there are a couple of chapters specifically in this book by His Holiness. One's called The Inner Structure that explains all about the channels, winds and drops. And one is called The Clear Light of Death. And in these two chapters specifically is a review of what I've just gone over in a lot more detail. Report an error

1:02:29 So if you're interested. And also, as I mentioned, for those of you who have had Hayas Yoga Tantra teachings, the commentaries on those practices include a lot more detail, but this is in relation to the stages of death. Okay, anything else before we meditate? Okay, so what we're going to do is just try and get a taste of the experience of these stages of death. Report an error

1:02:59 Now, in your... So tantric meditations you're focusing mostly on the inner visions, but because the purpose of this weekend is specifically to sort of get a preview for the death process, we're also going to be meditating on the physical sensations and things that your body is going to be going through during the death process. Report an error

1:03:21 So if you just sit and return your attention to your breath for just a minute or two to settle and focus your mind. Report an error

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1:04:01 And now, even though we're sitting up, imagine that you're lying down, going into the last stages of your death process. Report an error

1:04:20 You may want to continue from the meditation we did yesterday. We meditated on the stages that led up to this final process. Report an error

1:04:36 So now, in the first phase, your earth element dissolves into the water element. Report an error

1:04:50 So you can no longer move your body. You Report an error

1:04:57 can no longer open or close your eyes. Report an error

1:05:07 You lose physical strength and vitality. Report an error

1:05:16 Your limbs loosen and Report an error

1:05:26 you feel heavy. You feel this heavy sinking feeling. You must feel like there's a weight pressed against you. Report an error

1:05:41 You might feel like you're falling, sinking. Report an error

1:05:49 So just feel this heaviness in your body as the earth element dissolves. Loss of movement. And your inner vision is that of a silvery blue mirage. Report an error

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1:07:12 Now in the next phase, the water element dissolves into the fire element. So the fluidity of your body starts to dry up. Report an error

1:07:28 Your mouth, tongue and throat dry up due to loss of saliva. And Report an error

1:07:38 your other bodily fluids such as your urine, blood and sweat begin to dry up. Report an error

1:07:50 You're no longer Feeling experiences of pleasure or pain due to your sense consciousness. You can no longer hear sounds. So Report an error

1:08:08 just get a sense of this feeling of your body's water element, the fluidity drying up. Your sense consciousness no longer functioning to give you pleasure or pain. Report an error

1:08:22 And the inner vision is thin smoke, like from a stick of incense in a room. Thin, wispy smoke. Report an error

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1:09:28 In the next phase, the fire element is dissolving into the wind element, which is the element of motility. Report an error

1:09:40 So the warmth of your body begins to diminish with your hands and feet becoming cold. Report an error

1:10:06 Your digestion ceases. You can no longer digest food. Report an error

1:10:19 Your inhalation becomes short and your exhalation long. Report an error

1:10:35 You're no longer able to recognize faces or remember the names of your friends. Report an error

1:10:50 And the inner vision is that of sparks or fireflies. Report an error

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1:11:46 In the next phase, the wind element dissolves into consciousness. Report an error

1:11:54 Physical action is impossible and the sense of touch is gone. Report an error

1:12:02 The tongue contracts and turns bluish and Report an error

1:12:11 the breath through the nostrils ceases. So at this point, you're at the point that Western medical science considers death. Report an error

1:12:24 And the inner vision is that of a flickering light over a candle. Report an error

1:12:46 Your gross consciousness, conceptual mind is no longer manifest after this point. Report an error

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1:13:30 And now the first stage of the subtle consciousness as your winds start to enter the central channel through the top of the central channel and the white drop melts and starts to descend to your heart. Report an error

1:13:49 And the inner vision is that of a moonlit Autumn night, clear bright moonlit sky, the white appearance. Report an error

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1:14:43 And then the next phase as the winds enter the central channel through the bottom and the red drop starts to ascend to the heart and the appearance is that of a brilliant red sunset, the sky lit up by a brilliant red sunset, Report an error

1:15:08 the red increase. Report an error

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1:15:42 And then as all the energy and the red and white drop meet at the heart, the inner vision is the black near attainment. The first phase, you're still conscious and the inner vision is completely black. And Report an error

1:16:11 then the second part is blackout, unconsciousness. Report an error

1:16:34 And then you arise from that blackout into the most subtle consciousness of clear light. The appearance is that of... Dawn and a clear autumn sky. Report an error

1:16:51 That's the most subtle consciousness. And if you have any understanding of emptiness, turn that subtle consciousness to that meditation. Report an error

1:17:04 Try and stay in that as long as possible. Report an error

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1:18:17 And then you come out of that subtle level of consciousness and start to move in the reverse order. First experiencing, again, the black near attainment. That Report an error

1:18:39 increase. Report an error

1:18:49 The white appearance, Report an error

1:19:03 the flickering light of the candle, Report an error

1:19:14 the sparks or fireflies, Report an error

1:19:28 the thin incense smoke and Report an error

1:19:37 then the shimmering mirage and Report an error

1:19:50 you come back to full sense consciousness. Take a minute or two to come back and then slowly open your eyes. Report an error

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1:20:46 Is everybody back? Did anybody just stay in the clear light? Oh, darn. Could have just gone. Okay, any questions about that meditation? Okay. So what generally happens next, after the clear light for however long it lasts, is then the consciousness leaves the body and then goes into what's called the intermediate state, also known as the bardo in Tibetan. Report an error

1:21:18 Okay, so there's an intermediate state before the next, Rebirth, which can last up to 49 days in seven-day intervals. Each bardo body, and this is a very, very subtle body, you know, it has the capacity to just travel anywhere instantaneously. It's sort of like an, you know, what we might call an astral body. It's similar to that, okay? And each bardo... Report an error

1:21:47 A rebirth can last seven days and you can have up to seven of those for a total of 49 days before you have to take rebirth into another, you know, some sort of next rebirth into another body. Those of you who have had teachings and know about the six realms. It could be any one of these. It doesn't have to be a human body. It could be an animal or any of the other six realms. So I'm not going to go a whole lot into that whole rebirth process because, again, that's a whole long story. Report an error

1:22:18 This book by Lati Rinpoche that we put on the bibliography, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth, we don't have a lot of time for that right now. So are there any questions? Yeah. Report an error

1:22:33 Lenny was talking before the meditation about... How these states happen in our daily life. And when you were taking us through, just in describing it before the meditation, in the earth phase you were describing the heaviness of the earth phase and this feeling of sinking and somehow put together with what you were reminding us that it's a daily thing. Report an error

1:23:01 It reminded me of something that happened to me for... A period of a few years quite frequently that would just kind of happen. Where my, I think, you know, when I would try and think about it later, it felt like my subtle, my body was sinking down. And so it's not something that I ever, you know, would talk about much. But just that that happens, you know, and that it... Report an error

1:23:31 It seems to be somehow related and I also felt the dreaming, you know, connection to like falling asleep and those came up in the process. And you can, you know, you go through the solutions and then as we said the point is to get... To where they're more recognizable and then they can use opportunities like the time of death that they're happening anyway to actually be aware of them in practice. Report an error

1:24:01 And then the benefit of becoming familiar is when they start happening you're not freaking out. You go, oh yeah, there it is. And you become familiar with the inner vision and then you can just be conscious and prepared for them coming and then they don't seem frightening or you kind of know where you are in the process. Report an error

1:24:19 Thank you for sharing. So I have a question, kind of going back where someone says I have this sinking feeling, and sometimes someone that's in a very depressive state, and sinking feeling is like losing a sense of your soul and a sense of your being. And I'm wondering if there's some connection in here where there's that sense of losing of the self, not even feeling the presence of yourself and the sinking body, but it's coming from a different state of mind. Report an error

1:24:54 Could it be connected to that? Has that ever been discussed in this realm between people? It hasn't, and yet it appears to be a very common feature of people with terminal cancer to be on antidepressants. I saw this a lot as a hospital. Nurse and I see Don nodding. And I've never heard or thought anymore about the correlation and whether that depressive thinking feeling is part of this early warning system of the collapse of the earth element. Report an error

1:25:27 I don't know. look at someone sometimes when they're in the very depressed That's right. looking at that and that sinking feeling, you actually can see the skin. There's no life to it. Oh, it's interesting, yeah. And so you're actually looking at all these subtle systems that are taking place. That's right. That's correlated to what you're talking Yeah, it could very well be. Because in this book, His Holiness says even sometimes years before someone will die, they start going through that and they say it can be an early warning sign that even before any kind of diagnosis or anything seems to be medically wrong, sometimes even years ahead of time they'll have certain signs or in dreams or something. Report an error

1:26:02 So it could very well be correlated. It's a collapsing of the heart because we can actually see when someone's shutting down and the body's becoming cold if I'm working with someone and then their system. When we've gone through something, the color becomes a comeback. There's more life and more energy coming. So it's all being drawn in from these states of collapsing into the heart. Report an error

1:26:24 Yeah, so it very well could be a correlation. That would be an interesting thing to ask. Someone like His Holiness. Get him on the phone right now. I'll send him an email after class. Do you have a cell phone on you? Yes, I have a direct hotline to His Holiness. Don? Just a question on the location of the crown. Report an error

1:26:51 I've heard two different sites and it almost looks like you two indicated the two different sites where one would be a line from the ears kind of going towards the center of the skull and another one further back. Kind of where the hairs coil. And what do you all say is the site? Sort of the fontanelle. Where the fontanelle is. Report an error

1:27:11 The crown fontanelle. So more where the line from the... Yeah. Between there and the top of the head. Oh, and the other one you're thinking is way back? No, not way back. More where the top of the occipital. you know the back yeah yeah it would be the first one yeah right in that location Report an error

1:27:33 thought Venerable Rene had said it was. I've heard both. Because I've heard both, in my mind what I have done and what I've practiced with dying people is between the crown and the swirl where the hair swirls right here. I've heard both described by different mamas. Touch more here, right on top. And that was what I took as my scriptural reference. But you're right. I mean, in different teachings, I've heard both described. Report an error

1:28:05 And Venerable Rene does indicate further back. He's one of those schools. Yeah. Report an error

1:28:14 Anything else? Yeah. Report an error

1:28:24 I was just wondering if once the stages start. Can they actually reverse at any moment or not? This is it. It's just a progression. I've heard it is reversible up to a certain point. While the first four phases, it can reverse, but after the first four elements, it's no longer reversible. Well, well, well, well, well. I've also not seen any Tibetan writings on this and have asked actually Lama Zopa about this and he's ventured. Report an error

1:28:59 His opinion. But in the Western body of literature about what happens at the death time and concurrent with the interest in death and dying, there's been many, many accounts of near-death experiences and universally people see the white light. And that, Lama Zopa said, is probably the white appearance. But if they return to life... Report an error

1:29:28 And they all report reversing that whooshing in through the tunnel, just coming back in their body with a start. And they've been resuscitated, revived in some way. But that beyond, I doubt beyond that, I've never heard anything related to beyond someone seeing the white light. Report an error

1:30:01 So I also used to be a doula. And the last birth I attended, the baby... I was born without breath, but I attended many births before this birth, and after the team got there, the people that make babies breathe, I stood and watched, and I could tell they were so focused, and they were so on top of it. Report an error

1:30:28 And Mom was happy. She was, like, fine. She didn't even, you know, she was fine. So I left the room to tell the... family what was going on because I was totally confident that baby was going to breathe because I think that prayers help and I know that team was to do everything they could had it been my first birth I would have never left the room there's a moment something happens Report an error

1:30:57 things change. Are Report an error

1:31:06 the practices in Lama Zopa's book also appropriate for people who are in bardo stage? There are different practices for the bardo stage, and we'll get into that a little bit later on this afternoon. Yeah, there's a specific practice called jangwa, and we'll talk about that this afternoon. Report an error

1:31:27 Yeah, I've recently been reading this book, Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth, by Tokutanda, and they talk about delogs. And apparently these are very devout masters who... Report an error

1:31:43 He recounts stories of them reaching the state of bardo and coming back because they have been completed work. So I would suppose that the stages are reversible. I think for high realization, you know, people with high realizations, because I've heard those stories too, but I think it would be definitely, you know, people with high enough realizations and enough control over the process. Report an error

1:32:05 For most of us, our karma and delusions kind of... Fling us into our bardo state in the next rebirth without volition. But beings with a high level of realization have much more control over the process, especially if they're a high enough realization that they're not just kind of thrown by their karma into, propelled into the bardo in the next rebirth. Report an error

1:32:28 So I think it would be cases like that that would be more volitional that they could reverse the process and come back. And those are the yogis that you read about that spend their whole lives in caves meditating and they attain very, very evolved states, which is not particularly possible for something like that to happen in a Western country because it's so outside of the tradition of doing that for one's entire life uninterruptedly, you know, without distraction. Report an error

1:32:57 Apparently that's what it takes to get to that level. It may be a dying or dead tradition even. Don't say that. No, no. No, no. Yogis are not a doctor. Was there somebody else over on the other side? Anything? Okay. Oh, yeah, Lisa. Is there any teaching about what is happening in the mind as you're going through those four stages where you may appear to be unconscious to people around you, but the mind is perhaps reaching out to you for, as your mother did? Report an error

1:33:39 Is there any explanation for what's happening in the mind during that time? Well, it's just at that point, the gross conceptual mind is still active. So whatever kind of conceptual thought process the person, you know, would be going through, which actually is a perfect segue to the next section we're going to be going in. Report an error

1:34:03 If you train your mind in practices like bodhicitta, compassion and so forth, then that would be the state of mind that you actually enter those last subtlest. Report an error

1:34:16 To get back to your question of the very beginning of the day, there's a type of karma called throwing karma. Time of death, the conceptual mind at the time of death is a very big determinant of the next rebirth, which is why we try and keep a calm, harmonious environment around the dying person's bedside and have them not die with anger. Report an error

1:34:38 And in the next section, I'm going to talk about ways to train your mind so that the gross conceptual mind is in a state of compassion at that. Because that can really direct the next rebirth. So basically to answer your question, it's however the mind has been habituated in life is most likely what's happening during those first four stages of the death process because it's still gross conceptual mind at that point. Report an error

1:35:02 And I do feel that the work that I did with my mother while she was still alive did affect her. Next state of mind, any possibility of meditation, which was not going to be possible with her because that's not what she did, was completely interrupted by the onslaught of the emergency team with the paddles and the resuscitation and they were unable to revive her and so she died. Report an error

1:35:36 I told you, we cried in the waiting room. We were detained in the waiting room for about half an hour while they cleaned her up and took all the tubes and drainage and all the IVs and electrodes, everything off of her. Then we were invited in to be with her body. And entering the room, now my mother had a hard life. Report an error

1:36:00 She was a person who bottled up all her emotions. and she always She just couldn't relax. And she was so peaceful and so beautiful. And her skin had plumped out. She was glowing. And she looked 30 years younger and I had never seen her look beautiful. And she looked beautiful. And it blew my mind. It was so helpful. Report an error

1:36:37 So that's an answer to your question. I think we can have an effect. Report an error

1:36:47 Any other questions before we break? Okay. I'm so confused. My clock here says 11.39 and I know it's not. I'm like, oh my God, we went an hour over. We didn't. No, it hasn't been turned back. I know, I'm just joking. So let's take a break till 11, new time. Which is about 21 minutes and then we'll get back on track and then when we come back we'll do the teaching on the five powers at the time of death and talk more about practices that we can do in this life to actually prepare for that state of consciousness that we would like leading into these states of dissolution. Report an error

1:37:26 So thank you. I'll turn the clock back so I don't freak myself out. Report an error

1:37:35 Purify these karmic seeds so that they will not Ripen and give you these negative results and then we also need to accumulate a lot of merit. To have the realizations that we would like to have on the path. Often people, you know, learn about Buddhism. I had this friend and he just decided, you know, he'd gone to his first sort of ten day lamrim course, stages of the path. Report an error

1:37:59 And he heard that, you know, the direct realization of emptiness is a big deal. And that's a big turning point. So he decided, forget about all these other practices. I'm just going to sit down cross-legged and meditate on emptiness until I get the direct realization. So he does this kind of thing and it lasts about four or five days and he gets completely frustrated and then packs away his altar in the closet and then I go over and have a talk with him and I'm like, no, no, it's like this. Report an error

1:38:25 It's a process. So in order to have realizations on the path, we need a lot of virtue, we need a lot of merit. So that's the second half of the power of the white seed is accumulating merit. And there's, you know... Traditional ways of doing that, that's sort of a big part of the path. A couple of the big ones that will be really effective is serve the Dharma in whatever way you can. You know, create causes for the teachings to flourish whatever way you can. Report an error

1:38:53 Give donations to Se Chin Ling or whatever, you know, she didn't pay me to say this by the way, this is true. Serving, you know, volunteering, doing whatever you can to propagate Dharma. A lot of people do things like transcribe and edit teachings, you know, just anything that you can do to make the Dharma flourish. Report an error

1:39:13 Studying emptiness is another wonderful way to purify and accumulate merit. Studying and meditating on emptiness. And also serving beings in whatever way you can. Practicing compassion and then we're going to go into a meditation technique that's a wonderful... Way to accumulate merit. Tonglen, giving and taking meditation. So most of our Buddhist practices fall into the camp of either purification of negative karma or accumulation of merit. Report an error

1:39:44 And there are plenty of ways to do that. So in our daily life, we really need to watch whatever level of morality we have taken on. If you haven't taken any specific vows, either lay vows, Bodhisattva vows, tantric vows. You have to watch the ten non-virtues. You know, that's the basis of our Buddhist morality is the ten non-virtues. Report an error

