Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 5)

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0:33 So I mentioned on this discovery path of Dzogchen that the driving question, rather than being, what can we do to achieve that which we have not achieved, what can we stop doing to realize who we already are? So it's a very different question, and again, they're complementary. So we see the trajectory of practices we'll be doing. It's not going to be a lot. I'm going to really just cut down to the bare essentials this time for this retreat. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

1:05 It's going to be a very smooth trajectory of doing less and less and less. And so already, just by sitting quietly, letting like 80 % of your awareness be really just in that focus, just in that stillness, that presence of awareness remaining in its own place. And the kind of the overflow, just the overflow, the glow, the outer glow, the excess awareness flows out to enough to pick up. Report an error in the passage at 1:05 Highlight the passage at 1:05

1:35 It's just the rhythm of the respiration. And then doing nothing else beyond that. That's not doing an awful lot. That's a great big step in the right direction. So let's practice once. I've been using a lot of words at the beginning. As we go from session to session, I can use fewer and fewer words, so I get to do less and less as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:35 Highlight the passage at 1:35

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3:01 Settle your body, speech and mind in the natural state as you've done before. Report an error in the passage at 3:01 Highlight the passage at 3:01

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4:30 And this initial settling process culminates in Report an error in the passage at 4:30 Highlight the passage at 4:30

4:36 your awareness settling, coming to rest in its own place. Without extension, without direction, without effort. Report an error in the passage at 4:36 Highlight the passage at 4:36

4:54 It's resting without expectation, without hope or fear, without desire. It's Report an error in the passage at 4:54 Highlight the passage at 4:54

5:04 cultivating a sense of contentment and simply being present, being aware and being aware of being aware Report an error in the passage at 5:04 Highlight the passage at 5:04

5:21 and finding that to be enough for the moment, enough. To Report an error in the passage at 5:21 Highlight the passage at 5:21

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6:49 repeat, there are two elements here. One is to allow your awareness to come to rest, unagitated, unwavering. Unmoving. And the second element is to know that it is still. Report an error in the passage at 6:49 Highlight the passage at 6:49

7:09 To be practicing correctly and to know that you're practicing correctly. Report an error in the passage at 7:09 Highlight the passage at 7:09

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8:17 It is right here in this stillness, in this center, Report an error in the passage at 8:17 Highlight the passage at 8:17

8:25 that pristine awareness shines through. It may occur all of a sudden as an epiphany, as a breakthrough. Report an error in the passage at 8:25 Highlight the passage at 8:25

8:39 It may occur gradually, like the sun gradually rising above the horizon with increasing clarity. As the mists fade away. Report an error in the passage at 8:39 Highlight the passage at 8:39

8:54 But this is the place. Rest here. Report an error in the passage at 8:54 Highlight the passage at 8:54

9:09 And as long as there is peripheral awareness that flows outside of this center, accept that. So it is. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:23 And with that peripheral awareness, simply note the rhythm of the breath. In Report an error in the passage at 9:23 Highlight the passage at 9:23

9:33 the early phases of the practice, as you allow your respiration to settle in its own natural rhythm, you'll probably find the breaths are relatively long. They may be also irregular, sometimes a very long out-breath and a short in-breath, sometimes the opposite, sometimes a pause after the out-breath. Report an error in the passage at 9:33 Highlight the passage at 9:33

9:58 And then the breath flows in effortlessly. Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:03 Let the body sort itself out by way of the respiration, from breath to breath, each one being unprecedented, unregulated. And Report an error in the passage at 10:03 Highlight the passage at 10:03

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10:52 as you rest more and more deeply, letting go, letting go. And the whole body-mind system calms. You may very well find that the body needs less air and the respiration naturally becomes shallow. Report an error in the passage at 10:52 Highlight the passage at 10:52

11:25 However the respiration flows, let it be and simply note whether the breaths are deep or shallow, regular or irregular. A very gentle non-conceptual monitoring as Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

11:45 you observe the body settling into a deeper and deeper sense or state of equilibrium, of balance. Report an error in the passage at 11:45 Highlight the passage at 11:45

11:58 mind, the awareness, settling into. And more and more continuous, clear and cognizant stillness. And Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

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14:34 whenever you retrospectively note that your mind has wandered, your awareness has been carried away, either by some sensory appearance or probably more likely some thought, some memory, some rumination. As soon as you see that your awareness has been caught up and set in motion, moved away from its throne, that your response be very simple, relax, loosen up. Report an error in the passage at 14:34 Highlight the passage at 14:34

15:09 Release all grasping and your awareness will return. Report an error in the passage at 15:09 Highlight the passage at 15:09

15:19 And it is naturally luminous and naturally cognizant and naturally still when it's free of grasping. So let it simply return home and be present. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

· · · silence, 12 minutes

27:16 So I mentioned yesterday something I find very interesting primarily by implication and that is even when you are resting in deep dreamless sleep and have no awareness of your body whatsoever, if you wish to, you can actually note the rhythm of your respiration. It's a bit mysterious, because one tends to think of that as being purely a biological function. And here you are in a space that is purely non-physical. The substrate itself, that empty vacuity of the mind, non-physical, your awareness is non-physical. Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:46 And yet somehow the rhythm gets even to that core, which I find very interesting. Well, why this may be significant, especially for those of you who have studied Buddhism for a while, is you probably know that as you proceed along the path to shamatha and eventually achieve shamatha, Your mind moves beyond the so-called desire realm, the realm of the senses. If it doesn't, your mind is still in the desire realm and you haven't achieved shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 27:46 Highlight the passage at 27:46