1:40:07 And again, if you're not sure what I'm talking about, there are references and we can talk about it later. That's a whole other course in and of itself, talking about the ten non-virtues. Or if you've taken some sort of vowed morality, you know, watch your vows really carefully. Purify broken vows. Make sure that you don't commit. Report an error

1:40:25 Any future transgressions of your vows and accumulate merit. So that's the power of the white seed. The power of familiarity is the next power. And that's practicing all the time, no matter what you're doing. We set our motivation in the beginning of the day with the power of determination. You know, not to lose sight of the fact that the purpose of our life is to serve others as much as possible, make others happy as much as possible. Report an error

1:40:54 And then the power of familiarity says, get used to it, you know, all day long. Keep reminding yourself. And there's a little Kadampa trick of the trade that says every time you change positions, you know, think of this bodhicitta motivation. You know, get into the habit. When you're sitting down, you go to stand up. Think of it. Report an error

1:41:14 You know, standing up and you go to sit down every time you change positions. This will motivate you if you sit in front of a computer screen for eight hours a day to get up every 15 minutes the way you're supposed to so that you don't, you know. Go into distress. And there are verses that you can memorize. Somebody mentioned yesterday, I think, the eight verses of thought transformation and working with that. Report an error

1:41:37 There are a lot of these beautiful thought transformation texts. And one of the techniques, too, is to memorize one of these verses. When you change position, recite the verse, just to remind yourself of these practices of developing your compassion, developing your bodhicitta. That's the power of familiarity. Report an error

1:41:57 The next one is the power of repudiation, the power of destruction. I really like this one. The word in Tibetan is sunjimpa and it has the connotation of ripping something out by the heart. It's like this real martial arts kind of like ferocity. Ripping something out by the heart. Guess what we're ripping out by the heart? Report an error

1:42:19 Self-cherishing. Yes. Okay, so it says in the scripture, you know, these Tibetan scriptures are very evocative and it says every time it raises its ugly head like a thieving dog, just slap it down, you know, and you get this idea of a Tibetan monastery and they've got a big plate of meat momos and the llama's eating it and you know, these dogs at these monasteries that just kind of live on the thrown away scraps and so the llama looks around and the big ugly, and they are ugly, I mean, they're all scarred, they get in fights and stuff. Report an error

1:42:49 It's going like that. Of course, I'd probably feed it the plate of momos, but you know, you get the idea. Just like bash it, you know. So this is what we do. Anytime that tight, constricted, me-first, self-cherishing feeling starts to arise, just don't give it any space at all. I really like personifying it. I really like the Buddhist idea of Māra. It really helps me, and I used to do this in my long retreat, of just personifying it because all it is is that self-cherishing. Report an error

1:43:19 That's all Māra is. It's not some guy with pointy tail and horns and all of that stuff. And I used to actually personify my self-cherishing and go, look, Māra, you've won since beginningless time. You're not going to win this round. Put up your dukes and let's have a fight. So it's that. It's just bashing that self-cherishing wherever it raises its head. Report an error

1:43:42 Not giving it any space at all. You know, just bashing it. And then the last of the five powers is the power of prayer. And that's the dedication that you do at the end of the day or at the end of your practice. You know, dedicating the merit. Report an error

1:44:00 Dedicate it so that your bodhicitta motivation just increases. May whatever virtues that I've done in this day go towards my future enlightenment, increase my bodhicitta, increase my ability to care for others. So the power of prayer. So that's the five powers at the time of life and they mean something completely different at the time of death. Report an error

1:44:23 But are there any questions about those? I know for some of you this lojang may be a brand new idea and I apologize that we're going through it quickly. It's a beautiful, you know, beautiful, incredible teachings that it would be wonderful to spend years on. And we will in the future. Any questions about the five powers at this point? Okay. So the five powers at the time of death. Report an error

1:44:49 The names are the same and what it means is something somewhat different. Okay. So. The power of determination. And this is, you know, when you're going, and again, the five powers of the time of death, when you're really conscious that you're going into the death process. And the power of determination is the resolve not to become separated from your bodhicitta motivation even during the death process. Report an error

1:45:16 You know, you think to yourself, I'm going through this really scary thing, the death process. Painful and scary for most of us. You know, this wonderful going into the mind of clear light. You know, for most of us it's quite painful and scary. We're being separated from our body, which is our biggest attachment. Report an error

1:45:35 We really identify with our bodies. And apparently it's really difficult to be ripped away from this body that we identify with. You go into the bardo intermediate state, which can sometimes be filled with a lot of hallucinations. So you make a determination. Even though I'm going through this... You know, getting ready to go through this scary, disorienting process. I won't lose sight of my bodhicitta motivation, my wish to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error

1:46:03 I'll hang on to that with determination, even during the death process. The power of the white seed. The time of death. Give away all your possessions. Get rid of all your attachments. This is about dying with a clean slate. It's really, really good. Don't leave a will. Just get rid of everything before you die. Really difficult to die with a lot of attachment. Report an error

1:46:33 I have a really good friend who is an Australian monk, and before he was ordained, he was the son of one of the wealthiest people in Australia. His family was extremely wealthy and owned all these sheep stations. Report an error

1:46:49 Really, really wealthy, he said. He spent his youth kind of waiting around in Wellington boots through the blood in these huge slaughterhouses and, you know, just incredible. His father, who was this big, powerful, rich man with all the yachts and the penthouses and the mistresses and the Rolls Royces and this and that and the other thing. Report an error

1:47:07 He became ill with cancer, started degenerating quite quickly. Apparently he was a really big man and went down to about 85 pounds or something at the time of death. And my friend was with him when he was going through his death process. And for the first time in his life, his father realized he couldn't take any of these things with him. He'd spent his whole life accumulating all of this fabulous wealth and all of this attachment, especially to material things. Report an error

1:47:33 And apparently at the time of death... Realized that there's nothing he could take with him. It was all being ripped away and just panicked, completely freaked out. My friend said it was just horrible, horrible, horrible thing to experience. So then the father died and my friend said the next day he's getting ready to go to work and now he's inherited the family business. And he said he was sitting on the edge of his bed putting on his shoes and socks and suddenly just thought, what am I doing? Report an error

1:48:00 You know, I'm just completely setting myself up for the same... same kind of life and the same kind of death. Sold the business, bought a one-way ticket to India within a year, became a Buddhist monk, and that was 30 years ago, you know, and has lived happily ever after as a Buddhist monk. So it was this big wake-up call for So this teaching says divest yourself of attachments as much as possible so that you don't have to go through that. Report an error

1:48:32 Material possessions, You know, make amends to people, all that unfinished business that we were talking about yesterday with the five wishes. You know, don't die with a lot of attachment to people, die with a clean slate, you know, before the death time so that you don't die with your consciousness filled with all of this unfinished business and all of this attachment. Report an error

1:48:55 It's also terrific as a Dharma practitioner. To disidentify with the body. As I said, this is our big attachment and really drives rebirth in saṃsāra. And so, you know, doing meditation on the selflessness of persons helps loosen that attachment to even the body, even the self, okay? And this is another reason why it's good. Report an error

1:49:17 Do not have people, if you still have really strong emotional attachments, you know, say goodbye to the people, kind of try and send them out of the room if you can. It's really hard to let go when there are people, as we mentioned, in the room, weeping, you know, hanging on to you. And we've read so many stories in one of the books that we recommend in the bibliography. Report an error

1:49:39 So many cases, you know. Someone has their beloved spouse with them 24 hours a day. The minute the spouse leaves, what happens? They die. You know, they can let go because that attachment and that clinging is no longer... There, okay? So if it's possible to do all of this before the time of death so you die clean. Lama Zopa was explaining this teaching once recently and he goes, yeah, there was this lama that was doing the power of the white seed at the time of death and he gave everything away and that was six years ago and he's still alive. Report an error

1:50:10 We all just laughed, you know, but that's okay. He'll survive, it'll be all right. Okay, now the power of destruction, the power of repudiation. Report an error

1:50:22 Confess and retake broken vows at the time of death. If you've taken any level of vows like bodhisattva or tantric vows, it's really good to renew those vows at the time of death. And there are rituals to do that. A lot of the high lamas who've taken tantric vows do self-initiation practice at the time of death. Report an error

1:50:44 I think that Lama Yeshe did this right before. And this is very, very typical to renew all of those vows, you know, to die with a clean slate in terms of renewing and confessing your vows. If you don't have these level of vows, confession is a great practice. In fact, when the Tibetan Lamas hear about the Catholic last rites and confessing to a priest and stuff, they say, perfect, that's great. Report an error

1:51:09 In fact, when my father was dying and I was going to take care of him, one of my lamas said, the best thing that you can do is try and get him to confess. There may be things that he's done that he's never told anybody at all. If you can get him to just unburden himself and, you know, confess and purify in that way. Report an error

1:51:27 That would be great. So it's just about purifying, confessing. As I said, you know, if you have a certain level of vows, you know what practices to do to renew your vows and purify. And so as close to death as possible, practice that. Did you have something, Charlie? You're just scratching your head. Okay. Okay. Now the power of prayer at the time of death. Report an error

1:51:51 Okay. You're going through this incredible, you know. Okay. Okay. Report an error

1:51:58 Difficult, often very painful death process. You pray that all of the suffering of all beings, that you will take it on at the time of death. You know, that you will take it on for them. And that gets into this next practice that we're going to be doing, Tonglen, giving and taking. Okay, it's a wonderful practice to increase your compassion, your willingness out of your compassion to take on the suffering of others at the time of death. Report an error

1:52:25 And if you practice this during your life, at death you do the big Tonglen. You know, you do the biggest Tonglen. As you're moving into death, just pray to take on all of the karmic debts and all the suffering of others. There are those of us who've studied these teachings that are suspicious that this may have been what Jesus was doing on the cross, right? Report an error

1:52:45 When he said that he was doing this. Tonglen. And we'll get into Tonglen more in just a minute if you're not familiar with that practice. So basically, you know, if you go into the death process with this mind of compassion, with this mind of bodhicitta, there is no way you will go astray. We talked before about throwing karma, about the kind of state of mind to have going into the death process. If your mind is completely imbued with this wish to benefit others, you know, and the Lama say, this is the best. Report an error

1:53:16 This is the best transference of consciousness. When they teach this five powers, they say, there are all these rituals and Amitabha Buddha and all of these things and shooting the consciousness out. And that's all well and good, but if you can really do this, this is the best transference of consciousness practice that you can do. You know, to die with that mind of wishing to be of benefit to all beings, even during this scary death process. Report an error

1:53:43 And the power of familiarity. And again, you know, you have to familiarize your mind with this during death, during life. So it's your knee-jerk reaction. Otherwise, when you're going through the dissolutions of consciousness, unless your mind is completely imbued with this thought of wishing to benefit others, you're going to lose it at the very, very important death time, when it's so important for your next rebirth that your mind be... Report an error

1:54:14 Completely imbued with these thoughts of compassion and bodhicitta and wishing to benefit others. So it's really, really important to kind of keep this in mind. Okay? And familiarize yourself over and over and over again. Then you lie down. The best posture for dying, consciously, which we haven't gone over, is what's called the lion posture. Report an error

1:54:36 And you lie on your right side. And this has to do, again, with the subtle body. With what's happening with the subtle body, you lie on your right side with your right hand, you know, on your cheek below your face like that, you know, and your left arm lying along your body. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche, I've seen him do this over and over and over again. He really tries to get people in this position right before he dies. The several deathbed scenes that I've been with him, the minute he walks in the room, if he can tell that it's... Report an error

1:55:09 You know, close to the time of death, he says, you know, can we move this person into that position? This friend of ours who died just a few weeks ago, was the first thing he did. He walked into the room and then we had to put a bunch of pillows and things, you know, to keep her body because she was in a coma. So we had to prop it up with pillows, but he arranged her body in this posture. Report an error

1:55:29 And then you die doing that Tonglen, giving and taking practice. Okay, so that's the power of familiarity. So are there any questions about these five powers before we go into Tonglen? Yeah. I had a question on when you were saying give everything away, don't do a will. And I was just wondering about your distinction in that because a will is giving things away. So I just wanted to hear a little more about that. Yeah, I think it's quite powerful. Report an error

1:56:02 I think even when you make out a will, And of course it's really individual, but you still have a feeling that it's yours. Okay, it'll go to your kids after you die, but it's still mine when I die. And again, it's really extreme to really be able to give everything away before you die. What if you are like the guy that Lama Zopa was talking about that lives for six more years? Report an error

1:56:24 So I'm not saying that that may necessarily be possible, but I think it's interesting to challenge ourselves and really divest. You know, and even if you don't give it away physically, at least mentally let go. I mean, that's the important part. At least mentally just don't have that clinging and attachment in your mind. Report an error

1:56:44 And if you make out a will and at the point that you've made out a will, you're able to mentally completely let go. Of possessiveness, then that's great. And on the other hand, if you don't have a mind of possessiveness, it doesn't matter at all how much you have. You know, it's the clinging to it that's the obstacle. Yeah. So I'm not willing to take my... Report an error

1:57:07 home apart now and start giving things away but I'm trying to develop this mind and particular objects that I have that people in my life have admired I've got a little sticker under them with the name of the person that I wanted to go to so I already feel like I'm letting it go but if it's something that I'm still using and I have to go out and buy another one because I'm still in good health it doesn't make much I've started the process, but slowly. Did you have something? Mike? Report an error

1:57:38 Back in the back. In one of the classes that I was attending, someone had suggested that, you know, it's kind of incorporating this willingness to let go of all of your possessions with exchanging self for others and that you can do it while you're walking down the street and you see a homeless person. Report an error

1:58:01 You invite them into your home, you give them your home and your car and all your possessions and you take their place on the street. And you just do it in your mind as an exercise of letting go and wishing others to have the happiness that you have. That kind of thing. Yeah, that sounds like a nice technique. I like that. Yeah, Michael. Report an error

1:58:29 My friend Harlan for the last year. My friend Harlan. Your friend Harlan. Our friend Harlan. Our friend Harlan. For the last year as he's been kind of going through his dying process and watching his health fail, he has just treasures from around the world. All sorts of just wonderful things that, you know. Report an error

1:58:48 He's like, well, let's see how much they're actually worth. So he looks them up on eBay. He's like, oh, it's worth $10,000. Well, you have it. And he keeps doing that to everybody that comes into his home from housekeepers to friends. He's giving them his stuff and he wants them to report back on them enjoying it. He's like, well, I'm enjoying you enjoying it. I've had 89 years of enjoyment. Report an error

1:59:09 Now it's your turn to enjoy it and I want to watch you doing that. That's great. That's beautiful. He's clearly a highly evolved being. It's also useful. I don't have a lot of material attachments, but I have two or three items. that I'm attached to and I like to just watch my mind I like to think about who I would like to have my greatest attachments and I wish that I could let go of them right now but I still want them but still it can begin does he know that he's dying? Report an error

1:59:42 yeah so it's easier in a way Year-long living practice. That Stephen Levine. So I've done that and part of the practice is that we exchange with someone I did within a group and you find something that you really don't want to necessarily get rid of to give to somebody. So you're actually giving something to somebody, something you would actually prefer that really has deep meaning to you. That you really want to hang on to. Yeah. That's the best. Watching my mind. Report an error

2:00:16 Okay, so what am I going to do? Give this person that has a lot of meaning that I don't want to give away. The things that I'm most attached to have been gifts from Lamas. Those are the ones. Report an error

2:00:30 Not ready. Get ready. Report an error

2:00:37 Anything else? Okay. So now what I want to do is have us practice Tonglen meditation. You know, this has many, many, many... yeah. Report an error

2:00:31 ready. Report an error

2:00:48 A lot of people ask, oh I don't have a daily practice, you know, what should I do for my daily practice? Well you can't do better than this, you can't do better than this Tonglin practice. And this is a wonderful practice for life as a daily practice and also as I said, you know, at the time of death, the power of prayer, you can do this practice to try and take on the suffering of all beings. Report an error

2:01:13 And so first I'll explain how it goes. And then we'll practice it and I'll guide you through it. So basically what this practice is, is developing both your feeling of compassion and your feeling of love. In Buddhism, compassion is defined as the willingness for others to be free of suffering, the wish for others to be free of suffering. And love is defined as the wish for others to have happiness. Report an error

2:01:41 So this meditation incorporates both. The Tibetan name for it is Tonglen, giving and taking, but you actually do the taking first and the giving second. And the reason for this is that if someone is suffering, first you have to take away their suffering before you can give them happiness. If you find a little puppy on the street that's starving to death, it's not going to want to play with you with a ball until you give it some food. You know, you have to take the... Report an error

2:02:09 Suffering away before you can give the happiness. So the way you do this practice, you visualize an object of compassion in front of you. And they say the best way to start is start with yourself. Start with yourself. Think of a future suffering that you're going to be going through. And visualize your future suffering self. We all know that if nothing else, we're going to wake up in the morning in a bad mood one of these days or with a migraine headache. Report an error

2:02:43 I facilitate the support group for women with chronic illness. Many of them have cancer. They're terrified at the next doctor's visit. They know they're going to be experiencing a lot of fear. A lot of anxiety, and so often they'll visualize themselves in that moment. It's good to start the practice with someone who naturally engenders a feeling of compassion, and for a lot of us it's our own future suffering self. Report an error

2:03:09 I was teaching this practice, I had this one student, this 16-year-old high school student, and he came up to me after class and he said, Venerable Tenzin, is it okay if I visualize my cat? Because I love my cat more than anything, even more than myself. And I was like, that's fine. Visualize your cat. Report an error