28:11 That's widely accepted, widely known. And so that if you're practicing mindfulness of breathing and you really are deliberately attending to tactile sensations, bodily sensations, whether the passage of the breath at the nostrils or rise and fall of the abdomen, what have you, as long as you've dropped the anchor, of your attention in the field of tactile sensations. Your mind is planted in the desire realm and you won't achieve shamatha. You may get very good samādhi but it will still be in desire realm and you'll not achieve shamatha, which entails crossing the threshold over into the first jnana and in so doing crossing the threshold from the desire realm to the form realm, which is quite a remarkable feat. Report an error in the passage at 28:11 Highlight the passage at 28:11

28:55 And I think that now there's very strong reason to believe, empirical evidence. That with this one simple method, which doesn't get any more complicated, that's it, you know, we've done it. I'll talk about it more, but there's really nothing more of great consequence to discuss in this practice because it is so simple. Report an error in the passage at 28:55 Highlight the passage at 28:55

29:12 I am now very persuaded that one can follow just this, this Dzogchen interpretation of the practice of mindfulness of breathing. And it can take you all the way to Samatha. And you can still be aware of the sensations of the... Rhythm of the breath, I'll choose my words carefully, you can still be aware of the ebb and flow, the in and out of the breath, even when you have no experience of the body whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:34 There's good empirical evidence to suggest that. You can go all the way to shamatha, you can even go beyond shamatha, fully into the first jhāna and on through that. The Buddha speaks of mindfulness of breathing all the way through the jhānas, until the breath actually stops, literally completely stops, and you're not dead. Report an error in the passage at 29:34 Highlight the passage at 29:34

29:53 It stops for hours, days, or even could be a couple of weeks in the Vortyana. The respiration totally goes flatlined. And the remarkable thing, no brain damage and not death. So I'm hoping one day that'll be able to be studied scientifically because something remarkable has to be taking place in the body for that to occur. So I think I'll linger there just for a little bit because this is the practice we'll do for a couple of days now. Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:19 And so I said, this is the Dzogchen approach. Well, it is. That's the one place, this particular approach, where you're primarily resting in the stillness of your awareness, but peripherally aware, in touch with how long the in and out breath is, the rhythm of the breath. Well, let's just go back briefly, as we have looked at this from the top of the mountain, from Dzogchen, the ninth yana, the pinnacle of all these different vehicles, according to the Nima tradition. Report an error in the passage at 30:19 Highlight the passage at 30:19

30:44 Let's go back to the foundational, the Shravagyayana, back to the teachings of the Buddha, for example, as recorded in the Pāli Canon. So just to review it, it's good to review and actually to memorize if you're very, you know, very, very drawn to this practice. And the Buddha was, in his bullet points, I mean, this extremely, almost koan-like instructions on mindfulness of breathing in four phases that pertain to shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 30:44 Highlight the passage at 30:44

31:09 He apparently just repeated this many, many, many times over the 45 years that he was training, teaching, teaching others. And he said, when the in-breath is long, One notes the in-breath is long, when the out-breath is long, one notes the out-breath is long. He makes no reference to tending to the respiration of the nostrils or the belly or sensations here or there. Report an error in the passage at 31:09 Highlight the passage at 31:09

31:28 He simply says, when it is long, you know it's long. When the out-breath is long, you know it's long. Well, this is an interpretation of that. Without looking at this sensation or that sensation, you just know it, right? And you know how you know it. You don't have to look. You don't like, I can look over here and I can look over there. It's not like, okay, where shall I look now? Where shall I find? It's kind of like if I just came and give you just a friendly warm hug and my arms, if I were a big guy, great big guy, and I put my arms around you and just gave you a bear hug, right? Report an error in the passage at 31:28 Highlight the passage at 31:28

31:59 You wouldn't have to look for the sensations of feeling hugged, right? Just a big friendly hug. You just feel kind of the hug is impinging upon you and in a friendly way, you know, like that. And then really, oh, I'll give you a second hug. And then just kind of gentle hug, though. And you feel yourself hug. And then it's kind of releasing, right? Just like that. It's quite sweet. Quite clear. But you don't have to look. Report an error in the passage at 31:59 Highlight the passage at 31:59

32:21 Where shall I look for the hug sensation? Kind of like, well, I'm all being hugged. All of me. This is a great big guy. His arms going around me. I'm just all of me being hugged, gently squeezed and then released. A little bit like that. That you don't have to look for the sensations. They rise up and they hug you. And then they ease off of it and they hug you again, right? And you can even be aware of that. Report an error in the passage at 32:21 Highlight the passage at 32:21

32:42 When you're resting in the substrate consciousness, when you're deep asleep or you've achieved shamatha. I find that quite remarkable. So the Buddha said, when the in-breath is long, you know it is long. When the out-breath is long, you know it is long. That's the first of four instructions. That was it. Long, long. And then when the in-breath is short, you know it's short. Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

33:02 When the out-breath is short, you know it's short. That's the second. That's pretty cryptic. But I think he's pointing to something that's just obvious but important. And that is as your whole system calms down, settles down, your body now no longer running around, moving, fidgeting and so forth, just settling down like a mountain. Report an error in the passage at 33:02 Highlight the passage at 33:02

33:21 And your mind settling down, the activities of the mind, just calming, calming, calming with every breath, calming, calming, calming, becoming more still and more and more still. The body, of course, needs less oxygen, less air. So therefore, of course. When you're not overriding, you're not going into manual overwrite, controlling your breath, thinking how your breath should be, you're really just letting the body do what it does well. Just like your body, I don't think you know how to digest food. Report an error in the passage at 33:21 Highlight the passage at 33:21

33:49 I don't. Do you know how to digest food? Do you know how to clean your blood when it gets kind of contaminated? Do you know how to do that? I don't have a clue. But the liver handles it pretty well on the whole internal digestive tract. It does a pretty good job for most of it. And likewise, just in the same way, As the body has many, many functions of evacuation, of digestion, and so forth and so on, and it just does it so well without our even knowing what's going on and not having a clue how it happens, the body can also just breathe well and it does it extremely well, especially when we're totally out of the way. Report an error in the passage at 33:49 Highlight the passage at 33:49

34:23 And here's the scientific fact, that the most, how do you say, the time when the body is really enabled to, allowed to, restore its balance to... To produce or to generate, bring forth growth hormones and repair damage during the day, the time when it's rested, it's restored, it's revitalized, reduced, refueled, it's primarily in deep dreamless sleep. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:48 Even when we're dreaming, we can have really anxious dreams, angry dreams, fearful dreams, we have lots and lots of emotions coming up. Dreams, as you know, are not necessarily so restful, right? And that, of course, influences the respiration. If you're really petrified, if you're terrified of something in the dream, you know you're breathing in the dream, in that little dream body. That breathing is going to be corresponding to your emotional disruption. Report an error in the passage at 34:48 Highlight the passage at 34:48

35:16 But if that happens, isn't it interesting that in the dream you're being chased by a tiger or something and you're panting, you're sweating, you're freaking out. Your body in the bed is also going through the same respiration cycle. As if your body in bed is being chased by a tiger. This is why from an evolutionary perspective, kudos to the evolutionists, this is why your body goes into paralysis when you're dreaming. Report an error in the passage at 35:16 Highlight the passage at 35:16

35:42 Because if you started running and if your body, if the events in the dream took over your muscles lying in bed, you'd be jumping out of windows. You probably would have a short lifespan because your body would bump into something. You'd probably kill yourself or do major damage. So this is why when you go into dream state, your body goes into major muscle paralysis. Report an error in the passage at 35:42 Highlight the passage at 35:42

36:00 So that whatever's happening in the dream, it can't leak out into physical activity. People who are sleepwalking are not dreaming. They're in non-REM sleep, and they're walking about. So the really restorative time is deep, dreamless sleep. And that's when the body is really able to settle deeply in its natural state and repair the damage that we do to it during the daytime. Report an error in the passage at 36:00 Highlight the passage at 36:00

36:26 And it turns out, because I checked this recently over the last couple of months, That the respiration rate when people are in deep dreamless sleep is about 14 to 16 cycles per second, which is shallow. It's shallow breathing and it's rather rapid. Shallow and rapid. And that's when the body is really smoothing itself out, balancing, healing, restoring, doing what we need it to do so that when we wake up we actually feel fresh and full of energy and ready to go. Report an error in the passage at 36:26 Highlight the passage at 36:26

36:54 We might have just been totally wasted the night before. And so the Buddha said when the in-breath is long, you know it's long, out-breath long, you know it's long. And then when the in-breath is short, you know it's short. When the out-breath is short, you know it's short. And you must let that happen. You must let that happen. Allow it to happen of its own accord. Don't outsmart your body. Report an error in the passage at 36:54 Highlight the passage at 36:54

37:17 Don't pretend to outsmart your body. You don't know how to digest food better than your body does. You don't know how to breathe better than your body does either. There are other practices. I'll leave them to the experts. Pranayama and so forth. But here, just let your body take over. And you may very well find that your body slips into shallow and fairly rapid breathing. Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:39 And you simply note it, breath coming in short, breath going out short. And as it turns out, according to Vajrayana, Vajrayana Buddhism, and it's all over the place, it's in Dzogchen, it's in highest yoga tantra and so forth, that it's stated that we have 21,600 breaths per 24-hour period. 21,600. So do the arithmetic. And it turns out to be 15 cycles per minute. Exactly that cycle, that respiration, that frequency of the breath that scientists have found is what we slip into naturally when we go into deep dreamless sleep. Report an error in the passage at 37:39 Highlight the passage at 37:39

38:15 It's the healing. I'm going to speculate here. It's informed speculation and it could be wrong. But my speculation, based upon these two, Buddhism actually converting with science, is that the healing respiration... Is that one, 15 cycles per minute, shallow, utterly relaxed and then bringing about deeper and deeper balance. Report an error in the passage at 38:15 Highlight the passage at 38:15

38:36 So don't ever try to make that happen. If you do, it will be contrived, constructed, and it won't be the real thing, because you superimpose that on the rhythm that needed to work itself out in its own way, maybe with a lot of deep breaths, or shallow and then deep, or long exhalation and short inhalation, long inhalation, short, it needs to work itself out. Report an error in the passage at 38:36 Highlight the passage at 38:36

38:53 And when it does, over the course of time, whether it's hours or days, then it settles into this. And then the third, the third set of aphorisms by the Buddha was, Report an error in the passage at 38:53 Highlight the passage at 38:53

39:08 Attending to the whole breath, one breathes in, attending to the whole breath, one breathes out. This is interpreted in different ways, but I'm going to say the Dzogchen interpretation is just attend to the whole body. One breathes in, attending to the whole body, one breathes out. So I'm going to combine two interpretations. As you recall, Asangas, the great Asanga, living in the 5th century, he interpreted that as you actually are attending to the sensations of the breath throughout the entire body. Report an error in the passage at 39:08 Highlight the passage at 39:08