2:03:25 You know, the point is to make it easy at first, and then it will become more challenging. We can, you know, keep raising the bar. So either yourself, you can also start with someone very beloved to you. You know, your cat, your spouse, someone that you just have an unconditional feeling of compassion for. Report an error

2:03:44 So what you do, then you visualize a specific suffering that that being has. Think of something specific. Maybe your best friend is going through a difficult divorce or some sort of suffering. And visualize that suffering filling their body with black, gritty smoke. Now, you reflect again on your feeling of compassion, your willingness to free that person from suffering. Report an error

2:04:14 And then you start with your inhalations, drawing that suffering out of them in the form of black smoke. When you're experienced, you can, with every cycle of inhalation and exhalation, you can do the meditation. But for beginners, and today what we'll do is for about eight or ten inhalations, you know, we'll draw that suffering out of them like a vacuum cleaner drawing. Report an error

2:04:39 Out of the person and then visualize that it collects in front of your nose in the little black cloud. Now, again, reflect on your compassion, your willingness to relieve that person of suffering and then inhale this black cloud. And this is where the magic comes. This is where the magic of Tonglin happens. Report an error

2:05:01 When you draw that black cloud in, instead of becoming filled with suffering, because who wants that, right? Who wants all that black, gritty, icky stuff inside? The force of your compassion, it transforms. And what I like to do is visualize in my heart that self-cherishing, that shut down, closed down, hardened feeling like a little black granite rock in my heart. Report an error

2:05:26 So my willingness to take on that being suffering, Black smoke transforms into a lightning bolt and just goes down and bashes that black rock of self-cherishing into smithereens, just bashes it, you know, completely destroys it. And then in its place, my heart is filled with this golden light that symbolizes love, you know, the wish for that being to have happiness. Report an error

2:05:50 And then it fills your whole body slowly, slowly in the place of that hard-hearted. Self-cherishing is just this feeling of expansive, warm, love, openness. It fills your whole body and then you start to exhale this golden light towards the person, giving them whatever would make them happy. It transforms. If it's mental happiness that they need, peace of mind, freedom from fear, something like that, you imagine that their body becomes just filled with this golden light. Report an error

2:06:23 Or if it's something physical that they need, you can have it transform into some physical object. I learned this meditation and started doing it when I lived in India for about a year and a half. And you see these lepers on the side of the road, you know. Report an error

2:06:39 It's really intense. They're missing, you know, fingers, toes, body parts, parts of their face. They're sitting in the dirt. I mean, have you ever tried to wash your hair with no fingers? It's really intense, the level of suffering. So it was very easy to feel compassion for them. And so when I would be giving out the golden light, I would have it kind of transform. Report an error

2:07:00 I used to love to go to this hot spring resort outside of Ukiah and it had these beautiful gardens and hot springs and so I'd kind of set them up there in these lawn chairs and have them being given cold drinks and, you know, with the little paper umbrellas and food and stuff like that and they're all clean and happy and well fed. Report an error

2:07:17 So you can be creative with your visualization, you know, you can make it fun if you're transforming the golden light into some sort of physical object or like I said, often what we experience so much in the West is mental suffering. Often we have physical suffering if we have a terminal disease or cancer or something, but so often it's mental suffering and then you can just imagine that person being filled with this golden light and free of suffering. Report an error

2:07:44 Then as your practice increases, you can start changing the object. Start with someone easy because we want to get the feeling of... What it feels like to really feel that compassion. You know, don't start with Hitler. It's not going to work. You're going to be overwhelmed and you're going to give up. Report an error

2:08:02 You know, in time, increase to more challenging objects as you get facility in the practice. But don't push yourself. You know, there's a fine line between challenging yourself and raising the bar and going. Report an error

2:08:17 So that you'll give up and back off and think that you can't do it. You know, so you can be the only judge in how you increase the objects of compassion. It's wonderful to do, you know, with practice with people who are really annoying. It really changes the way that you feel. Those really irritating people at work. Report an error

2:08:37 You know, when you really get experienced in the practice, boy, does it ever change the way you feel about them. You know, it really does. To just think. No matter how annoying they are, this is a sentient being who wants happiness and doesn't want suffering just like me. And they deserve it no less than I do and do the practice with them. Report an error

2:08:58 So it's a wonderful way when you feel aversion towards someone with practice to use it as a technique for overcoming your aversion. And then also with the practice we can increase to all beings. Eventually you do it with all beings. It's better in the beginning to be really personal and to think of specific people. It's really easier for us to have compassion for all those poor people in Sri Lanka who were made homeless by the tsunami than the irritating person in the cubicle next to us at work. Report an error

2:09:28 So if you depersonalize it too much in the beginning, it's not going to be effective. We start with the people in our lives. You start developing compassion and loving kindness with the people who are in our face. It's much easier. All those orphans in Zimbabwe, of course we feel compassion for them. We don't know how annoying they are. They're not in our lives right now. Report an error

2:09:49 So really practice with the people close to you and then build up your capacity. Okay, so any questions about... About that? All right. So let's give it a try. And I think what we'll do, I will guide you through about two rounds verbally, and then I'll just let you do it on your own for a little while, okay, so that you make sure that you get used to the practice. Report an error

2:10:20 And we'll do it for about 20 minutes or so. Okay, so first let's... Sit comfortably in our meditation position. And let's start with breath awareness for a few minutes, just returning our minds to our breath, returning our focus to the breath either at the nostrils or our chest rising and falling. Report an error

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2:11:45 And now visualize the object of your compassion in front of you. It could be your own future suffering self. It could be a friend. Someone very dear to you, who you know is going through some sort of hard time, some sickness, some mental suffering. Report an error

2:12:09 Make sure and make it someone easy for you to develop compassion for. And think of a very specific suffering that they're going through. Report an error

2:12:45 And visualize that their suffering, whatever they're going through, takes the form of this black, gritty smoke and fills their body. Report an error

2:12:59 Whatever it is manifests in the form of this black gritty smoke. Report an error

2:13:25 And now tune in to your feeling of compassion, your wish that this person would be free from suffering. Feel that feeling of compassion that you have. You Report an error

2:13:40 wish with all your heart to free them of suffering. Report an error

2:14:13 And then through the force of your compassion, you're able to draw the suffering out of them. So for about eight or ten cycles of inhalation, imagine that as you inhale, you're able to draw that black smoke out of that person. It collects in a little cloud in front of your face. So feel strongly that by the force of your compassion, you're actually able to free them from suffering and draw that suffering out of them, the form of that black smoke which collects in front of your face. Report an error

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2:16:14 Imagine that you're self-cherishing. Your self-absorption manifests as this little black rock in the center of your chest. All that shut down, hard-hearted feeling, that me-first feeling manifests as a black rock in the center of your heart. Report an error

2:16:40 And again, through the force of your compassion, you're willing to take on the suffering of your friend. In one in-breath. You draw in the black smoke which the minute it enters your body it transforms into a lightning bolt that goes down to your heart and just smashes that self-cherishing self-absorption to smithereens. Report an error

2:17:06 So in one big inhalation visualize this. In Report an error

2:17:29 the place of that black rock imagine that your heart fills with this golden light. It's warm almost like Warm water entering a cold bath, you feel this sensation of warmth that accompanies this golden light, which is the essence of loving kindness, openness. Report an error

2:17:57 So it fills your heart in the center of your chest, Report an error

2:18:12 then starts to radiate outwards, filling your whole body with this blissful feeling of loving kindness, openness, peace of mind, warmth. Report an error

· · ·

2:19:05 Now imagine that as you exhale, you're completely overflowing with this golden light of loving kindness. As you exhale, Report an error

2:19:16 it flows out of your nostrils towards your object of compassion, transforming into whatever it is that would bring them happiness, whether it's peace of mind, a mental state, or it can transform into anything physical that will bring them happiness. Report an error

2:19:48 So continue with your exhalations to send out this golden light, this energy of loving kindness towards the object of your compassion. Report an error

· · ·

2:21:12 Now we'll do another round together. Again, visualize an object of compassion in front. It could be the same person or someone different, but again, make sure it's someone for whom it's easy for you to feel compassion. Report an error

2:21:39 Visualize their suffering, the form of black smoke filling them up. Report an error

2:22:09 And with a cycle of about eight to ten inhalations, draw the suffering out of the being so Report an error

2:22:19 that it's a little black cloud right in front of your nostrils. Report an error

· · ·

2:23:25 Now again, visualize yourself cherishing in the form of this black rock, the center of your chest. And as you draw in the suffering, The force of your compassion and willingness to take on the suffering, you draw it in and it transforms into a lightning bolt and just goes down and smashes that self-cherishing to smithereens. Report an error

2:23:51 There's not even a trace of it left, not even an atom. Report an error

2:24:15 Its place is this warm golden light, Report an error

2:24:21 the essence of loving kindness, openness, peace of mind, filling your chest. Report an error

2:24:32 Radiating outwards, filling your whole body. Report an error

· · ·

2:25:32 And then when your body becomes completely filled with this golden light of loving kindness, exhale, sending it out towards your object of compassion and imagine them becoming completely filled with the golden light or having it transform into whatever it is that they would wish, whatever would give them the most happiness. Report an error

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2:26:56 And then we'll sit for about five more minutes and you can do another round at your own pace just to make sure that you're comfortable and familiar with the technique. Now Report an error

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2:30:30 in conclusion let's take all of the positive energy that we've generated through this meditation. Meditating on compassion and loving kindness and doing the giving and taking. Trying to turn around our habit of looking out for ourselves first. Practice this exchanging self and others. Such powerful virtue. And let's just put it towards our future enlightenment. Report an error

2:31:09 Dedicate it to our enlightenment, not just for our own sake, not just to be liberated from suffering ourselves, but to be able to bring all living beings to full awakening. Report an error

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2:32:14 So one thing that I also wanted to mention about Tonglen, this is a wonderful practice. Not only to do ourselves, but also to teach someone who's dying if they're open to it. It's a wonderful way to transform our own suffering into the path. And if we're experiencing some kind of physical suffering, mental suffering, you can do Tonglen and kind of feel, I have the karma to be experiencing this right now, let me at least be able to experience it and take it away. Report an error

2:32:47 From whoever else is experiencing this. We mentioned yesterday this woman at Tarahum who was there for six months and she came in and I went to introduce myself to her. She wasn't a Buddhist at all but she was very open-minded and she had been given some instruction by various volunteers and given this... Report an error

2:33:08 card of the five mantras and she was feeling a bit of anxiety because she couldn't really think clearly and she was kind of feeling like oh I have to learn all these mantras and I have to do this that and the other thing or else I'll have a really lousy death you know and she was feeling anxiety and so in the course of working with her I introduced her to this technique of Tonglen and I said you know think of she had Liver and colon cancer was in quite a lot of pain. Her abdomen was very distended and she had to have it drained periodically. I said, okay, so think of all of the other women, especially who have the same kind of cancer that you have. Report an error

2:33:47 She was very accepting of the fact that she was preparing for death and so forth. She didn't really have resistance to that idea. So I said, take on the pain of all of them. Here you are feeling this pain. Are you willing to take it on for them? And she was overjoyed. She said, that I can do. You know, that's simple enough. You know, I can do that. I can't learn these new mantras. But boy, I can really do that. Report an error

2:34:10 I'm so happy to do that. And she just... I started being a Tonglen yogi in the last six months of life and just became more and more blissful and radiant. And I made her a tape of Tonglen and various other meditations and her caregivers would be like, she plays your tape over and over again. We hear your voice leaning her through the meditation. I'm like, sorry, but she was amazing, you know, and then. Report an error

2:34:36 The closer she got to death, it was amazing. I never heard her complain, never heard her once talk about what she was going through in any kind of bitter, complaining way. You'd go up to see her and she'd always be asking, how are you, offering all these chocolates and things. She knew I loved chocolate. We had this thing about chocolate and so she'd always offer me whatever people had brought her and just died with this incredible, happy... Report an error

2:35:01 And I think so much of it had to do with her practice of just this one simple technique. So if people are open to it, this is a lovely, really easy technique to teach people. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, you know, if people are diagnosed with some terminal illness, he says, terrific, great. A chance to really purify and accumulate merit by practicing Tonglen on behalf of all the people who have the same kind of sickness that you have. Report an error

2:35:31 He just thinks it's a wonderful opportunity. So this is a really, really powerful technique. And also, as I mentioned yesterday, a very good way to be with someone who's dying when they're asleep or in a coma is to sit at their bedside and pray or meditate. And this is the best meditation that you can do, is to take on their suffering and give them your energy, happiness, vitality like that. Report an error

2:36:03 It's this meditation in particular that can change the energy in a room. This one in particular. And actually you feel like you're doing something. There's something you can do. It's very helpful to everybody. And people often ask, does it work? You know, does it work to take away their suffering? And I think there's two different levels that that question can be answered. One level is... Report an error

2:36:29 The power of prayer, you know, and there are all these studies being done now if somebody, you know, is going through heart surgery and his sister-in-law's prayer group at church was praying for him during the surgery and he didn't even know about it and their recovery rates are so much higher than anyone else's. Report an error

2:36:46 So I think it definitely creates an energy, you know, the more that... You're thinking about someone who's going through something. There is some sort of vibration or some sort of level of energy that I think is beneficial. And then the other thing is, when you're doing Tonglen for someone, when you're thinking of them in that way with compassion, you are forming a really strong, powerful karmic link with that person. Report an error

2:37:09 And by doing Tonglen practice, for sure, you're hastening your own enlightenment and your ability to benefit them in an ultimate way in the future. So whether it's the short term or the long term, I think there's definitely on both levels a lot of positive benefit. And in the same system of Lojong teachings, there's this beautiful teaching that says, you know, whenever you make any contact with any being, you know, pray that you will lead them to enlightenment. Report an error

2:37:37 And Tonglen is a beautiful way to do that. And they say, you know, in these texts they say, even if you're offering a crumb of bread to a bird. Say, because of this karmic link that I'm making with you in this moment, may I lead you to enlightenment in the future. And this is a really nice practice to do. Report an error

2:37:56 I always use it, you know, people in the grocery stores have those big red name tags and nobody ever calls them by name. Call them by name and in your mind you don't have to be a weirdo and say it out loud, like don't do that, but in your mind just think, here we are, you know, we're linked now. I'm calling you by name, I'm looking in your eyes, may I lead you to enlightenment. Report an error

2:38:15 In the future, don't worry about being arrogant. If they're a great bodhisattva and they're really making the same prayer and they're at a higher state than you, they'll be overjoyed that you're offering to lead them to enlightenment. So don't worry about who gets there first. Just do it. People go, oh, but I could never say that. I mean, it just seems so... Forget about it. Forget about it. Report an error

2:38:35 Just do it. And like I said, if they're a great bodhisattva, they'll just be tickled that you're making this prayer to lead them to enlightenment. Yeah. Report an error

2:38:45 I have a technical question about the technique. If you were doing this at someone's bedside, let's say you were doing it for an hour, after doing one cycle, after emitting the golden light, would you go back to the beginning again and breathe in the smoke or would you just keep sending the golden light? Report an error

2:39:02 Okay, that's a great question. And as you get more experienced, you can actually do it with every cycle of inhalation and exhalation. In the beginning, because you're kind of dealing with a bunch of things at once and trying to get rid of it. You're used to the visualization and coupling it with the breathing. You kind of do these cycles of maybe ten each. But as you become more experienced, you can actually do it with every... Report an error

2:39:26 Cycle of inhalation and exhalation. So just do what's comfortable for you, you know, and if you need to do it for more than 10 or whatever to get the visualization clear and then just repeat like that. And in fact, this is a wonderful technique you can do anywhere. Again, Dharma in daily life. You don't have to do the sitting down cross-legged. You're walking down the street and you see homeless people. Report an error

2:39:47 You see anyone suffering. The more experienced you get, then you're just kind of doing it automatically with every... Every in-breath and out-breath. Yeah. And while you're passing the mic, does it work? At the least, it works towards reinforcing your own aspiration to be a benefit for others and to take on, to expand your own compassion and be of ultimate benefit to others. Report an error

2:40:16 So it's practice for you all the time in doing that and being that. I just wanted to share, it's kind of a do-a-work experience. Does it work? Because where I do my practice daily, I sometimes run into men who get me really, really angry, just dangerous guys, and they're just raging and raging, and it's pretty scary. Report an error

2:40:40 So I started doing Tongling, and I would just say, I'm going to take in your anger, and I'm just going to give you back compassion, understanding. Love. And you know, it started, it worked. It was just amazing. And you take somebody with, you just, I just didn't want to turn them loose in the yard to stab somebody or something bad happened or get in trouble with a guard. Report an error

2:41:03 And it actually did work. And so then another colleague of mine who was Jewish, he's not even Buddhist, came and said, what are you doing, you know? And with these guys, because this guy's really angry. And so I taught him Tongling. And a couple of days later, he came back. He said, you know, Keith, it really works. I did it and it worked. Report an error

2:41:24 I don't know why, but it worked. And so anyway, it does work. Yeah, even in the moment. Not only if you're a Buddhist, but if you're Jewish, it works. And that's a great point. What if you're both? Report an error

2:41:38 And that's a great point too, because this has nothing to do with belief in Buddhism. You know, this is just about compassion and love, which is universal. So this is a really universal technique. Also, when you're working with people, you know, it doesn't... It doesn't depend on any belief system. That's a beautiful story. I read this one similar incident. I was meeting with these neurologists and scientists and having these conferences called Mind and Life, and as a result of one of them... Report an error

2:42:08 This neurologist was studying the neurology of compassion and hooking people up to these machines and stuff. And so as part of the study, he took this quite well-known French monk, Mathieu Ricard, who's one of His Holiness' translators, who has meditated and retreated for many, many years. And took the most obnoxious professor in the department of UCSF Medical School and sat them down in a room together to monitor what was going on and hooked them up to the POM test. Report an error