39:38 Not just the nostrils, but the entire body. That was his interpretation. Buddhaghosa, the great Theravāda commentator, also living in the 5th century, he said, well, that full body, that means the whole body of the breath, the whole course of inhalation, the whole course of exhalation. That's his interpretation. They're both very good interpretations, and I'm just going to combine them. In this practice here, we are attending to, with this peripheral awareness, the whole field, the whole fluctuating field. Report an error in the passage at 39:38 Highlight the passage at 39:38

40:08 We're not just looking here or there, again like the hug, you're not feeling the hug around your shoulders versus around wherever, it's just the whole hug, kind of like that. So the whole field, you're just present with the whole field, and you sense that fluctuation corresponding to inhalation, the fluctuation corresponding to X, and so the whole field, but you're also following Buddhagosa, attending to the whole course of the influx and the outflux. Report an error in the passage at 40:08 Highlight the passage at 40:08

40:33 So both, just combine the two, why not? And that's the third phase. And then the fourth phase is simply calming the system of the body one breathes in, calming the system of the body one breathes out. Well, the culmination of that, the so-called calming of the body, is your breath. Here's, again, my hypothesis. Report an error in the passage at 40:33 Highlight the passage at 40:33

40:54 I'm quite confident it's true that your breath doesn't become brief, the frequency doesn't become shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter. It doesn't go from 15 cycles per minute to... Report an error in the passage at 40:54 Highlight the passage at 40:54

41:07 20 cycles to 30 cycles until you go, I don't think so. I think this is my strong, strong, strong suspicion, intuition, which could be wrong, is that that's where it just stops. The frequency just stops right there at 15 cycles, 15, 14, 16, like that. The frequency just goes steady state and it just keeps on going steady state. Report an error in the passage at 41:07 Highlight the passage at 41:07

41:29 But the amplitude, it's a nice sine wave. The sine wave, the frequency is the same and the The amplitude of the sine wave becomes a damped sine wave. It just gets flatter and flatter and flatter and quite smoothly, quite smoothly. As you achieve shamatha, it's very, very shallow, very, very little amplitude. Report an error in the passage at 41:29 Highlight the passage at 41:29

41:47 Achieve the first jhāna, the second jhāna, the third jhāna and then finally the fourth jhāna and it's just an ongoing damped sine wave and I don't think there's any point that's abrupt. It's just kind of like a person speaking softer and softer and softer. Report an error in the passage at 41:47 Highlight the passage at 41:47

42:09 It's just silent. And the breath just goes calm. And it settles right in the middle. Of course, it doesn't stop on an in-breath or stop on the out-breath. It just goes right into the middle. It stops there. That's the fourth jnana. So it's rather abstract and theoretical for us right now. But that's the culmination of this practice as a shamatha practice. Report an error in the passage at 42:09 Highlight the passage at 42:09

42:28 You achieve the fourth jnana. And you can go into samādhi for two weeks at a time. And your awareness is totally withdrawn. Report an error in the passage at 42:28 Highlight the passage at 42:28

42:36 Buddha Goza said, I think he said, if a bullock train with a hundred bullocks went right by your meditation cushion, you would not hear a sound, you would not hear a thing. It would just not get through at all. Because you're there up at the top of the mountain in the form room, in the fourth jhāna. Does one need to go that far? Report an error in the passage at 42:36 Highlight the passage at 42:36

42:55 There's a pretty strong consensus. Know that you can reap the full benefits of vipassanā, of insight. You can cut the root of suffering without going all the way to the fourth jhāna. Crossing that threshold though. From the desire realm to the form realm, that turns out to be, that's critical. And the reason why, again, it's not just belief, like somebody said so, oh, okay, I believe. Report an error in the passage at 42:55 Highlight the passage at 42:55

43:16 It's that only there, in that crossing the threshold and fully achieving this access to the first jhāna, only there, when you've stepped beyond the confines of the desire realm, only then have these five obscurations really been subdued. It's like you put, just douse them all with chloroform. They just go to sleep. They're still there, and they will wake up sooner or later, unless you dispatch with them while they're asleep, but they're dormant. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:44 And they are sensual craving, ill will, laxity and dullness, excitation and anxiety, and afflictive uncertainty. Those are the big five that obscure the luminous, pure, serene nature of your own substrate consciousness. It's those five obscurations. That make us unaware of this relative ground state of our own awareness and therefore caught up in all the hurry and flurry, the hustle and bustle of our minds. And unaware that we actually were just sitting on a goldmine of bliss, luminosity and non-conceptuality. Report an error in the passage at 43:44 Highlight the passage at 43:44

44:19 And nobody else can take it. Even if you wanted to sell it, you can't give it away. Nobody else can get it. It's your birthright. And you're the only one who can experience your own substrate consciousness. And that's your bliss, your luminosity, your non-conceptuality. And you're not acquiring it because it's already there, but it's covered. And so the practice shamatha is designed to unveil that which is already there to the point of the substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 44:19 Highlight the passage at 44:19

44:44 And now... With those five obscurations now, they're just kind of like they all settle down at the bottom of the pool. And what's above that now is just clear, clear, close to clear water of the substrate consciousness. And your mind also now is richly imbued with the five dhyāna factors. The five dhyāna factors, if you want to turn on your mind, activate your mind, which is just, when you're resting there, it's just at rest. Report an error in the passage at 44:44 Highlight the passage at 44:44

45:09 It's like you have a Maserati and it's in neutral. And it's just purring there, waiting for you to get into gear. But it's not going to freak out on you. It can wait as long as you wish. It can wait the end for hour after hour, just resting, resting, blissful, luminous, non-conceptual. But as soon as you want to put it into gear and engage in either coarse investigation or subtle analysis, you want to direct your attention to the past. Perhaps you'd like to do a long exposure and manifest, reveal memories from early life or even past lives. Report an error in the passage at 45:09 Highlight the passage at 45:09

45:41 You can do it from this vantage point. This really is like, resting there really is like... Being inside the Hubble Telescope, outside the noise pollution and all the interference of our planet, and looking into deep space with the Earth behind you. All that pollution, all that contamination, all the noise behind you, all the light pollution behind you, and you're just looking into deep space. And then, in the famous story that I tell so often, being able to see, probe into the depths of the universe back more than 13 billion... Report an error in the passage at 45:41 Highlight the passage at 45:41

46:12 Years back into the past. It's amazing what they've done with that telescope. This is the telescope. You achieve shamatha, you are now out of the light contamination of the mind with all of its activities, all this noise, which we know so well, which is a very crummy platform for engaging in practices like Dzogchen. Report an error in the passage at 46:12 Highlight the passage at 46:12

46:33 It's really crummy. It's so noisy. It's terrible. so... If you want to activate it, you can simply activate course investigation, subtle analysis. Your mind, your whole awareness is just filled with this well-being and a real joy. And there's just impeccable single-pointedness, like that laser-sharp, like a laser-pointer, laser-sharp attention. Direct it wide, direct it short, narrow, whatever you wish. Report an error in the passage at 46:33 Highlight the passage at 46:33

47:02 You have the five dhyāna factors. They're all there, right at your fingertips. So you're ready to go. You have a mind that is now serviceable. So that's what this practice is for. And as a shamatha practice, that's what this is for. Then you can move into Vipassanā, which he'll talk about. And from that vantage point, then you can move into Dzogchen. Report an error in the passage at 47:02 Highlight the passage at 47:02

47:19 And you can really make quick work. Quick work. Go along the path, come to the culmination of the path. That's what he wrote this for. Is that we make quick work of what would otherwise take a very, very long time. So he's just shared with us in prose these three points, which are the... The deal makers and deal breakers. And there are multiple ways these can come about. That they're essential to my mind is simply, cannot doubt it, incontrovertible. Report an error in the passage at 47:19 Highlight the passage at 47:19

47:52 But I know there are different ways in which people will come to this type of shift of viewpoint on their lives. The first point of the enormous preciousness of the current opportunity, the utterly frail, the frailty. of this life that could be snuffed out just like a candle with all the doors and windows open in your house. All it needs is one gust and it's gone and you never know when that gust is going to come. Report an error in the passage at 47:52 Highlight the passage at 47:52

48:21 All you know is that the wax will burn down and it's going to go out sooner or later with or without any gust of a wind. And then the third point is just the reality of suffering and the nature of karma, how we are sowing the seeds for our future. Report an error in the passage at 48:21 Highlight the passage at 48:21

48:38 Doing this type of discursive meditation is really classic and it's practiced in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism and in Theravāda. They may not call it quite by these names, but these meditations are right there in the foundational teachings of the Buddha in the Pāli Canon. So there they are. But I've also seen, as I'm just getting older and older, watch people practice Dharma, watch my own practice, that this type of shifts on perspective, they can be catalyzed by many... Report an error in the passage at 48:38 Highlight the passage at 48:38

49:05 In many circumstances. In the case of Gampopa, for example, Gampopa was a great disciple of Milarepa. He had Rechumpa and Gampopa. And Gampopa was a doctor, apparently a very good doctor, and it seemed very happily married. He was just a good solid citizen, I'm sure a virtuous man, happy marriage, apparently a very happy marriage, and very good at what he did. Report an error in the passage at 49:05 Highlight the passage at 49:05

49:30 So he was a good worker bee in the society of Tibet. And then, in the prime of life, his wife just up and died. I don't know what it was, but there are many things to die from, so it happened. And her dying wish was, husband, please don't remarry. Let me be the only one. That was her wish. And apparently, he really loved her, and he wanted to honor her dying wish. And so he didn't remarry. Report an error in the passage at 49:30 Highlight the passage at 49:30

50:03 I'm sure he could have. and, but that, that, That matrix of events, those circumstances coming together, it just turned out to catalyze a very deep sense of renunciation that I'm not going to find happiness here. Not in marriage, which just got snuffed out, nor simply being a bachelor, that's not intrinsically joyful, nor being a doctor, that's very good. Report an error in the passage at 50:03 Highlight the passage at 50:03

50:30 And then he really just turned to Dharma and became one of the greatest teachers in the whole Tibetan tradition. So it can be catalyzed by many things, near-death experiences, tragedy, sometimes good fortune, good fortune. Like Shantideva, he was a prince, lap of luxury, and everything was going so well. Report an error in the passage at 50:30 Highlight the passage at 50:30

50:49 And when everything is going well, you have the power, the prestige, the influence, everything, and that's what Shantideva had. And then saying, this just isn't doing it. This isn't, you know, if this was supposed to make me happy, it's not working. And then... You give it away with such ease when you see, this will never ever give me happiness, never ever give me meaning, this will never deliver the goods. There's no fulfillment. Report an error in the passage at 50:49 Highlight the passage at 50:49

51:14 And it's this phrase from the Madhyamaka, it's not simply not finding, it's finding that it's not to be found. It's knowing with certainty it is not to be found. And we're talking about here about inherent existence, right? It's such a powerful point. It's not just you looked and you couldn't find it, you look so thoroughly that you know it's not to be found. Report an error in the passage at 51:14 Highlight the passage at 51:14