2:42:40 And apparently this guy couldn't get along with anyone. He was just absolutely, in fact, the worst guy wouldn't even agree to be part of the test. He was so obnoxious. So they actually got the second most obnoxious guy in the department who was still like extremely, you know, couldn't get along with anyone. So they sat them down. Report an error

2:42:57 And they didn't even tell Matthew Ricard what to do, but because of his training, he was just doing exactly what you said. You know, this guy was attacking him, and they got this completely fundamentalist, Cartesian, scientific reductionist to debate the Buddhist monk, because that would make him even more infuriated to be dealing with this Buddhist monk. Report an error

2:43:15 And then they interviewed the obnoxious guy afterwards, and they said, like, what was happening for you? And he's like, I couldn't stay angry. I wanted to be so furious with this monk because he's just so ridiculous and believing. And I couldn't. And I found myself smiling and feeling really calm. You know, they tested all these things. So it's true. I mean, they just can't maintain in the force. And then they said to Matthew Ricard, what were you doing? Oh, Tonglen and sending him love and light and all of this stuff. Report an error

2:43:43 So it's true. It's just can't maintain in the face of that. So that's beautiful. And it brings an interesting point about does it work? We're talking now about transforming emotions, anger and like that. So it's a difference between does it work, does it heal, does it cure? And in terms of sitting at the bedside of someone sick or taking on the suffering of somebody that's got a serious disease. Report an error

2:44:12 It helps to heal their mind rather than their disease, cure the disease. In this sense, the healing, which is what we want for everyone before they die, is to be healed. And we're talking about the healing of the mind, of letting go of that negativity and the negative states of mind that interfere with being peaceful. Report an error

2:44:37 So on that level, it definitely works. Any other questions? Comments, feedback, yeah, Charlie and Alice. Report an error

2:44:51 There's time, it's okay. I think Chris was going to ask something about the specifics of the situation or exactly, and I have kind of a similar question, I don't know if it's actually hers, but do you tell the obnoxious, you know, angry person, etc.? That you are going to do it? I generally never do. And you don't do it with them? It depends completely on the situation. Report an error

2:45:24 If it's somebody really angry and obnoxious and whatever who wouldn't be receptive at all, I wouldn't. If it is someone who I feel understands the technique and is receptive and would feel extremely grateful, like for example with some of the dying people who know what you're talking about and just... Report an error

2:45:44 Are very open to your presence and whatever prayers and things you're doing to benefit them, then I think it would be quite appropriate to just share that you were planning to do this. Report an error

2:45:57 So then it would be ethically okay if somebody is an obnoxious person that you have to work with or somebody has to work with and that? To send them love and kindness and compassion? Yeah, to do the tongling with them. I think it would be ethically okay. Yes, I do too. I think it would be great, you know, better than getting mad at them, right? Report an error

2:46:23 Well, with some of the energetic practices in that, you're not supposed to send it without someone's permission. That's what I meant. In terms of the obnoxious co-worker, it's another coping technique, you could say, for how to make... Them happier and you happier so you can get your work done. I mean, if you're, you know, if you're a healer, you know, and you have sort of a contract with someone to work with them, I think then there would be an ethical thing of getting permission. Report an error

2:46:55 But if it's just like Lenny says, a coping technique and something that would just benefit the situation. I mean, we all have our own thoughts about whoever is around us and we don't. Get their permission in general. So for sure to have compassionate, loving thoughts versus responding with anger benefits both people. Report an error

2:47:13 I think it's like that. Report an error

2:47:18 I know somebody in that. I mean, I have definitely had situations where people have made me, you know, I mean, are difficult to work with and sort of the rotten apple, you know, this foils a whole barrel for everybody else working with them. And I can understand doing that and that would help me, you know, with my anger reaction in that. I'm just wondering from, you know, quote sort of the scientific situation is, I have a friend who recently told me about a situation at work where a number, just to say that this, I might as well just say, this person is a nurse in a hospital and Report an error

2:48:04 And my friend had to end up resigning because this person was giving her so much stress. Her position as a key physician at this place. And it turns out that this nurse has, that this has happened with practically, I mean for several, with several other employees just having to leave because, you know. Report an error

2:48:29 And I'm wondering just as a third party or something. If I just, I mean, I don't know this person, but to take on doing Tong Lin to see it, to try to change it so that this nurse is not ruining, you know, so many people's lives and careers in that. And I think it's definitely would be, oh, go ahead. Yeah, just why not? Yeah. Report an error

2:48:58 It would be one technique and then there's more mundane techniques like conflict resolution and things like that. I mean, I think attack it at every level. Yeah, but those things don't seem to be working. Well, that's it. You know, this person is very clever in terms of getting, you know. But this works on an energetic level. Right. I mean, there's got to be something energetically. Report an error

2:49:15 Which is where it has to, where a change arises from. Yeah, I mean, it's got to be about her and changing her and not being so proactively vindictive with people and her. Report an error

2:49:28 Somebody who's very jealous and coveting and that type of thing. I think it would be important in this particular instance, before you undertook to do this, that you would understand that she's a suffering sentient being and she's behaving in this way because of some suffering within herself. And what I'm trying to say is if you could undertake... Report an error

2:49:53 The Tonglen practice with a mind of compassion for her rather than, I'm going to try and fix this because she's such a nasty person. Like that. Report an error

2:50:03 And also a lot of times people, you know, who are obnoxious in that way and kind of react in that way. There's an underlying feeling often of fear and loss of control and sometimes they just need someone to talk to and even just on the personal level to try and sometimes befriend them or just offer them an opportunity to sort of vent their feelings. Report an error

2:50:29 It's amazing how many underlying feelings there are that anger is usually like a secondary emotion or some sort of annoying behavior. And often people don't feel heard, they don't feel understood, they're feeling a lot of fear. And if you can meet their needs on that deeper level, often that secondary behavior will just sort of dissolve. So it's quite interesting sometimes the people that you want to talk to least are the ones that if you can just go there and meet them. Report an error

2:50:57 And meet their needs that, you know, everyone else is avoiding them. And they just feel desperate to feel heard, you know, whatever they're going through. And if you can somehow kind of break through and meet them at that place, often the whole situation. I had this one prisoner, I teach in this prison, and this one guy, you know, you always get these guys who sit in the back of the room and their arms are folded and they're not sitting near anyone and they're scowling and they have jailhouse tattoos all over their faces and they're like big bad guys. Report an error

2:51:24 So I'm always like teasing them. To get him to open up and like messing with them and stuff. And then this is one guy and I said something and it sort of broke through. You know, I was teasing him about something and his whole face changed and he just kind of like, what? Nobody's ever spoken to me. Like, people are supposed to be afraid of me. They're not supposed to like tease me and love me, you know, and I was just like. Report an error

2:51:45 And so then the next class, he walks in and he never really said much of anything. And he walks in and, you know, oh, I always would give them experiential homework, you know, of something to try before I came back. And then I would always check in. How did it go with this meditation? And he raised his hand. I can't even remember what I had told them to do. And he goes, well. Report an error

2:52:06 You know, I realize that I'm really angry and I realize from that meditation you gave us to do that my anger is because I'm really afraid and I fear a loss of control. And all the other persons are like, what? And he completely transformed because he got, like he never even got where his anger came from. Report an error

2:52:28 And he was just like, and then he totally transformed and he's sitting there all. Like radiant. I mean, his whole, everything about him just changed. And then I just was like, that is fantastic, you know, and let's deal with your fear and loss of control. And it just completely transformed. So, so many times those defensive things that manifest in those really, you know, angry or obnoxious behavior are just, you know, trying to cover up some deep. Report an error

2:52:52 Fear. I got this most gratifying letter from one of the other prisoners going, I've known him for 12 years and I've never seen him open up to anyone the way he opens up to you. Like, please keep coming, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And it was, it was just this amazing transformation. Like, all the other guys were just like, I can't believe you're saying this. Report an error

2:53:10 So often it's like that, you know, so giving them the space to express their vulnerability is often what cuts through. Charlie, you had... Chris, did you have something? You got it? Okay. Well, I think I sort of got half my answer through something else that was said, but when I was doing the meditation, one of the people I meditated about is the daughter of a friend of mine who's 13 years old. Report an error

2:53:38 She was born with a fairly severe congenital heart defect, and she's not in a lot of... Physical pain from this, although she can't do sports or anything, but as she gets older, there are other things that she's going through as far as going into puberty and being interested in boys and being shorter than the other kids and all these things where this is coming up more and more on a psychological level for her and a level of pain. Report an error

2:54:07 And when I'm meditating, in resolving her pain, I'm trying to, where I kind of hit a... A fork where I wasn't sure what to do was do I wish for her heart to be healed? And obviously I know I need to wish for her psychologically to be healed, but is it appropriate to wish for her heart to be healed or I just say I wish for her to be healed? Report an error

2:54:38 You know, understanding and accepting of her own situation. Yeah. And I think both. And it's interesting because this question comes up a lot. And I have this one student and he has a lot of resistance of wanting to send people any kind of mundane happiness. Because he's like, oh, if you give them the cars and the girlfriends and the things that they think they want, they're not going to, you know, what they should really want is liberation from saṃsāra. Report an error

2:55:01 So don't send them any kind of, and the lamas are like, forget it. Send them everything that would give them happy on all. Yes, of course, ultimately we all know, yada yada, but just send them whatever they really want that would give them happiness. So for her it would be on all those levels. Like we don't do our own sort of self-righteous trip about what we send people during this meditation, just whatever would give them happiness. And also, as I mentioned before, I was involved in healing work for... Report an error

2:55:31 And during the course of that, I saw and heard about and experienced a few actual changes physically in people's health based on having positive energy work of one kind or another. And in terms of in hospice, we see occasionally people... Turn around and the woman that I mentioned earlier that had been in this state for a year and a half, we saw her picture this morning, the doctors had told her son that she was going to die in about two weeks. Report an error

2:56:07 Isn't that what he said? A year and a half ago. A year and a half ago. And so there is some physical effect in some people. I don't know what makes that happen and who it happens to, but it doesn't hurt. Report an error

2:56:23 Visualize the whole thing. Yeah, Michael. With the Tonglen, when I first heard about it, I heard about it in terms of a particular Lama. He was being hurt by somebody and he said, well, I'm doing Tonglen for her. And I said, that just seems ridiculous. I mean, didn't you want to do like, you know, get out of my life meditating? Report an error

2:56:49 And I thought, oh my gosh, that's, you know, it took me a while to really... I kind of think about that and I realized, oh okay, I can kind of get it and I especially got it after I was having to work with a group of people that I found incredibly annoying. Report an error

2:57:08 And after a couple years of doing lojong meditation specifically directed at changing my mind about this, I finally realized, okay, the people might still be annoying on some level, but it's all... It's up to my mind and it's how I choose to deal with this and really just changing my mind or my Lama changing his mind about this person. Report an error

2:57:32 It's like, yeah, okay. It really does make a difference if only in how we treat ourselves, how we treat other people and just being free of the burden of... Feeling that people are annoying or feeling anger or disgust is so healing. Because annoyance is in your mind. Your resistance. No, it's true. And without those people, like all the Lo Jong texts say, you know, if without someone being, you know, chances are that all of the bodhisattvas that are supposed to be emanating all over the place to help us out are not the people who sort of... Report an error

2:58:09 Pat us on the head and feed our ego and think that we're so wonderful. It's probably the people that push our buttons and give us the opportunity to practice patience. It's much more likely that they're the ones we should be suspicious about being some emanation body. I remember when I was a new Buddhist practitioner talking to Lama Zopa's attendant, Venerable Roger, and I said something stupid and naive like, oh, people generally really like me and I mostly have friends and not that many people dislike me. Report an error

2:58:37 And he said, What a shame. That's really too bad. And I was so shocked. And he said, without those people who dislike you, how are you ever going to practice patience? And then I got it. After a while, I really got it. But I remember being so shocked that he said, that is such a shame. And now I really feel that because how can you practice without that kind of resistance if everybody's going around thinking you're so wonderful, you're just going to have this... Report an error

2:59:03 Big ego and not going to be able to practice at all. So, yeah, we have to be grateful to those beings and be very highly suspicious that they're probably the ones. Report an error

2:59:13 Okay, so I think your lunch is ready and we had a request to maybe make it an hour so that we could have a little bit more time this afternoon. It's 12.37. Should we, let's see, how about 1.40? Just about, can people? Keep that in mind and we'll ring the gong a couple of minutes to give everybody a chance to recoup and then we just have a couple of other miscellaneous sections to do this afternoon. Report an error

2:59:46 Thank you. Report an error

2:59:50 Oh good, I'll be glad to talk about Tarahum a little bit while we're waiting for everyone to come back. Well, we had originally, we always wanted to have Tarahum at Land of Medicine Buddha because that's the best environment. To be in an environment of Dharma is the best. And it didn't seem possible because they're terribly cramped for space. Report an error

3:00:16 And so when this woman that I mentioned was declining with ovarian cancer, the director of Land of Medicine Buddha so kindly offered us the use of one of the guest cabins. There's two separate cabins up on the hill. And so that's where we started off. And then we have been able to continue using that. Report an error

3:00:42 But it's a one-bedroom cabin, you know, put in a little kitchenette. And we've done a lot of remodeling in several, like in four different stages. Report an error

3:00:52 Made it handicap accessible and we've replaced the rickety old funky stairs and widened all the doorways so a wheelchair can get through and made it very sweet. Put in insulation and everyone was changed, double the size of the bathroom, handicap shower, sink, all of that. And the way it is right now, we've been in operation for four and a half years. Report an error

3:01:18 We've taken care of about 14 people. And we have weeks and sometimes months between cases. And that's very surprising to all of us. But, you know, it's kind of like any new enterprise. You have to get known and trusted, especially with this kind of a thing. Volunteers taking, you know. So it's a matter of time. And we're all quite satisfied with the rate of growth because everyone volunteers. Report an error

3:01:51 So it's okay. After a case, which is often intense, the volunteers are very glad to have a little time to recoup. Yeah, yeah. One person at a time. No, we thought there would be a waiting list. Sometimes we have, we thought people would, yeah. Oh, you took my only joke out of my mouth. Report an error

3:02:22 But we often have two or three people in the pre-admission process at the same time. And very often none of them work out. We have fairly stringent requirements. But not everyone's back yet. Yeah, Report an error

3:02:44 what are those requirements? Well, they have to be hospice patients. And they have to be able to pay some rent. Although, in the last two years, Through a benefactor in the community who does a fundraiser for us once or twice a year, we've established a compassion fund for the purpose of paying the rent for someone who has no money. Report an error

3:03:06 And we need to charge rent because that's our rent and donations are our only income. And we pay rent to Land of Medicine Buddha. I think it's $1,200 a month. Very reasonable. And it includes, you know, it's furnished, completely furnished. It includes room and laundry. Not food. So, for the reasons we talked about this morning, not everybody that's dying eats the same, and most people eat very little. Report an error

3:03:35 So we didn't want to charge a flat rate for food that would be wasted money for the person. So we arranged for feeding people in all kinds of innovative ways. Yeah, and so the requirements then, needs to be somebody that's compatible with us and our mission. And the energy at Land of Medicine Buddha. They don't need to be Buddhist, but they need to be comfortable in such an environment. And then we don't feel that we can take anybody that's too large. Report an error

3:04:07 When Venerable Chogky first heard this, you know, she went like that. And they all said they'd take care of me anyway. In her bigness, that's right, that's right. We'll even get an extra long hospital bed. But anyway, because we have one volunteer on at a time, somebody that's too large or too heavy, we wouldn't be able to do that. Report an error

3:04:32 You know, our volunteers are a wide range of sizes, just like... life and so and If somebody is combative or too obnoxious to be dealt with by volunteers, they need to be getting something back. Many of them, probably about half of them at any given time are Buddhists, but they're not particularly working with the person that irritates you as your greatest teacher. Report an error

3:05:01 And so if somebody is too, you know, there's... Difficult to deal with people. And they're usually the ones that turn extra cranky when they're sick. So we kind of just assess the person. Do they feel like we call it a match, a fit for our situation? And there's many folks like that. Those are the ones that are interested in a Torah home at a Land of Medicine Buddha. Report an error

3:05:29 But sometimes we get inquiries from the discharge planner at our local hospital or from the community at large, and they don't really quite know what we're about, and it wouldn't be a good match. Report an error

3:05:46 Yeah. Report an error

3:05:54 Well, it's been different in each and every situation. Every family and everything is different. So some people, before they want to be considered for admission, they want to look the place over. And they come out with a friend or a family member for a visit. And if it's not occupied, then they can come in and look around. And 201, everyone has loved it. Report an error

3:06:18 It's very sweet and cozy and pretty. And, of course, it's in the middle of gorgeous Land of Medicine Buddha. Sometimes the person is bedridden and we go there. We have an admissions committee of the director. And one of our volunteers, who's a nurse, and a volunteer who's a social worker, to assess. And oh, the other, what was I, requirement, I couldn't find the word, is the level of care they need. Report an error

3:06:55 So, because again, we have trained volunteers, but there are things that they would feel too intimidated by, which a family member would learn over time and feel comfortable doing. Report an error

3:07:09 But sometimes if a person is too sick to visit the facility, we go to their home or to a nursing home and interview them there. We ask for the person that holds their DPA to be there and be part of it. Get all their questions answered. And it's a resource you should know about because it's for everybody. And there's nobody that we can see that would need to be turned away for financial reasons. Report an error