51:34 And for people who come to great heights of wealth, of prestige, of power, and if they still have an imagination, then they can make a discovery that it doesn't matter whether I'm ten times more powerful, wealthy or prestigious, it still won't deliver. It's not that I'm not finding happiness here, it's not to be found here. And it's easier to come to that ascertainment, that discovery, if you've actually gotten that far. Report an error in the passage at 51:34 Highlight the passage at 51:34

52:02 Because then you know from your own experience. But happily, we can learn from the experience of others. We don't have to be confined just to our own. So, where was all of that? So, it can happen in multiple ways. By being extremely successful or being totally unsuccessful, like Gen Lam Rimba, one of my teachers. Report an error in the passage at 52:02 Highlight the passage at 52:02

52:24 Oh, I have such a number. Los Antens is another one. He lost everything, right? He was a farmer, he had a family and so forth. Lost everything. Was imprisoned. Who knows what, probably saying long love the Dalai Lama. Went down to India, became a soldier. Nothing happened there. He had nothing. No homeland, no family, no wealth, no real skills. He can shoot a gun. It's not a very remarkable skill unless you want to stay in the Indian army. Report an error in the passage at 52:24 Highlight the passage at 52:24

52:53 And so he had nothing, really, nothing except faith and renunciation. And he came under the direct guidance of the senior tutor of the Dalai Lama. So Lina Boche was guiding the Dalai Lama and guiding this quasi-literate farmer who'd been in the Indian Army. But he saw, he saw it was this, this man who came from nothing said, okay, you're ready. Report an error in the passage at 52:53 Highlight the passage at 52:53

53:20 If I teach you, you're going to practice everything I teach. You're going to take everything to heart and you're going to have no distractions because you have nothing. You have nothing. There's nothing else for you to do. So you can either be a prince and see there's nothing else for you to do, because you've done it all, or you've done almost nothing and you see there's nothing to do. Either way or in between. Report an error in the passage at 53:20 Highlight the passage at 53:20

53:41 So this is not, you know, you have to stick to the text, you have to be thinking about these paragraphs until you get it. And life happens. And with a bit of help, life can happen to make our motivation more and more authentic. He gave us prose, now he's going to give us a bit of verse. It's very common in Tibet. And you miss it, I'm sorry. Report an error in the passage at 53:41 Highlight the passage at 53:41

54:00 But I've never been able to translate verse into verse because Tibetan syntax, grammar, everything. So it's not an Indo-European language. It's not even close at all to English. And so it's still prose in English. But you can see it's indented and the format a bit different. You have to use your imagination. It's really cool in Tibetan because it's in metered verse. It's much nicer. Report an error in the passage at 54:00 Highlight the passage at 54:00

54:25 But I've not found one translator, and there's a lot of really good translators, and I've read their work. I don't know if one who can take verse from Tibetan, translate it into English, have it still be accurate and clear and in metered verse. Maybe we're just waiting for the brilliant poet-translator. I'm a translator, I'm no poet. And I don't know anybody else's either. I saw one person try it. Report an error in the passage at 54:25 Highlight the passage at 54:25

54:48 It just sounded so cheesy that I thought, okay, that was a good warning signal. Don't try that. So here he goes. Here's his verse. Just imagine that it's metered. So, hey, individuals endowed with karma and good fortune have obtained a life of leisure and opportunity due to the assembly and timely ripening of a causal nexus of fortuitous connections of karma and prayers. Report an error in the passage at 54:48 Highlight the passage at 54:48

55:13 It's a lot of big words. Tibetan is much more concise. But it is simply pointing this out that if we have such good karma, such good fortune, such enormous opportunity, such privilege, what this is saying is, it's not because you're special. Don't be proud about this. Don't be arrogant. Don't think, oh, yeah, but I'm this race or this prestige or this family or whatever. Give it a rest. Report an error in the passage at 55:13 Highlight the passage at 55:13

55:38 It's just that these causes and conditions came together. It's a ripening, an assembly, a configuration. Of these multiple independent variables coming together to bring forth something extremely rare and extremely precious. And it has to do with karma. What have you done with your life and life? How have you conducted yourself in the world? What are the fruits of your karma? But it also has to do with prayers, your aspiration. Report an error in the passage at 55:38 Highlight the passage at 55:38

56:05 So it starts with motivation, it ends with dedication. These are the bookends for any type of meaningful activity. Start with the most meaningful aspiration. Or motivation and end with the most meaningful dedication. And all of those conditions coming together, well that brought about this extremely rare and high potential situation you're in right now. Report an error in the passage at 56:05 Highlight the passage at 56:05

56:25 The fruits of that which was sown previously are being used up right now. You are burning the gas in your tank. But whatever joys and sorrows the future holds depends on you. So this is a very naturalistic interpretation of human destiny. Report an error in the passage at 56:25 Highlight the passage at 56:25

56:48 what happens to us. The other two major options on the table that we're all aware of, if we keep our eyes open, is God's doing it. If you have no past life, if there's no prior life, if your consciousness was freshly created by God, which many Christians believe, but not all, then you didn't do anything prior to this life that led you to your parents, your family, your opportunities, economic status and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 56:48 Highlight the passage at 56:48

57:16 Whether you're born with AIDS or born with a silver spoon in your mouth. If there's no past life, then, okay, one hypothesis, God did it. Report an error in the passage at 57:16 Highlight the passage at 57:16