3:07:36 By the end of life, almost everybody has become eligible through some kind of social, like Medi-Cal. Or Medicare. And they're on some kind of assistance where they could pay the minimum. And our minimum is $500 a month for someone who has no funds. I mean, what we want to do is help. And we just need to pay the rent. And that's what we pay to Landa Medicine Buddha. They're very generous in giving us such a low rent and giving up the income from that cabin. Report an error

3:08:08 We want to be sure and always have enough to pay our rent. And we're in good shape right now. We just bought a real couch. A new one, not somebody's cast off. What a concept. Report an error

3:08:24 Did I answer that question, whatever it was? Okay. So, shall we carry on? Okay, all right. So, before we begin with the four opponent powers, any questions or concerns left over from this morning? Report an error

3:08:51 Oh, okay, thank you. Yeah, no, that's okay. She's just reminding me of something she asked me during the break. So what Carla had come up to talk to me about was the fact that she felt when we did the Tonglen practice with three rounds of giving and taking, remember I led you through two rounds, and she felt very challenged by that and said, you know, she was quite exhausted. Report an error

3:09:13 It was, you know, very... And it is. It's really turning the tables. Like I said, it's this radical technique of really turning the tables on our sort of, you know, habitual reaction and how we feel. So don't feel that you need to do it for a long period of time. You know, when you're just beginning, as I said, to build up the capacity. Report an error

3:09:35 Not only do you build up capacity by using easy objects of compassion for you, but don't feel like you have to sit there and do it for 45 minutes because it can be quite challenging and exhausting. So thank you for, I completely forgot that you said that. So, you know, like that. So if you just start with one. Report an error

3:09:53 Brief round, it's still fantastic to do it for any length of time at all. So don't kind of feel like you have to bludgeon yourself with Tanglin and, you know, exhaust yourself. Just build up your capacity in that way too. Thank you. Report an error

3:10:11 Oh, the... Probably. There's always editing. You need a monitor. This nun needs an assistant. She does. That's what I meant, a computer monitor. Not a piece of machinery, a person, you know, like the door monitor. Report an error

3:10:41 Okay, so this morning, Tenzin Chogky talked about applying the five powers during the life and the power of the white seed, which is to build up your merit. Purify your obscurations by means of the preliminary rites. So one of the most powerful practices for purifying is called the four opponent powers. Report an error

3:11:07 And so let's just say there's something that you've been carrying around for years that is a burden of guilt on you. And you push it to the furthest corner of your mind because it's so uncomfortable. You try and blank it out so you can carry on, but there it is. Maybe it's some big fight that you had with your mother or your sister or something you did that you know was wrong, but it's too hard to think about it and it's just too uncomfortable. Report an error

3:11:43 All right, so this is an example of carrying around negative energy in the mind. It's this kind of an example. And so realize that this is taking a portion of your attention every minute, whether you're aware of it or not. It's dragging you down. It's filling... It's occupying a part of your mind with the burden of this negativity which hasn't changed for all of these years. Report an error

3:12:17 So if you take it upon yourself to begin purifying, it's easy for most of us to think on something like that, that we want to get, we just want to resolve it. And of course, near the time of death when we talked about... In the meditation on one year to live, when we talked about unfinished business, when we talked about regrets, when we talked about negative states of mind like that, these are the kind of things we don't want to take to the grave with us, so to speak. Report an error

3:12:51 So. The Four Opponent Powers is a way it's said that this practice is powerful enough to completely eliminate the negative karma of any action, no matter how heinous it is. And that's pretty powerful. Okay, so I'm going to, I think, first go through the practice as it's traditionally done and taught by Buddhists. Report an error

3:13:21 The first is the power of regret. And you'll be getting a handout on this. The power of regret. The first part of the regret is recognizing and admitting to yourself the mistake you've made. Report an error

3:13:36 Okay. There's no cleaning it up anymore. There's no putting a nice face on it or rationalizing it away. I did it. I really did that. You have to admit it to yourself. And then the next step is to experience sincere regret. Acknowledge the harm you've done to yourself and experience regret for your action. Report an error

3:14:05 And this is one of the things you've been avoiding because it's going to make you feel rotten. You're going to feel bad. That's what it means to feel regret. It's going to disturb your day. Report an error

3:14:20 But you must feel as bad as you feel and have been covering over. Allow that to arise. And don't confuse this with guilt. Guilt is what you've been carrying around. Guilt is what is the result of not facing it and not dealing with it. And it's totally nonproductive. Guilt sucks. It will suck your energy. It will suck your joy. Report an error

3:14:49 And it doesn't help. And actually, with His Holiness, several days before he was awarded the Nobel Prize, he participated in a conference in Southern California with Western Buddhist teachers and psychology students, not students, but practitioners. And the question came about guilt. From the audience. And he turned to his translator, Thukton Jimpa, you know, and asked for clarification on this. And he was really perplexed and confused because there's no such concept in Tibetan. Report an error

3:15:34 And there's no word. I mean, there's the kind of guilt. If someone murders a person, then they're guilty of a crime. But the kind of guilt that most Americans have. A whole bundle on your back, a whole sack that you're carrying around. No concept for that. So what you want is to experience regret. Report an error

3:16:00 Then the second power is resolve. And by the way, these are often referred to as the four R's. Regret, resolve. So the resolve is that you make a firm determination now that you have acknowledged and regretted what you've done. You make this determination. Not to repeat this action again. The best is never to repeat this action ever again. Report an error

3:16:28 However, at the same time, one must be realistic because you don't want to make a vow that you're going to break. So you don't want to promise something that you know you're really not going to be able to keep. So you make a vow for as long as you think you can reasonably keep it. Report an error

3:16:45 so say result Resolve, I vow not to do this again for the next month. This is too much the next week, the next day. And maybe what would work for you in this kind of a situation would be to take one day at a time, you know, just like many 12-step programs do. But the point is that you need to make a vow out of your resolve to do something that you can keep. Report an error

3:17:13 And then once it becomes habitual, one day at a time, one week at a time, you can lengthen that period of time until eventually you have completely rid yourself of that behavioral tendency. The third opponent power is reliance. And what is it that you rely on? You rely on your refuge. Your refuge... And the Three Jewels if you've taken refuge and your dedication to serve others if you've taken the Bodhisattva vow. And in that way you can help to purify the negative actions. Report an error

3:17:55 Now if the harm that you've done, the negative action is directed against the Three Jewels. any Dharma thing, like carelessly... Treating Dharma texts or verbally abusing a Saṅgha member. I don't mean abusing, I mean criticizing or negative action or thoughts even towards Saṅgha members, Dharma itself, like that, Dharma centers. Report an error

3:18:29 Then this is what you are renewing, your reliance, renewing your vow in that way to reassert. Your refuge to remember the precious qualities of the three jewels and then to strengthen your vow and your reliance. Report an error

3:18:49 If it's other beings that you've harmed or another being, then you can remember that... What you want is to have the compassionate intention to help and serve others and to attain enlightenment for their sake. And you can remember that and then rely on your bodhisattva vow. And then the fourth R, the fourth opponent power is the remedy. Report an error

3:19:17 So then to seal the first three. You can take specific positive action to counterbalance whatever negativity you've created and to attempt to neutralize the harm that's done. And what's best is to do something that's completely opposite of the harmful action. So acting out of love rather than hate or generosity rather than miserliness or stinginess. Report an error

3:19:51 Like that. So some generally recommended activities, just for a start, would be serving the poor or the needy or performing some community service, saving the lives of animals, doing animal liberation, Report an error

3:20:11 making donations to centers such as Seichenling or monasteries or other religious groups. Reciting passages from a relevant Dharma text that actually addresses the specific type of negativity that you're working to purify and meditating on their meaning and also doing Dharma practice. Report an error

3:20:37 And then finally making direct restitution to the person that you might have harmed. So these are the four opponent powers. And it's a practice that can be done now throughout the life and certainly at the time of death. But here we are talking about all this and it's going to become part of your bag of tools along with other like Tonglen and other practices that you do. Report an error

3:21:10 Are there any questions? Yes. Report an error

3:21:20 Can negative energy also be carried around by someone that was harmed rather than... Having harmed. And if so, how would that practice translate on regret? Report an error

3:21:37 Are you asking if the person has been harmed by another, could they do this practice too? Could they also be carrying around the negative energy from what was... Well, if they... From the harm itself, and maybe they are carrying negative energy around because they were not able to forgive the doing. Right, or they had the mind to retaliate or seek vengeance. In that case, that this would be perfectly workable as well. Report an error

3:22:09 Yes. But it would completely depend on their response to the harm. Because karma is completely personal and it's an imprint in one's own mental continuum. So even if someone had a harmful intent towards you, it wouldn't necessarily be that that negativity somehow transferred. and left imprints on your continuum would just be completely dependent on how you respond. Report an error

3:22:32 I mean, and for example, when someone is angry with you, you do have the choice, just as someone is giving you anger, but if someone gives you a gift and you don't care to accept it, you can give it back. You could do the same thing with anger, so that you remain unaffected by the blast and the negative energy, and that's a really good... Report an error

3:22:55 good tool to develop would only be if you took it in it affected you negatively and then if you wanted to lash out back do some action to hurt the person like that it would be applicable for the receiver do Any other questions? I wanted to just mention something about the four opponent powers and a lot of the practices that... Report an error

3:23:29 You'll be taught as you study Tibetan Buddhism, for example, the Vajrasapha practice, the prostrations to the 35 Buddhas, incorporate all of these four opponent powers within the context of the whole practice that you're taught. So a lot of the four opponent powers you may have been practicing already without necessarily knowing that it had all four of those components with it for a lot of the traditional purification practices. Report an error

3:23:55 And then you can also, as Lenny said, The remedy or the antidote, what you do to kind of make up for it. What I do a lot is work with students and sort of design a karmic game plan. Like they feel like they've engaged in some sort of activity repeatedly. And then we kind of think of something really appropriate to act as the antidote force. Report an error

3:24:16 And then when they do that, with these four powers complete, it may be a non-traditional. In practice, for example, I have one student and he was in the Israeli army and he doesn't know for sure that he killed anyone, but he certainly aimed and shot and could very well have done. And so he's undertaken, you know, an animal refuge center as his way of directly making up for this killing karma. Report an error

3:24:40 And he especially takes on these dogs that are, you know, deemed to be too vicious to be adopted out, like he has all these pit bulls and all these Rottweilers and things. You know, he subdues them and trains them and stuff. And that's his specific antidote for his killing karma. And I recently had another student who appeared who was a Navy SEAL and was in the original Desert Storm in Somalia and all of this stuff and is pretty sure he has a lot of killing karma. Report an error

3:25:06 And we were kind of trying to work out, like, what would work for him is his antidote. And he said, oh, I was driving down the street with my girlfriend and there was this little puppy in the middle of the road. And, you know, I thought, oh, I should stop and save it. But I was kind of driving fast. And then my girlfriend said, Tenzin Chogky would really want you to pull over and save that puppy. So I said, I did. And I ran into the traffic and all that stuff. And suddenly the light bulb goes off and I go. Report an error

3:25:31 Oh, do you like dogs? And he's like, I love dogs. And I said, oh great, you can go help the pit bull guy. So I got the two of them together. So you can be creative, you know, it doesn't need to be this Buddhist thing with tankas and all of that. Like whatever it is, you know, that you choose to do and the more appropriate it is for whatever the non-virtue. Report an error

3:25:49 The better, you know, and it's an antidote to that direct non-virtue. And as long as the four opponent powers, so I'm always telling these two guys, now make sure, you know, that you have all the other powers. Don't just deal with these dogs, but have the other three in addition to the remedy. And then it will be the practice that acts as the antidote for that non-virtue. Report an error

3:26:08 And then continuing along those lines. Of course, we're in a Dharma center, and the stories that we've just heard are about students of Tenzin Chogkyi, and so they're striving within the Buddhist framework to do this. So I often teach meditation classes to groups of elder hostile people, and virtually none of them are Buddhist. Report an error

3:26:36 They've come for a vacation. They're not serious students of meditation and certainly not Buddhism. But they've come to Land of Medicine Buddha for an elder hostel program. And one of the programs that I'm often asked to teach in is called Living, Aging and Dying. Report an error

3:26:54 And all the folks are over 55. So I always introduce the four opponent powers, but I do it differently for this group because I want to tailor it to what they can and will do. And in the same vein, anybody in your life that's not Buddhist, they still, what applies to everybody is to clean up unfinished business and to... Report an error

3:27:20 Look at what you regret and then this is something that anyone can do about it in a tailored kind of a way. And it may not completely expiate the negative karma, but it will give them more peace of mind. So whatever it is that happens is favorable. The first opponent power. In this way, I make much more of recognizing and admitting to yourself. And in some explanations of this, that's called confession. Report an error

3:27:53 You confess to yourself what you did. And then experiencing the sincere regret. And very often people that have reached that stage in their life and haven't had... Report an error

3:28:07 The benefit of this kind of connection or instruction, they're carrying around some items that need to be looked at. Then the resolve, this is applicable to anybody and promising not to do it again, but the reliance on the three jewels doesn't apply to most of these folks. And I'll usually say to rely on whatever higher being that is meaningful to you like that. Report an error

3:28:44 Many people have no religion at all, particularly people that might be attracted to a program like this. They're looking, they feel an attraction, but they don't have their own spiritual succor, you could say. Report an error

3:29:01 So I put more emphasis in that way on the remedy, and it's pretty similar to what we talked about. But I also include, and by the way, it often happens that people have regret about somebody that they had a really bad experience with four decades ago, and that person has since died. And so I explained to them that it is possible, since what you're trying to do is get this out of your mind stream, it's quite possible to visualize and to sit yourself down in a chair. Report an error

3:29:43 They, by this time, already learned simple visualizations in our meditations and that they can visualize the person that they haven't spoken to in 40 years. Then, you know, sometimes that person refuses to see you. It's not possible to do it in person. And then to visualize a scenario in which you would express regret to them and give an apology and visualize a reconciliation. Report an error

3:30:12 And then the remedy, in that case, if the person has died, you could make a contribution in their honor, or you could plant a tree, or sponsor a bench, or do something in their honor like that. And even better, if you have a church or a temple or some institution that you're affiliated with, if it's in that kind of a place, even better. Report an error

3:30:42 Charitable organizations, contributions in that person's honor are a good way. So I just encourage you to remember this for friends and relatives or people in your care that are not Buddhists. And this is something that they can undertake to great benefit to get to that peaceful state of mind. So any further questions about this? Report an error

3:31:13 Good. It's pretty straightforward. Report an error

3:31:18 Okay, thank you. Report an error

3:31:23 Yes, we have a question back here. Report an error

3:31:29 You know, when you say something in the past, maybe that you regret, what if what you regret is that someone else has done you harm, you've not retaliated, but you still regret that at one time you were good friends and now you're not. Yeah. So what do you do about the regret of people who have... know harmed you or or have projected something onto you which I would say that you could write to them and tell them that you regret the loss of the relationship and that you think of them fondly and wish them well and that all is forgiven and then let go of it. Report an error

3:32:25 You can go further if you want and do one of the practices, one of the opponent powers. But this is not something that you've done. You're just trying to, yeah. It's not a negative action that you've done that you are wanting to expiate the negative karma of. It's just you have regret and sadness about it. So express that and wish them well. Okay. Report an error

3:32:58 Is there a possibility of situations where, say, you have gotten things projected on you or this or that, and then you think, I haven't done anything in this life, and then suddenly, you know, it could be that you're, that's happened because of what you've done in a previous life. Absolutely. Absolutely. So is the doing like the Vajrasat, that's what I've been doing. I mean, that sort of came into my mind recently because of the different classes and things I've been taking. Report an error

3:33:29 And I've been using the Vajrasattva practice for that, for like cleansing and saying, not just this life, you know, but in some previous life. That's right. That I must have been some big bad dude. I would say that that was quite skillful. And there are quite a few purification practices of which this is just one. Report an error

3:33:52 And Tenzin Chogky mentioned a couple of others. And then there's prostration practices. practices and this There are many purifications. There are simple purification breathing practices that you can do on the spot, like that, and more elaborate ones. Report an error

3:34:11 You know, the lamas are often asked by people, what was I in my past life? And they say, that's a no-brainer, just look at what's going on for you now, and that's proof of what happened in your past life. You know, and we can do that, and usually I just taught this six weeks. Class on karma in Santa Cruz and at one point during the class I give this karma quiz and it comes straight from Lamrim Chan Mo and Abhidama, you know, all the karmic correlations and people check off what they're experiencing in their life and then look at what the cause of that and even if it's not what they did in this life, for sure they created the cause at some point and then they go after that. Report an error

3:34:49 And that's where we get into these creative things like animal liberation, whatever, because they see what, you know, and it's always a little cluster, you know, of a couple of effects from one cause and then we go after that. And then sometimes they're so astonished and they go, but I've never done that. Well, of course, maybe you didn't do it in this life. But the fact is, if you're experiencing that result, you did create the cause at some point. Report an error

3:35:13 So you can work like that. Yeah. And that's a very skillful. Way of doing it. You know, and you can use these four powers. I mean, we all have these deep pockets of karmic seeds and it's not just this life and you can, you know, engineer it depending on what results you're experiencing. Report an error

3:35:33 Any other questions? Report an error

3:35:42 Just a comment as I hear more about this. It's like when we talk about experience, experience is now. It's how I'm holding it now. So it's like if I've had all this karma. And I'm experiencing it now, then this is where it is in the body. And it's like the regret or the grief. It's like when you were talking, if I had something happen with a friend, for me, it's like taking, well, what is it to sit in that experience of the grief of not having that friendship anymore? Report an error