57:27 God created some children with AIDS and others with loving parents and others in a war zone where they're blown up when they're six months, and God did it. And then what they just say is, mysterious are the ways of the Lord. Because if you try to figure that one out, I think you're going to have a hard time. Why would God do that? Report an error in the passage at 57:27 Highlight the passage at 57:27

57:48 I can't imagine it. So the theistic answer is, mysterious are the ways of the Lord and give it a rest. But it's tough because the inequalities here are so staggering. Report an error in the passage at 57:48 Highlight the passage at 57:48

58:04 So that's a possibility. I mean, it's a possibility. I'm not in a position to refute it. I just can't believe it. But that doesn't mean it's not true. And the other one, of course, is it's just a crapshoot. It's a materialistic view. And that is, you've got genes, you've got environment. You've got the world and stuff happens. Stuff happens. It's tough luck. That little child was born with HIV and that one was born here and that one was born there and this one has an alcoholic mother and that one has a loving mother and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 58:04 Highlight the passage at 58:04

58:38 And it just happens. So that's it. There's nothing more to explain. Stuff happens. It's a mindless, great big mindless machine of the universe with no morality, no ethics, no meaning. Report an error in the passage at 58:38 Highlight the passage at 58:38

58:49 Stuff happens, and that's another major hypothesis on the table. A lot of people believe that. And then the Buddhist view is, well, neither one nor the other, that in fact there is very, very powerful evidence, extremely compelling, if one just looks, that in fact this is not the first life, the continuum goes back. Report an error in the passage at 58:49 Highlight the passage at 58:49

59:08 And I mentioned this in the talk a couple of nights ago, I'm going to say it again. Early Christianity was a widespread belief. In the Kabbalah, in Judaism, it's a dominant belief. In the Sufi, there have been major thinkers, philosophers and many Sufis themselves in Islam. Reincarnation, yes. Taoism, yes, definitely. Hinduism, of course. Report an error in the passage at 59:08 Highlight the passage at 59:08

59:29 Buddhism, of course. So all of the six major world religions, they all come to this point. Including one of the great church fathers, Oregon, writing in the third century. He taught reincarnation. He said, as Christians, our job is to become perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. One life's going to be too short. Therefore, we need more time. Report an error in the passage at 59:29 Highlight the passage at 59:29

59:52 To, you know, to become Christ-like. One lifetime, much too short. And therefore we have to continue practicing and practicing until we come to perfection. As we have created an image of God, then we need to manifest that perfection. And he was a church father. Once you become a church father, I think they can't undo you. Like if you become a saint, I don't think they have a way to unsanctify you, uncanonize. Report an error in the passage at 59:52 Highlight the passage at 59:52

1:00:15 I don't think so. I think it's not a revolving door. So Oregon was a church father. He's still a church father. But his views were outlawed a couple of, you know, centuries after he said it. So there's that, and then there's Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Socrates, Plato, that whole trend, reincarnation. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:15 Highlight the passage at 1:00:15

1:00:32 And then there's modern scientific research that points to it as well. So from science, multiple religions and philosophy, we find major voices saying, well, this is it. In fact, we brought in a lot and nobody else did it to us. Not a mindless universe, not God, a whimsical God. But in fact... We have created conditions for us to be where we are now. And we are now, all of us here, clearly, by the sure fact that we're here and we're all clothed and look healthy. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:32 Highlight the passage at 1:00:32

1:01:00 We're experiencing the fruits of our previous karma and we're using up those fruits. But now what will the future look like? That depends entirely on us. Not a mindless machine of a universe, not on God, not on Buddha, not on anybody outside. It's our own trajectory. We are creating our future. The appearances of this life, including your surroundings and friends, are like last night's dream. And this life passes more swiftly than a flash of lightning in the sky. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:00 Highlight the passage at 1:01:00

1:01:33 There's a view from a man who's dwelling in Rigpa. He's telling it like it is from his perspective. And he's resting constantly in pristine awareness and observing the lives of those around him. And that's his observation. That from his perspective, Today and yesterday is a dream. And he's dwelling in a state of awareness that's said to be in the fourth time, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:33 Highlight the passage at 1:01:33

1:02:04 It's not in the present, past or future. It transcends this triad, this spread, this layout of time passing. And he's dwelling in this timeless space of pristine awareness. And from that perspective, he sees lives like conception. Two of my students just sent me a photo this morning. Brand new baby. Brand new baby. Healthy. Showed me, of course, they showed me a photo. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:04 Highlight the passage at 1:02:04

1:02:31 It looks an awful lot like a baby. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:31 Highlight the passage at 1:02:31

1:02:36 And so a life starts out of the womb, a life starts. And then it stopped. 90 years later, 45 years later, from this perspective of pristine awareness, life starts, it flashes, it's gone. So quick, like a flash of lightning. There is no end to this meaningless work. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:36 Highlight the passage at 1:02:36

1:02:56 The things that we so frequently busy ourselves with that occupy our minds, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, there's no end to it. There's no end to it. It never stops of its own accord. There's this word in French, Portuguese... No, not French, I think. Maybe French. Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. I love it. It's basta. French also? Anybody know French? Basta? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:56 Highlight the passage at 1:02:56

1:03:21 Okay, all these romance languages. Basta. Same meaning in all four of them. We should have it in English because we don't quite have it. In American, it would be enough already. Pretty close, yeah? Enough already. It's not just enough. That's enough, thank you. No, it's basta. We need this in English. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:21 Highlight the passage at 1:03:21