3:36:14 And there's a cleansing that actually comes through just sitting in it bodily and really feeling how my body has held that grief. exactly. That grief, and that's. Where the cleansing comes from, because there's something, there could be anger, there could be this or that, and then there could be crying, there could be shaking, and all sorts of energy is gone, and that's releasing what I'd say is the muscle tissue from clinging, which then releases the mind from clinging and recognizing this is how it is with your friend, but there's no more, but you don't have to walk around with the grief anymore, that deep regret. Report an error

3:36:49 It's just, it's like, wow, I wish it would be different, and it's not. And that grief may manifest as a constant pain under one shoulder blade from unshed tears for the last 20 years. And just as Rick said, that when it's released, and even sitting and feeling, experiencing regret, that you may sob and you may shake. Report an error

3:37:12 But afterwards, you'll feel space. You'll feel the absence of what was... Felt like normal to you. There'll be something gone and in its space, in its place, you'll feel space. And in that space, positive energy can reside. Because when it's filled, when it's clenched around that negativity, that's the only thing it can do. So it's very powerful when it's on an energetic and bodily level like that. Report an error

3:37:44 Because I totally agree that these things reside in our bodies. And, you know. Bend us out of shape, literally. Report an error

3:37:59 So there have been some questions throughout the weekend. So what do you do after death, even after this point of clear light that the consciousness has left the body? Are there any practices and things that are appropriate for that time, the Bardo period of the being and after? So I just wanted to mention kind of briefly a couple of things. Report an error

3:38:22 So we talked about these practices up to the point where the breath stops and between the time that the physical breath stops and the consciousness leaves the body. And what a crucial time this is for the person. If they're highly enough realized and have practiced those stages of death, they could be recognizing those stages and going into that meditation consciously at that point. Report an error

3:38:45 That is also a really important time to do these prayers and practices that we went over yesterday afternoon and that are contained in this book that Lama Zopa recommends. And often to remind the person, as we said, often he'll say to shout into their ear, to remind them of refuge and so forth. So after the consciousness has left the body, And consciousness then goes into, as I said, this intermediate state known in Tibetan as the bardo, which can last for a period up to 49 days. Report an error

3:39:16 Now often the lamas will recommend that special practices be done for this whole 49 day period. Because what happens is then the person is in a subtle body, especially right after they've left their old body. There is a lot of identification and attachment with the old body, the place that they live, the friends. So the being is around, you know, and often you'll hear people say, oh, I felt their presence in the room or I still feel their presence in the house. Report an error

3:39:49 And it may very well be that the being is there. So what our teachers tell us is if practices are done, especially by people who are very, very close to that person, Just following the time of death and, you know, that it can be very effective because they can be around. For example, Lenny and I had a friend at Vajrapani Institute who died very suddenly 12 years ago in a construction accident. Report an error

3:40:17 And Lama Zopa Rinpoche found out about it within, you know, at least an hour of his accident. And one of the practices that he told us to do... Was for seven days after the death to do a very high level tantric practice, Vajrayogini self-initiation. You know, this very, very advanced tantric practice that he did himself every day for seven days and then, you know, every seven days to do another practice for the whole 49 days. Report an error

3:40:50 So this group of us met every night. For this practice it lasts three or four hours and we did it every night for the first seven days after he died and the thinking was, you know... We're his friends, we're his family, he will be attracted to being around us and we can have an influence on him that way. And also, of course, obviously the person's spiritual teachers have a special karmic connection with the person and can help direct their rebirth. Report an error

3:41:16 If you have a teacher with a high enough realization, there are special practices that they can do that it can actually help influence your rebirth while you're still in that intermediate. So it's important, you know, and again this is within the context of the Tibetan tradition of the intermediate state and influencing the rebirth by doing specific practices. Report an error

3:41:39 So this is often something very beneficial that can be done. Now even after this 49 day... Period. There is a practice called Zhangwa, which is done by highly realized lamas. And the essence of this practice is actually bringing the consciousness of this person back from whatever rebirth it has taken and sending it to a pure realm. Report an error

3:42:03 You know, sending it to a place where it will have a better chance that being, that consciousness will have all of the conditions necessary to practice. And this can be done at any time. After death, it doesn't need to be within this 49 day period. This is a practice that we try to arrange to have done at least annually at Land of Medicine Buddha by... Report an error

3:42:27 A Lama with a high level of realization because they actually have the power to affect this transference of consciousness. You know, it's not just any ordinary being can do this, but through the power of their meditation, their realization, we believe that, you know, there are certain beings that have the power to do this. Report an error

3:42:46 What's done is we will, you know, generally what we do is take the name and have a photo of the person that is there in the room while this practice is being done. There's another practice that can be done with the ashes of a person who has died. their remains can be Used for this jangwa practice and then the remains can be actually consecrated so that they can be made into a holy object. And this is another thing that Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends. Report an error

3:43:17 recommends being done for the benefit of the person that's died. And we have a whole, at Land of Medicine Buddha, we have this whole memorial shrine with stupas, with plaques underneath with the name and photo of the person, and some of their remains are actually consecrated in the special. I meant to bring brochures and I completely forgot but I'm going to send some. Report an error

3:43:43 Up here so that we'll have some brochures here that explain about that shrine and about the whole process of making a stupa. So a lot of the students really like to designate and you can do it even before you pass away and have the executors of your estate know that this is your wish and you can even kind of pre-reserve one of these stupas. Report an error

3:44:03 One of the things that Lama Zopa said... When he was first telling us to do this practice, he said, not only is it good for the person, it's really good for their relatives because they'll come and they'll visit and make offerings, you know, and it may just be out of their attachment to the person, but they're offering to this holy object, you know, if the person remains. Report an error

3:44:23 Get put into this holy object. And it's just such a beautiful thing. This woman who's at the hospice for six months wasn't a Buddhist at all, but she really thought that these stupas were beautiful and wanted some of her remains put into the stupa. And just we finally had it made and consecrated. And her family came and we had this little private ceremony to put it up in the memorial shrine. Report an error

3:44:46 None of her family is Buddhist at all, but, you know, we came, they came over. And we had this sweet little ceremony to put it in the memorial shrine and they, you know, want to come and visit. The shrine is in the meadow, Atlanta Medicine, but under these redwood trees and it's this beautiful sort of pagoda Chinese style structure. Report an error

3:45:05 And so this is, you know, another option. For what to do with the ashes after the time of death. And what Lama Zopa Rinpoche had said is that for the family's sake, instead of going to the cemetery with flowers to put on the grave, not only if they make this floral offering to a holy object, but in a... Report an error

3:45:25 Situation in a shrine where they're surrounded by other Buddha images and it's very good imprints for their minds and even if they under no other circumstances would be in such a situation that they're coming to pay their respects to their loved one. Very beneficial for them to make the annual visit to the cemetery in the memorial shrine. Report an error

3:45:48 And it's this beautiful building. Like I said, I wish I'd brought brochures, but on the Land of Medicine Buddha website, there's a link for the memorial shrine that shows it's been painted by these two Tibetan artists with these incredible frescoes of the 12 deeds of the Buddha's life. And, you know, all of these sort of on the interior of the shrine going up and up and up. And at the moment, it contains a 30-foot prototype of the Maitreya statue, this one that's destined for North India, the 500-foot. Report an error

3:46:17 And we were able to get a prototype that kind of fills this whole beautiful temple. So just Michael and his teacher come and do retreats there. And we do retreats there once a month on a Saturday, a meditation day. And it's just this beautiful, incredible, sacred space there. So, yeah, that's one of the options. And you can go on the website and I'll also have brochures sent up here if you're interested in those options. Report an error

3:46:46 Ashes in the remains of the person. Any other questions about that? Yeah. A couple in the back. Could you pass the mic back? Report an error

3:47:04 Is there any specific difference Report an error

3:47:14 between putting ashes in satsas or stupa? Or are they the same? Well, actually, we've been told by Lama Zopa that the ashes shouldn't be put in satsas or the actual stupa itself anymore. They're put in the base of the stupa below the level of the mantras. So that's recent advice that we got. In the past, we've actually mixed the ashes with the plaster of the stupa itself. But recently he said they needed to be consecrated in a special ceremony. Report an error

3:47:43 And then he gave us specific instructions of which kind of mantras go in the base of the stupa. And then the ashes go below that. And then consecrated by a Lama? Yeah, which is also done in this annual ceremony. There are kind of two stages. One is called the Zhang Wan. It's the purification of the consciousness. And then the second step is called Ruchok. And it's the actual consecration of the ashes so that they can be put in conjunction with mantras and the holy objects. Report an error

3:48:11 But they're no longer... Mixed in with the plaster of the satsas. And that's just according to Lama Zopa's instructions and other Lamas may have other views about that, but that's just his most recent instruction to us. And there's info on the website. Yeah. If you go to the homepage of Land of Medicine Buddha, there are a couple of bars at the top and there's one that just says Memorial Shrine and if you click on that... Report an error

3:48:34 It'll give you pictures of the shrine and all the information, including a downloadable registration form that you can pre-reserve a stupa for yourself. And I have now about five or six people who've pre-reserved and given their executors the information to send some of their ashes to us. And let's see, Allison had another one. On the ashes, what's the Buddhist point of view? Report an error

3:49:05 We just spreading somebody's ashes at sea or over land or in nature. There's no problem with that at all from the Buddhist point of view. It's seen as beneficial to at least put some of them in this special way, but generally what we... Need is just a couple of teaspoons of the ashes and of course they're quite a lot. So often the family will divide the ashes up, you know, maybe put some in a columbarium, maybe scatter some at sea, things like that. Report an error

3:49:36 So it's no problem to do any of those other things with the remaining ashes, yeah. And can a non-Buddhist, oh yeah, I guess you said that person who was not a Buddhist. Yeah, oh definitely, yeah. And a lot of people will do it for their relatives who are non-Buddhist, like a lot of children will. But after someone dies and precedes someone to death, can then ashes be put in to that stupa? Report an error

3:50:03 Say that again. I mean, they sort of have to be dead for their ashes to be put in. I know, true. What I'm saying is, you know, if I die next year and have ashes in a stupa and my husband dies... Oh, you mean could his be put along with yours? Can you co-mingle, I think that's the term, at a later date? At this point, the size of the base, and we have a plaque made with just one photo on it and the person's name. Report an error

3:50:35 But I'm sure if we made the, there'd be a way that we could design a plaque that would have two pictures and two names. We'd just make everything smaller, but that would be possible. And I guess if you wanted to organize that ahead of time, It would be possible to take the plaque off again and have it re-engraved. I imagine that would be possible. Nobody's ever asked that, but I could talk to the plaque makers. Report an error

3:50:58 I can't imagine that would be a problem. Yeah, it probably will be addressed at the first request. Right, yeah. But I also wanted to ask a question about this, the jamwa. I thought you said that it was after 49 days. Yeah, actually that ceremony can be done. At any time. Generally it's done after 49 days. Often there's other ceremonies that are done during that 49 day period while the being is still in the bardo. Report an error

3:51:31 But it can include the jangwa also. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that had to be after 49 days. My point was that could be any time. You know, there's a crucial 49 day period where the being is in the bardo, but the jangwa could be done even years and years and years after the person has died. That was what I meant. Report an error

3:51:48 Okay, but then is it done because you don't think that person's consciousness has gone on? For sure it's gone on, but we don't know where. So it's hooking it back and making sure it goes to a good place. It could even be, it's sort of like the thing of making this deal with others that you'll lead them to enlightenment. Report an error

3:52:11 It could already be at some fantastic place, but it's not going to hurt to have a high Lama, you know, send it off. And you just have... Hell realm or something like that. Well, that's exactly the point. You're trying to bring it from those, you know, especially if it's in the lower realm. For where it currently is. And then through the power of that Lama's meditation, send it to a better rebirth. Exactly so. Report an error

3:52:38 Okay, but it would be a rebirth. Yes. And that consciousness would need to die, but it would be improved in the next reincarnation. Yeah, and that's the point. Did we have other questions about those practices? And there's also more information about the Zhangwa. I believe there's some information in this book and also on the website. There's a bit of an explanation, more of an explanation of what this Zhangwa ceremony is. Report an error

3:53:12 Yeah, there's another. What about putting ashes in sacred places other than just locally? Like, can you give an example? Like taking it with you if you went on pilgrimage. Oh, I think that would be fantastic. I think that would be really beneficial. But would it be inappropriate to have them put into a tzatzah and then take to a sacred place? Report an error

3:53:34 Well, like I said, according to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, even after all of these consecration ceremonies, he doesn't think they should be put into the holy object itself. Somehow below it. Oh, you mean if you put it... You know, in the stupa, in the configuration that he said, and then took the whole thing? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I can't imagine that would hurt. Report an error

3:53:56 I think there would be a benefit there. Yeah. Anything else? Okay, so I wanted to introduce one last simple practice to you, and then I think what we'll do after that is just sort of have some feedback about how the course went, if you had any suggestions, and then do our final dedication to merit and deal with any last... Report an error

3:54:19 You know, outstanding questions. So I mentioned before POA, which is a Tibetan word for a practice that means transference of consciousness. And I said, you know, often before we move the body of someone who's died, we will try and have this POA practice, this transference of consciousness practice done for the person. Report an error

3:54:40 There are very elaborate... Transference of consciousness practices available. One of them is in this book by Lama Zopa. What I wanted us to do together today is a very simplified one that you can do not only to prepare for your own death. Again, you know, the more and more we make these imprints, the more and more easy it is and the more facility we have with these practices when the time comes. Report an error

3:55:06 This is also a really nice practice that you do. On behalf of someone, if you're sitting with them, we said before you can do Tonglen practice if you're sitting with someone who's dying. And you can also do this Poa practice. And what it involves is very similar to the Jangwa, taking the consciousness and then sending it into, in this simplified practice we do, you merge it with the being of light that you imagine, you know, embodies all the wisdom, compassion. Report an error

3:55:35 It can be in the form of... A Buddha or some other figure or just whatever being you can visualize that embodies all of these qualities. And again, it's just to sort of try and direct that consciousness to some beneficial... Report an error

3:55:50 To create a beneficial outcome. And so this is something that you can do on behalf of other beings. In this practice we visualize whatever the being is, let's say Lord Buddha in front or on the crown of our head and you can visualize it on the crown of the head of the dying person and imagine that their consciousness is being sent off to merge with this being. Report an error

3:56:13 So we'll just go ahead and do this practice and then there may be some Questions about it after we do it. This practice is adopted from Sokyo Rinpoche's book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. And I've just written it out and I have a handout for you afterwards, after we do the practice. So let's just sit again in our meditation posture and Report an error

3:56:46 watch our breath for just a minute or two. Report an error

· · ·

3:57:32 So now in the sky in front of you. Report an error

3:57:37 Invoke the embodiment of whatever truth you believe in in the form of radiant light. So choose whichever divine being, guru, saint you feel close to. Report an error

3:57:57 It can be Lord Buddha, one of your teachers, any Report an error

3:58:05 other figure, Jesus, Mary, a saint. Report an error

3:58:14 Or you can simply imagine a form of pure golden light in the sky before you. Who you visualize is the embodiment of the truth, wisdom and compassion of all the Buddhas, all the saints, all the enlightened masters. Report an error

3:58:32 So visualize this clearly and feel really strongly that it's a living presence in front of you, not just some flat two-dimensional figure, but a real living presence. Report an error

3:58:49 And fill your heart with this being's presence. Really feel that he or she is right there with you. Report an error

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3:59:54 And focus on the presence you've invoked and pray that all your negativities, destructive emotions and obscurations be purified, that Report an error

4:00:09 you die a good and peaceful death, be able to continue your spiritual path in your next life for the benefit of all beings. Report an error

4:00:47 Now imagine that the presence is moved by your prayer and responds with a loving smile. Report an error

4:00:56 He or she sends out love and compassion and a stream of rays of light from his or her heart. Report an error

4:01:21 As these touch and penetrate you, they cleanse and purify all your negative karma, destructive emotions and obscurations, which are the causes of suffering. Report an error

4:01:37 So imagine really clearly these rays of light cleansing you completely of all your negativities. Report an error

4:01:55 You see and you feel that you're totally immersed in light. Report an error

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4:02:33 You're now completely purified and completely healed by the light streaming from the presence. Consider that your very body, itself created by karma, now dissolves completely into light. Report an error

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4:04:00 The body of light that you are now soars up into the sky and merges inseparately with the blissful presence of that holy being that you visualized. Report an error

4:04:25 And remain in that state of oneness with the presence for as long as possible. Report an error

· · ·

4:05:38 And now just take a minute or two to slowly open your eyes. Report an error

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4:06:22 No, that's different. Is that the four opponent powers? Okay, this is the meditation we just did. So we've got two handouts going around. I forgot to distribute them at the right time. Report an error

4:06:40 So I think what we'd like to do now is just see if there are any final questions. Ana. Microphone. Wait. Report an error

4:06:56 I was hoping that Lenny could speak a little bit about her experience with Lama Geshe, since I know she's been a practitioner for a while and she was with him. And any particular aspect of that whole amazing three weeks? Not any particular aspect. From your side. Well... Of course it was a completely life-changing experience for me. Report an error

4:07:33 It was in 1984 and I was a relatively new student and I made a lot of mistakes which were apparently irrelevant. My motivation was good but that was a big teaching experience for me. Report an error

4:07:58 I didn't know much about Tibetan traditions at that time. When he was at his home in Aptos, that's where this all started out, I cut a big bouquet of red camellias from a bush that was growing in his garden, and he loved the house, and he loved flowers, and I didn't know that it was very inauspicious to present a bouquet of red flowers, which are for death. Report an error