1:03:42 Basta. It's coming to a point where you're looking at saṃsāra, you're looking at this endless, ongoing grind. Of one demand on the time after another after another, getting this job and then this one crops up and this one crops up and that one crops up and you're getting older and older and older until you're totally pooped out. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:42 Highlight the passage at 1:03:42

1:04:01 Now you have some months to live when you're not busy but you're so tired you can hardly get out of bed. Basta. So before you get there, basta. There is no end to this meaningless work. What a joke to prepare to live forever. And so often it seems that's what we're doing. As if we're going to be around indefinitely. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:01 Highlight the passage at 1:04:01

1:04:20 Wherever you are born in the heights or depths of saṃsāra, the great noose of suffering will hold you tight. And the simple reason for that, of course, is that the seeds of suffering are not being imposed on us from outside. It's not from the noose. It's not somebody doing it to us. It's not bad luck or the environment or other people. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:20 Highlight the passage at 1:04:20

1:04:40 It's that we're bringing the very seeds of suffering with us to every situation we find ourselves in. Whether it's a Deva realm or another galaxy or Beverly Hills or what have you, we're bringing the seeds of suffering to wherever we go in whatever manifestation, whatever embodiment. And so because we're bringing those seeds, therefore the noose of suffering is always there. Acquiring freedom for yourself, you actually have a chance to make an escape, the great escape. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:40 Highlight the passage at 1:04:40

1:05:09 From the prison of Smasara. You know, there's just been an earthquake and the prison walls just opened up and none of the guards are looking. And right now is your chance. You can escape and get away forever, right now, but the guards will be awake soon. They're going to find the crack in the wall soon, right now, or get comfortable because they're going to seal it up again and then you're going to be in for the long, long term. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:09 Highlight the passage at 1:05:09

1:05:34 It's like right now the earthquake just struck. The walls have opened. There's a lot of open space there, and you can get away. You can escape. But it's now or never. A lot of movies on that kind of theme, isn't it? It's now or never. Are you in or are you out? Report an error in the passage at 1:05:34 Highlight the passage at 1:05:34

1:05:55 You have to decide right now. Basta. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:55 Highlight the passage at 1:05:55

1:06:01 This is as rare as a star in the daytime, as rare as an earthquake crumbling prison walls that you can make a quick escape. So how is it possible to practice and achieve liberation? If it's so rare, and I've thought about this a lot, if having this precious human rebirth is so rare, then how is it possible to practice and achieve liberation? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:01 Highlight the passage at 1:06:01

1:06:21 I mean, we speak of the Buddha spending three countless eons before his achievement enlightenment. How is it possible when this is so rare? And then he continues, the root of all mind training and practical instructions is planted. You plant that root by knowing the nature of existence. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:21 Highlight the passage at 1:06:21

1:06:42 It's called neluk, the nature of existence. What's the playing field? What kind of a situation is this? What kind of a reality is it that we are enmeshed in, embedded in, find ourselves thrown in? What's happening? What's the nature of existence? What's going on? And he said, this is the root of all mind training and practical instructions. You need to know what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:42 Highlight the passage at 1:06:42

1:07:09 What's the nature of reality? And he said, there is no other way. I mean the phrase from Jesus, the truth shall make you free, it's a universal statement and there is no other way. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:09 Highlight the passage at 1:07:09

1:07:21 And so everything is about priming ourselves so that we can come to know the nature of existence and sustain that knowledge, not have a flirtation with it, not have just a brief breakthrough, not have a great memory, not have an epiphany which then fades, but have so prepared the mind and it's specifically through shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:21 Highlight the passage at 1:07:21

1:07:42 That when you do cut through and really fathom the nature of reality, we're talking about emptiness and dependent origination here, but fully fathom what that entails, that you're able to sustain that recognition, sustain that knowing, and it goes so deep that it becomes non-conceptual. It goes into your marrow, it goes into your core, so you can never fall back into the old rut of reifying everything that comes up. This is it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:42 Highlight the passage at 1:07:42

1:08:12 There is no other way. I, an old vagabond, have shaken my beggar's satchel. And this is what came out. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:12 Highlight the passage at 1:08:12

1:08:24 This only gets better. From my perspective, it just gets better and better. But we started, and that will do it for a morning. And so I would be very delighted if you continue breathing for the next two hours. It would make my day. And as much as you possibly can, maintaining that, just that presence of awareness and just creating, in a way one can say, a new habit. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:24 Highlight the passage at 1:08:24

1:08:49 Because the old habit, of course, is just let the dog off the leash as you're eating, walking and so forth. Just let the dog off the leash and chasing squirrels here and barking there and rolling in dog shit here and just doing whatever it does, you know, the dog is off the leash. And that's what we tend to do with the mind. Just let it off the leash and it just goes into 80 % of the time spinning all over the place. Not a healthy habit, not a necessary habit. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:49 Highlight the passage at 1:08:49

1:09:11 And just creating a habit of presence of mind. Presence of mind. And that's your ongoing default mode. So when you slip into meditation, it's just like going right next door. Just so close. And you come out of meditation and you're still maintaining that clarity, that simplicity. And of course, it doesn't mean you're not thinking all the time. That's not the ideal. It's just when you're thinking, you're doing so consciously and not in that quasi-conscious, exhausting rumination. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:11 Highlight the passage at 1:09:11

1:09:44 It's a bad habit. It's a bad habit. We can break it. So six days. That's a good launching pad for launching an entirely different habit of exceptional sanity. So with that note, let's have lunch. I'll see you at two o 'clock. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:44 Highlight the passage at 1:09:44