4:08:23 And I presented them right to him and said that, I thought he would enjoy them because they were from his garden and he could no longer go out. And they were whisked out of the room so fast. Anyway, there were many things like that that happened that they were so kindly forgiven because of the motivation to be of help. Report an error

4:08:50 It was a complete dance between East and West. Report an error

4:09:02 He was, he had come to Aptos, he had been advised to have surgery. I don't know if you know that what he had was an enlarged heart as a result of having rheumatic fever as a young child. And his heart had enlarged and enlarged because his valves were damaged from the rheumatic fever. And the heart muscle got, the heart, which is the muscle, got larger and larger in order to be able to pump the blood because it was working so hard. Report an error

4:09:30 And once he started coming to the West, which was in the early 70s, you know, his devoted students took him to doctors and always surgery was recommended and he kept declining. Because there's artificial valves at that time that had been developed and it could have been helpful and extended his life. So he declined surgery time after time and highly evolved meditators are very reluctant to have surgery because the feeling is that cutting through the body cuts through the invisible psychic channels. Report an error

4:10:12 Tenzin Chogky has told us about this weekend and that it would disturb the meditation. It would destroy the ability to meditate deeply enough in the death process of what we've learned about. He kept refusing surgery and then alongside all of this was the timing of the whole thing on this final journey to the United States. Report an error

4:10:38 Lama was in his 49th year. So in the Tibetan tradition, every 7th year is considered dangerous. And then 7 times 7, which is 49, is considered a very dangerous year for someone's health and life. And we began hearing that he couldn't even consider any surgery until he completed his 49th year, which would happen at the start of the Tibetan New Year, Losar. Report an error

4:11:10 So when I was called in to care for him, he was in his home in Aptos, and there were three of us nurses who took shifts around the clock, and I was on the daytime shift. And then there were several old students who came to help with the caregiving also. And he was declining right in front of our eyes. Report an error

4:11:37 His heart, his deficient heart had gotten so labored that he was in a state of chronic congestive heart failure. And so what this translates into is that none of your vital systems are getting enough Oxygen, let us say, and nutrients to perform their functions adequately. So he began manifesting the year before digestive disorders and breathing disorders and so forth. Report an error

4:12:07 And he wanted more than anything to stay at home. And then one evening he had a stroke. And he had a very severe stroke and was paralyzed on one whole side of his body. And despite his pleas and despite his most urgent request to just stay home, the nurse that was caring for him, you know, knew that in the West, you have a stroke like that, you need to go to the hospital and there are treatments that could be done. Report an error

4:12:47 And so... She insisted in an ambulance and he went to the hospital. And he was in the emergency room overnight. And I got a call early in the morning not to go to the house in Aptos but to go to the hospital. And I went into the emergency room and he was still in the same bed in a cubicle. And he asked me to draw the curtains around him and I did. Report an error

4:13:19 He beckoned to me to come closer, and he grabbed hold of my clothing like this, and he pulled me down in front of him, and he looked me in the eye with this wrathful glare, and he said, You get me out of here. Report an error

4:13:38 So, you know, at that time I was a nurse working in the other hospital. And I was so grateful that this was not the place where my job was. And that's how I was able to go through all the things that I did that pushed me beyond my limits. And so I spent the whole day going up the chain of the command of the hospital until finally I wound up in the chief administrator's office, the medical director. Report an error

4:14:13 By this time, this was late afternoon, the hospital was abuzz. Everywhere I went, you know, groups of nurses would stop talking as I came near. It's a small hospital. And the unthinkable, can you imagine, they're signing his death warrant, they're taking him out of the hospital. Crazy cult group, you know, like that. Report an error

4:14:34 In the meantime, there were several lamas and students in the waiting room doing practices and pujas in the waiting room. Just a very unusual scene. Report an error

4:14:44 But finally, I did sign him out of the hospital against medical advice and secured a private ambulance and we got him back to Aptos where he was extremely happy to come home. And he was paralyzed, as I said, on one whole side of his body. And Lama Zopa was doing... Observations, doing Mohs, one after another. And he called His Holiness Sang Rinpoche in Switzerland and requested him to come to do these special practices. Report an error

4:15:17 So Sang Rinpoche came to the house in Aptos and took up residence there. He was a renowned Tibetan physician as well as being a very high Lama. And he did many practices and pujas right over the bedside. And there were quite a few food restrictions that were instituted. But the main thing that was so surprising to us is that Rinpoche consulted a text at four stroke in the Tibetan medical formulary or whatever you would call it. Report an error

4:15:56 And that it was very bad for someone who had a stroke to witness the reflection of light on water. There shouldn't be any reflections. And here he was in this house on a cliff in Aptos with this gorgeous view of the ocean that he adored. And we had to cover the windows in his room and he was never able to look on that again. Report an error

4:16:19 Anyway, he actually began to recover from the stroke. Of course, we'll never know whether it was from the practices and the pujas or if he had, there's two kinds of strokes, and if he had the kind where recovery and reversal does gradually happen. But he began to recover the use of his hand and his leg, and although he could no longer stand or walk, we began to see improvement. Report an error

4:16:48 Acupuncturists were called in, students, Dharma student, many things were done. And then one day... One of his students, his old students, a physician from North Carolina, who was the head of the, the director of the Kadampa Center there at the time, he came to visit Lama. He flew to just pay him a visit. And he took one look at him. He's a doctor. And he did an examination. And he informed all of us that Lama was in severe congestive heart failure and he had to go to the hospital right away. Report an error

4:17:26 So there were more Mohs done, observations made. There were names suggested by various students, including one who was a nurse, of doctors in the Bay Area, cardiologists that would... He did observations until one particular doctor's name came out very favorably, and he was here in San Francisco at Pacific Medical Center. Report an error

4:17:53 So another ambulance engaged, and late at night, one night, we had a caravan going up the coast highway to the Pacific Medical Center. And again, in the emergency room. And then he was in that hospital for two days. And there were some tests performed, including an echocardiogram and other more sophisticated cardiac tests. Report an error

4:18:21 He was in a very, very serious condition. In that hospital, they instituted a program where he couldn't have more than one CC. Report an error

4:18:31 It was one ounce of water an hour, 30 cc's of water an hour because they were restricting his fluids because his body couldn't handle it. And it was terrible to be his nurse. Now two of us nurses accompanied him to San Francisco. The third one had children and Lama Zopa said, no, you stay home with your family. Report an error

4:18:56 But the other two of us went up. I found it extremely painfully difficult to say no to my guru when he was begging me for water. It was awful. That was awful. That's when I really experienced having a foot in two worlds. And I did... He processes all the time, why am I here? Why do I have this unbelievable privilege, honor, blessing of being with my guru at this time? Report an error

4:19:28 It's because I was asked to be here because I'm a nurse. So it is my nursing experience that's desired, not my devotion to do what the guru is requesting. And that's what gave me the strength to refuse his, you know, turned out to be dying requests. He was so thirsty. So, so, so thirsty. Anyway, in that hospital, we were there about two days and there started to be unrest because they were strongly recommending surgery and he was delaying, delaying, postponing, postponing because this was in March. Report an error

4:20:11 He would not even consider the possibility of surgery until after the Tibetan New Year, which was coming soon. And Lama Zopa again did a whole round of observations. Report an error

4:20:24 It now came out that there was a doctor in Los Angeles that had been a student of his long ago. He came to Copan for a course. And while he wasn't actively practicing Buddhist now, there was a connection. And this turned out very favorably. So we needed to get Lama to Los Angeles. And this doctor practiced out of Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Report an error

4:20:51 Poor Lama being schlepped all over the Bay Area and California and, you know, like it turned out terminally ill. But nevertheless, this is what Lama Zopa, we did what Lama Zopa said and we hired an ambulance plane and there was only room for one nurse and I was asked to accompany him. So, um, We flew down the coast, and there's two things about that flight that I'll relate to that I remember so strongly. It was about an eight-passenger plane that had been gutted. Report an error

4:21:33 Along one whole side to make room for a stretcher, which was locked into place. And that's what Lama was on. And then I was in a seat in front of him and Lama Zopa was across the aisle and Sister Max, which was, she was one of the early nuns and one of Lama Eshi's greatest benefactors. She took care of him. She supported him and the little monks at Copan. Report an error

4:22:00 And so she was on the plane and at this one point I was chatting with them and we were laughing about something. I mean it wasn't all heavy in the plane or anything. And Lama, she kept kicking the seat behind me so that I would pay attention to him instead of the others. It was very dear. It was very human. Very sweet. And then as we were... Report an error

4:22:29 Approaching Los Angeles, this was evening and of course it's a huge spread out metropolis and all the lights were on and I was nattering away to Lama Zopa, oh we're coming to such a huge, look at all the lights, isn't it beautiful? And he said, yes dear, these are all light offerings to all the Buddhists. So that's how he saw Los Angeles from the air at night. Report an error

4:22:55 We got to Cedars-Sinai Hospital and he was pretty direct, he was in the emergency for a while and then directed to the coronary care unit. And two of his longest term students came to the, they were called, they were requested by Lama Zopa to come to the hospital. And they were there, John Schwartz and Doran Harper were there. Report an error

4:23:24 Well, he was in another intensive care unit situation and the people were extremely kind to him. He quickly became a favorite. He was in the greatest of spirits. I remember the second evening he was there, he requested fresh strawberries and we managed to secure for him huge, delicious, organic fresh strawberries, which he enjoyed very much. Report an error

4:23:54 He had a do not resuscitate order in place, and I think I've told you this part. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche called Sogman Rinpoche and told him this, and he said, no, do everything in Western medicine that might save his life. So I told you that part. And then... Report an error

4:24:21 From my side, we had rented an apartment right near the hospital. They'd provided it for us, I don't remember. But I left the hospital at about 1 a.m. or so with someone else. We had been on the whole evening shift to go and get some sleep. And we were about a block away, and at about 5.30 we got a phone call to hurry right over. Report an error

4:24:44 That Lama's heart had stopped. And when I got there... Whatever little group of us, there were several of his students and myself, Sister Max. No, she had gone. She had to go back to India or Nepal. And they were sitting on the floor outside the swinging doors into the operating room in the coronary care unit. Report an error

4:25:07 I just joined them, and we started doing practices for Lama. They had whisked him into this little operating room because of the change in the orders to put in a pacemaker. And to, you know, massage his heart and use the paddles. And I can't remember if I told you this yesterday, the doctor came out after, at 7.30 and, did I tell you this? Report an error

4:25:34 Yeah. Okay. As long, the longest shoot ever, yeah, okay. And so, and then followed the... Well, what I needed to do, first I accompanied Lama Zopa to the telephone and that's when he was crying with Tsongkhapa Rinpoche and then he asked me to arrange for the body to be able to be kept there for as long as possible. Report an error

4:25:56 So then I, and also to find a mortuary which would do what we wanted and what he wanted was, I have to back up here. He asked Tsong Rinpoche to make an observation to see where the most favorable place would be for Lama's body to be cremated. Should it be shipped back to Nepal or to Dharamsala or where? And apparently what came out the most favorable was for his body to be cremated at Vajrapani Institute. Report an error

4:26:31 So you can imagine... How do you go about, and by the way, it was during the fire season where there was no outside burning in the area. So the job felt to me to... Once again, go up to the powers that be in Cedars-Sinai Hospital and see if we could keep his body for three days. And then to find mortuary. Report an error

4:26:57 So I did the former first. And as I told you, we could only get permission until midnight. And it couldn't be where he was. And they were shocked and disgusted by the whole. They were respectful, but they had never had a request. And they never heard of such a thing and they thought it would be terribly unsanitary. Anyway, he was there and students came all day in and out and practices were done. Report an error

4:27:27 And then, as I said, about 9.30, Lama Zopa pronounced that his meditation was over. And so I was absent for hours. During the practices because I was on the telephone. First I spoke to some social workers in the hospital to get a list of mortuaries that were familiar with working with people from other cultures and primarily from Asian cultures. Report an error

4:27:58 And I was referred finally to this one mortuary. And, um... The, um... The director of the mortuary was out at sea scattering somebody's ashes, and he was reached by somebody. This was before cell phones. He was reached on a shortwave radio, and I spoke to him that way to find out would it be possible, first of all, to get his body to Boulder Creek, and second of all, to do a cremation, an outdoor cremation for him. Report an error

4:28:38 And they were so wonderful, I can't tell you. And he wasn't at all phased by either of this. And he said that it's not against the law for anybody to drive a body in their car. Well, I never knew this. It's not against the law to transport a body. It has to be in a coffin. So then I had to, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Report an error

4:29:05 And then he said that, He didn't know about the cremation. He'd never heard of anything like this before and that we had to find out from Sacramento. We had to call some bureau in Sacramento and it was a Saturday. But nevertheless, he said that he would be back from the scattering in an hour or two and he would get on the phone because he knew we were going to use their services. Report an error

4:29:32 And then I went down and met him there and selected A coffin, which was quite an experience, picking out a coffin for your girl. And I was told to get the cheapest one possible by Lama Zopa. So that, again, I had to reconcile in my mind. And what it was was a cardboard box. A cardboard box. And so... They brought his body to the mortuary and they gave us a very large room with couches and Lama's body was in this open casket and many students of his saṅgha in Los Angeles came during the night. Report an error

4:30:19 To pay their respects and they were wonderful at the mortuary. And then in the morning we proceeded to load the coffin into Tom Wagoner's white Toyota pickup truck for the drive back. And we proceeded in a small caravan up the coast and I was in the passenger seat. And at one point we stopped. In the mountains in a small gas station to wash the truck. And we made a very solemn ritual out of washing all of the dust from the Vashapani dirt road off of the truck to create a white chariot to transport the Guru's body back to his final place. Report an error

4:31:05 It was very, very sweet and reverent. Very, very reverent. We were with hoses and rags. Amazing. Anyway, there were phone calls all along the way and we didn't get to Vashrapani until about midnight. They were expecting us and there were torches along the road and conch blowing like that. And his body... Report an error

4:31:35 In the coffin was carried into the gampa and vashopani in front of the side altar and then was kept there for several days, long enough for students from all around the world to come for the cremation. And what we learned is that all we needed, because the exception was made, Sacramento told us this, is that it could be performed. Report an error

4:32:03 At a religious institution for a head of a religious institution and that all we needed was a burning permit, a fire permit from our local fire department. So we got that and then my role was finished in the aftercare because from that point on only men could touch his body because he was a monk. And I'll just say that it was a few days, many practices, many prayers and pujas, 200 people came to the cremation. Report an error

4:32:38 And in the meantime, we were learning how to build a cremation stupa. And that was going on. And then the cremation was conducted. Tsong Rinpoche came back again to conduct the cremation on the ridge. Report an error

4:33:00 Then the stupa was sealed for a week and when it was opened there are many photographs of this and one in particular that's simply amazing that's taken through one of the openings in the bottom of the stupa into the fire and you can clearly see Lama Skull in the fire. It's just very profound for practice to look at that. So those are kind of the highlights. Report an error

4:33:27 Of the whole thing. And the relics were divided in all the centers around the world at that time. Report an error

4:33:43 Any last questions? Yeah, Chris. Report an error

4:33:52 If either of you run into this situation, how would you handle it? If there is someone who is dying, who is close to you, and you are going to go and be with them, they're not unconscious, they're conscious, they're... know, speaking to you. If you ever run into the case where you are upset by that, what do you do before you go in that room so that you are calm and happy and all the things you ought to be for that person? Report an error

4:34:29 I would say the thing that we suggested before, just really try and put your own agenda to the side and think that your role in this... Okay, circumstance is to be of most benefit to that. As you can, you may want to stop and do some sort of compassion meditation and just, you know, all of these equalizing and exchanging self for others practices are great so that it's not about you. Report an error

4:34:54 And, you know, you need to realize that you bring the energy into that room that will be the most beneficial for the person in their, you know, different meditations. To do a Tonglen would definitely, at that point before even going in the room, would definitely sort of reverse the focus so that it's not. Report an error

4:35:11 about you and your own upset. It's also really important, I think, like we said, if you are losing someone close to you, obviously you have a lot of feelings that need to be expressed and to just find someone else that you can talk to, it's not about suppressing your feelings. It's just about bringing a certain energy into the room and that person who's dying is not the best person to help you deal with your grief about loss. Report an error

4:35:38 But you need to have support for that elsewhere, I think, and other people who are not so triggered by the situation. And then you'll be able to go into the room with the right kind of energy if your needs are getting met by other people, I think. And then it depends. You said the person was not unconscious. So it just depends on how lucid they were and were they still communicative. Report an error

4:36:03 I don't know what you're imagining. Communicative. So then, so then, if they're communicative, then what you, following what Tenzin Chogky said, that you would want to attune yourself to what they need from you. And, you know, they may be, have a need to express tears, to express sadness at leaving you like that. Report an error

4:36:33 And it's... It often happens that people cry together. It is a sad thing. But that you take your lead from the person. You take the lead and then be as authentic as possible to be real, to be how you are. If it's your father and he's sad to leave you and you're sad also, then why would it be okay for him to cry and not you? Report an error

4:36:58 But not without clutching and... Grasping and clinging like that, not with hysterical emotion or anything like that, but just share your grief. Another thing that's really good to do at the end of life is to share reminiscences of happy, memorable, important milestones that you shared together in family life or in a deep friendship. Report an error

4:37:22 To just name and share the positive things that... Our highlights in this relationship. That's a nice way to be with somebody that's communicative. Again, if that's where they're coming from. But very often, at late stages, there's too much exhaustion to speak. So often, to just sit and be together. And again, to be guided by the person's wishes. And very often, a dying person just wants to hold someone's hand. And that's perfectly fine if they're not, you know, actively dying. Report an error

4:38:01 And if they are actively dying and that's what they want and need, what I do, and again nobody ever told me about this, but I think it would be cruel to withhold what they think would be of comfort. And I always remember that they have the karma to be in this situation and to consider this positive. They're not going to be meditating on all of that. Report an error

4:38:26 They want to die holding somebody's... Hand for comfort and if I could extricate my hand because I would rather not at the time of death be touching that part of the body but if it happened that way I just would not fret about it because that's their karma. You're the one that has the other set of beliefs in the Buddhist philosophy and I think to do what would give comfort to your loved one is very important. Report an error

4:38:58 And these are the tricky situations, by the way, and these are the ones, you see, because these are the ones that I'm often called to bridge. And that's why I feel I have something to contribute to the teachings, of which I'm also a student, not at all an expert. But then there's the whole rest of the world, and we're going to encounter them, and we want to help them on their terms. Report an error

4:39:27 And then whatever we do, you know, as we have heard, there's no urgency. Practice can be done after the death to help someone in the Bardo and long after the 49 days. So it's not like you just have your one moment of opportunity to help them. That's my feeling. Report an error

4:39:53 Janet? Yeah. Report an error

4:39:59 I know last year my father passed away or died. He'd been married to my mother for 64 years and they still were in love up to where he became so bad he couldn't really communicate anymore and didn't really know what was going on. Wanted to cuddle and stuff like that. And so on the time when he was really close to death, we would go and visit him a lot and just reassure him. Report an error

4:40:31 You know, that he's doing fine with the process and, you know, and I remember at one point talking about something with my mother and I said something that reassured him that I would be watching and taking care of her and I could see that. There was a change in his whole feeling and I think it gave him the space to really let go and I think that's really important for people to know that the people who are left behind, the loved ones, will be watched out for and taken care of and I think that helps free up. Report an error

4:41:12 Yes, and in quite a few books that have advice for the time of dying, this is mentioned that children should assure parents, for example, in a situation where someone is leaving younger children behind, or if there's a big attachment to say, we're going to be fine, Mom, it's okay to let go, it's okay to let go. Report an error

4:41:40 And to tell somebody that, and to really Reassure them not to worry. We're going to be fine. It's okay to let go. Report an error

4:41:54 Anything else? Any other comments or questions? Report an error

4:42:03 Well, it is nice to kind of hear the last comment. I thought, yeah, hold their hand. Because, I mean, that's what I've already believed, too. But I remember when I was doing my therapy training, they made a big point of... Half the professor said, oh, don't you dare hand your client a Kleenex if they're crying. It tells them you want them to stop. And don't you dare say, I'm sorry if they are... Report an error

4:42:30 And I'm sorry that happened to you because that says you want them to stop talking about it. And even when I was doing Zen practice and we had a dying friend, it was like, don't you dare cry because it shows weakness and you should be meditating on emptiness. And I always just thought, this is just such a load of baloney. It's like we're humans. It's that samurai thing. And it's really, it's like the therapists that don't hand the client the Kleenex because they're too... Report an error

4:42:57 Focused on that, it's like, you know, that could be the only human thing that happens to them. And holding their hand could be the real compassionate act where it's like, yeah, the prayers come later. Holding their hand could be really what helps them the most. What they need, exactly. And what Janet was just saying about her father dying and her mother and father after 64 years wanted to cuddle right up to the end. Report an error

4:43:20 I've also seen situations like that in my hospice work where what the surviving... spouse wants to do is just like hold climb into bed hold and you I think that if this is what they both want, by all means, help it to happen. I think people need to be in charge of their own deaths and have their wishes fulfilled, whatever that means to them. We can do what we think is right in private. Report an error

4:43:52 In silence, after the fact, you don't ever want to lay your trip on somebody. What you want to do is do what you think is best for them. But that's your trip. There's lots of religions in the world. I mean, I feel very strongly about this. And in Tarahome, we're a Buddhist project that's non-denominational and it's a slippery slope. Report an error

4:44:16 So that each case is individual and we use our wisdom. We use our wisdom. We communicate with each other a lot. And we have to be careful to dial into what the dying person wants and what their family wants and needs. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Report an error

4:44:45 Yes. And agendas. Yeah. Report an error

4:44:52 So is there any feedback? What worked, what didn't work, what could we change for the better next time in terms of schedule, breaks, order of everything? Anybody have any ideas? Or if you've written them down, by all means give them to us. Or if you think about it later, email us. It would be really helpful. You know, you saw we changed the schedule based on... Report an error

4:45:19 This group, and I'm interested in your opinion about the order in which we did things and also if you felt that this was the right length of time or should we have started on Friday night and whatever, whatever. I have a question too specifically because we did the stages of death this morning and I'm wondering if it would have been more helpful to do that before we started talking about what to do. Report an error

4:45:43 With the body, would it have been helpful to know the stages? Okay, because that was my feeling too, so okay. Okay, okay. Anything else that should have been done in a different order? Yeah, done. Report an error

4:46:04 Okay. Report an error

4:46:08 So we didn't need to read every single one and discuss every point? Okay, good. Okay. So read it over and then bring back specific questions. Okay, thank you. So distribute it on the first day and then bring it back the second day. Questions. Okay. Okay, great. Report an error

4:46:46 Yeah. And I did it the way that I did, I just want to tell you, because I have learned that most people have never seen a durable power of attorney document, and that each point was like an outline for discussion. Report an error

4:47:04 On just the five wishes, yeah. Report an error

4:47:21 Yeah, that's why. Yeah. I'm Report an error

4:47:41 not afraid of that document anymore. It's like I'm looking forward to it. Okay. Report an error

4:47:55 That's why I said it now rather than sending an e-mail to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. maybe bringing them into two different times, because I found that Report an error

4:48:07 like breaking it, maybe do Before and some after. Okay. Yeah, that was a long session. Report an error

4:48:34 Okay. Okay. Okay. Report an error

4:48:53 you just through it and then the questions have gone through the whole thing. And, you know, someone, if I have a question, I write it down while you're talking or ask you later. Okay. And then, because a lot of times questions get answered, someone's completing something, and it kind of felt like we weren't getting, for me, it's like we weren't getting through it. Report an error

4:49:16 And it was getting extended with Lama. You had, like, your whole list. And I mean, I also noticed myself, if I'm doing a workshop or taking one, sometimes... There's a lot of questions that do get answered. So, you know, kind of asking people to hold off and then having a certain time period before that. Report an error

4:49:37 So you actually make sure you get through everything that you're wanting to do. And, you know, and planning that. Because, I mean, I do notice myself because I can be a talker. But boy, once you get something going in the middle of something and, you know, you're working on it, then it feels like... You can just like stretch it out forever. And a lot of the questions I find even that I have end up getting answered or wasn't quite as important as I thought it was and there's a lot of information to get through. Report an error

4:50:07 Okay, got it. Keep a little more focused. Okay, got it. Yeah, thank you. Is there any? Yeah, go ahead, Allison. I guess there's more questions to the group. I don't know. Was there anybody else here who did the workshop with Tenzin Chogky in June? Report an error

4:50:30 What I'm wondering is because I could only go to the morning session of that, but we almost started out right away with the eight stages of meditation. Report an error

4:50:43 So in some ways when we did it the second day, I thought that was good, but maybe I was more prepared for, and it didn't seem long. -hmm, meditation. Mm-hmm. Report an error

4:50:54 me yesterday or dragging or anything else. Yeah. Report an error

4:51:00 sort of had already through that stage and been thinking about these things since June. You were prepped. Good girl. You think Report an error

4:51:29 too, Carla? Yeah. What about you, Lisa? Didn't matter. Okay. Right on. Report an error

4:51:37 I mean, having it right in the beginning sort of almost did bring a visceral experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. And I was just kind of... We're all going to experience this. Yeah, and also, you know, the reason I asked was because I was kind of thinking yesterday afternoon when we're going through, oh, don't touch the body at this point, blah, blah, blah, but we hadn't told you why yet. Report an error

4:52:01 And so it sort of set the context of then the practical thing, okay, this is what's happening with your subtle consciousness, now this is why. You do that, and that's what came up for me, that understanding the reasoning behind all the practical things that they were then suggesting. So, yeah, Janet and then Charlotte? Report an error

4:52:35 Right, okay. Report an error

4:52:45 So maybe that one first, and then the stages, and then the practical stuff. Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Do you think it would be too much to have both of those meditations in the same day? Because that was our reason for separating them. We were trying to spare you too much intensity. Report an error

4:53:25 So it separated a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error

4:53:42 Okay, yeah. Report an error

4:53:48 Okay, good. That's helpful. That's good feedback. Second day. Second day. So do more of the practical stuff, more of the sort of theoretical stuff and the practical stuff. Report an error

4:54:00 Great. Yeah. Okay. Say what I know, what I want. Okay, good, good. Because of what we do I have a card here that I can give to you, and you can send feedback to me and I'll pass it along to Lenny, so I have a little card. Did you have something to add? Oh, Charlie, yeah. Report an error

4:54:28 felt as someone who didn't know anything about Report an error

4:54:44 think I been much... have a much idea about that. Okay. Got it. Okay. Well, consider it change. We've just... Yeah. Yeah, Carla. Report an error

4:55:20 The recommended... Ahead of time then. So it could have been on the website or something like that. Uh-huh. Report an error

4:55:33 Right, right, right. Okay, that's good too. That's a good idea. Sometimes we do that at classes at Land of Medicine Buddha. We'll in the advertising say recommended reading and then put the textbooks so that people can prepare. So that's good. That's a good idea. Yeah, Michael. Report an error

4:56:02 Ah, okay. Report an error

4:56:08 Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. And that could be something, you know, that could be done as additional. segments too like if we had some sort of ongoing thing that you know things like that and Michael had requested yesterday maybe the oral transmission of some of the mantras and some something like that and that would be a useful thing to try and request someone to do I want to see Report an error

4:56:45 perspective because I'm not a nurse or not and Report an error

4:56:55 experienced a lot of Report an error

4:56:59 that. It was very helpful but then also the people that came for them to give examples things, it made it more, you experiential, yeah. Report an error

4:57:19 And of course we don't have any control over who shows up, but my experience has been in the several different courses and classes I've been involved in is that some nurses always show up because they're interested in the spiritual aspect of what they do. do in their work. in what you were prepared to do. Report an error

4:57:50 to share their experience. Well, fortunately, we both like the interactive style rather than traditional discourse. Thank you. Report an error

4:58:21 Yeah, well, the older girl was apparently here in June. And wanted to come back to this. Yeah, her mom said where she was going today and she goes, oh, I really want to come back. I want to hear about them, which is great. Was there anything that seemed superfluous and expendable and just not helpful? Report an error

4:58:41 Like were any of the segments that we did just feel like, why was that in there? What about the length of the classes, the overall length? Report an error

4:59:02 Yeah. The 5 o 'clock is hard, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, if you're going to do it, it's got to be the first day. Yeah, yeah. Report an error

4:59:16 When we did that 9 to 9, well, we were all just completely, you know. Bye. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

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5:00:11 Thank you. Thank you. And I want to say we feel very fortunate at Tarahome to have Tenzin Chogky be our spiritual liaison because of who she is and because of her. Report an error

5:00:28 And because of her long years of solitary meditation and because she's so much fun. Report an error

5:00:43 Yeah, I would too. I'd like to learn more about the bardo. Yeah, because we just didn't have time to kind of get into all of that. That's a big subject. Report an error

5:00:57 Would be good to read like Lati Rimshay's book would be excellent for that. People would have to Report an error

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5:01:25 Do other people agree, disagree? Do people find that helpful? How is that? Yeah, that was ten minutes. Ten minutes. Report an error

5:01:40 Bring everyone back and discuss? Report an error

5:01:56 Yeah, that's the reason for that, so everyone has a check. Report an error

5:02:04 And that was the reason for that, too. Sometimes it's really personal stuff comes up. But, I mean, to debrief one-on-one, because if it's really personal or emotional what came up, sometimes it's easier to just talk to one. Yeah, Michael and Rick. Report an error

· · ·

5:03:00 yeah, yeah, yeah. A micro-headboard in the nose. Report an error

5:03:14 We have to acknowledge that we have different needs, we have different levels of experience and we have different levels of shyness or comfort in speaking out in a group with very personal deep... Report an error

5:03:27 So we have to acknowledge that there's no one format that's going to fit everybody's needs. Yeah, Report an error

· · ·

5:04:03 yeah. Any last burning items of feedback before we dedicate the merit? Okay, anything that you come up with later, just my cards are here, you just get in touch with me and I'll share with Lenny. Okay, so let's just sit for a minute, think Report an error

5:04:30 about... Report an error

5:04:33 All the amazing work that we've done this whole weekend to really face this taboo subject that in our culture is so denied. And it's really much easier not to think about it, but because of our motivation to really enhance all our capacity to be of benefit to beings, we've bravely delved into the subject, faced it. Report an error

5:05:03 So we've amassed a great store of virtue, a great store of positive energy. So in order that virtue not be completely wasted on some sort of mundane, pleasurable experience, let's dedicate it that we may be able to be of benefit to all sentient beings, not only ultimately with full enlightenment, which of course... Report an error

5:05:35 The ultimate goal, but also that we have been able to be of more benefit to others in the dying process from the information that we've gathered and the skills that we've learned that we'll be able to be of comfort and benefit to other beings that we assist in the dying process and Report an error

5:06:02 that we be able to negotiate our own death process and use it in the path. Report an error

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5:06:43 Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Report an error

5:07:06 I'm glad you're able to stay for the whole month. I know. I'm so important to you. Yeah, I'll be back. How good. I don't know, in June, did you talk about the five wishes? You know, I didn't go because we just had a date. I think we may have gone into it very briefly and kind of passed out the form. Right. Thank you. What's your name? My name is Claudia. Claudia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

5:07:37 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that was fine. Oh, yeah. Report an error

5:07:39 I would like you to really answer deeply my questions that I had about the processes to do after someone's died. I forgot the Bardo description of the two different ceremonies, one for the consciousness and one for the ashes for my father. So I want to do that as a Buddha. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. So I will be coming in while we're eating classes here. Report an error

5:08:10 And also, of course, synchronistically, that's what we've been going over text. actually about the whole death process. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. we just did that over the summer, and it was so, you know, it made it so, it was so good, right? You know, in the check-in, and I had a much better sense. Report an error

5:08:41 Oh, it is, and I had so much more of a sense because I had done that, because we had done that eight stage resolution. And I do also a salon yoga, which is doing... Thank you very much. As I said, it's nice to meet you too. And as I said, it's really nice to see you think the same way that I did. It's like, yeah, you've got to do it. Yeah, so it's really great. And we knew that I had several polo. Report an error

5:09:20 I'm always interested in how to bring the two together. My Lama is a therapist as well. Well, and he was the one that he mentored me as I was going through the program, and I kind of came in and I'm like, well, I had a rape victim client today, and I didn't give her a clean-up as I was supposed to. He smacked me across the room. He's like, too, fool. Probably just, yeah, it's like that would have been a nice thing to do. Report an error

5:09:45 Thank you. It is compassion. So that if anything begins, if you think of an accident or anything, just at the moment, you just go, okay, here I come. Here I come. I'm just shooting out. I'm just shooting out. So you have to make it like it's your reaction. Yeah. Report an error

5:10:11 So if you're doing that, but it's good also to come back to us that you're, oh, yeah. So, you know, it's nice to see. It's like, okay, you know, it's supportive. I really want going into the winter, you know, going into the time of year to really read. All these incredible fabulous books that I have on my bookshelf that are quite made by osmosis, but still, even reading this, but actually experiencing this, I find that I can read this stuff a lot faster. Report an error

5:11:08 It's just, you know, we're human. I guess if we were perfect we'd be up on the altar. I just want to say one more thing. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's quite a dream of mine. Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Report an error

5:11:24 Thank you. For sure. Report an error

5:11:30 Yeah, there's some message on here, by the way, that doesn't look good. No, it's all right. Oh, okay. I mean, that's what's going to keep this going. Oh, thank you. I just want to be polite. Thank you, because we thought we were going to four so we were timing you exactly. Report an error

5:12:05 So thank you, thank you for coming. Report an error

5:12:14 And every time it's like we get a little more clear. We got a lot of feedback from us. Did you hear that? No. No, I've been setting up the medicine butter table. I've got 15 minutes of feedback on how we can do things or tweak them into different order. I'd love to listen to some of that, so maybe we can chat. Report an error

5:12:32 Yes. Maybe we can have a phone chat. Yes. That might be good. Okay. So maybe you guys talk a little more and then you and I can make a big day. We need to be prepared for that process. Report an error

5:12:42 Okay, carry on. Keep on. Anyways. Thank you. Report an error

5:12:53 Thank you for your work. Report an error

5:12:58 So we just did this. Report an error

5:13:04 Yeah, Report an error

5:13:09 and so translated into... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're exactly to finish up. I have fours and we're like, I'll I'll tell you, I heard everyone ask you. Yeah. Thank Report an error

5:13:13 A language that works for us is nice. Report an error

5:13:35 My ankles are killing me so I'm going to stand up. Okay, okay. Report an error

5:13:40 Ankles and knees with me, you know. Thank you. Report an error

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Talk by Tenzin Chogkyi, recorded 4 November 2007. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Dying_Well_Weekend_Ven_Tenzin_Chogkyi_Lennie_Kronisch. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Recorded at Tse Chen Ling Center, San Francisco, and archived by the center on Internet Archive. More from Tse Chen Ling

Listen on Internet Archive · CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US