Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 15)

0:18 Let's go directly to meditation. Report an error in the passage at 0:18 Highlight the passage at 0:18

· · · silence, 2 minutes

2:04 Let's settle the body, speech and mind in the natural state and calm the mind with mindfulness of breathing. Then Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

· · · silence, 2 minutes

4:25 let your eyes be at least partially open, eyes soft, all the muscles around the eyes soft and relaxed. And let your gaze rest vacantly in the space in front of you while turning the full force of your attention to the space of the mind and to whatever thoughts and images arise within that space. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:54 Establish the stillness of your awareness without losing the grounding in the luminosity and cognizance of your awareness while attending to the movements of the mind. And Report an error in the passage at 4:54 Highlight the passage at 4:54

· · · silence, 3 minutes

8:08 now let's examine the mind a bit more closely. As mentioned last night, when we see someone's face, we recognize them and that's enough to say you've seen the person, you've seen the person's body. You don't have to see all of it. And likewise to observe a single thought, a single image. Report an error in the passage at 8:08 Highlight the passage at 8:08

8:28 Even though that, of course, is not equivalent to the mind, that is enough to say that you're observing the mind. So now let's examine closely with a bit of a question. Report an error in the passage at 8:28 Highlight the passage at 8:28

8:42 These thoughts and images that arise, Report an error in the passage at 8:42 Highlight the passage at 8:42

8:47 where do they come from? Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

8:56 They certainly appear to be real. They have causal efficacy. They influence things. And thoughts are influenced by other things, clearly. Report an error in the passage at 8:56 Highlight the passage at 8:56

9:06 So it seems they must be there. But where do they come from? Does something turn into a thought? Something prior to the thought? Does it transform into the thought? And if so, what is that something prior to the thought that transforms into it? Examine closely. This is not now a matter of philosophical speculation, but careful, radically empirical observation. Is Report an error in the passage at 9:06 Highlight the passage at 9:06

· · · silence, 1 minute

10:32 there something that transforms into a thought? Or does a thought emerge from nothing? But if so, how does nothing transform into something? Report an error in the passage at 10:32 Highlight the passage at 10:32

10:44 So examine closely the possibilities or the alternatives. If something transforms into a thought, what is that something? If nothing transforms into a thought, how does that occur? How does nothing become something? Examine closely the origins of the thoughts and images that arise in the space of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

11:16 And closely until you come to certainty, some clear insight. Report an error in the passage at 11:16 Highlight the passage at 11:16

· · · silence, 2 minutes

13:33 Now once thoughts have arisen, you are able to observe them, to watch them. As you observe them, then ask, examine closely, where are they? Report an error in the passage at 13:33 Highlight the passage at 13:33

13:52 Do these thoughts really have a location? Where? Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

· · · silence, 1 minute

15:25 And if you have a sense that the images or thoughts that arise are present right in front of you, Report an error in the passage at 15:25 Highlight the passage at 15:25

15:35 that may be so. But what does it mean? If they're in front of you, where are you? Report an error in the passage at 15:35 Highlight the passage at 15:35

15:45 Because if you can't identify your location, then the location of anything else relative to where you are. It means nothing. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

15:59 So you're observing the thoughts and images with your mind, right? So where is the observer? Report an error in the passage at 15:59 Highlight the passage at 15:59

· · · silence, 1 minute

16:59 And if the thoughts are arising in the space in front of you, how far away? Two meters? Twenty meters? Twenty centimeters? Report an error in the passage at 16:59 Highlight the passage at 16:59

17:08 What's the distance? What's the distance between you, the observer, and the thoughts you're observing? How far apart are they? Report an error in the passage at 17:08 Highlight the passage at 17:08

· · · silence, 1 minute

18:38 Whatever thought or image arises, whatever mental event arises. Sooner or later it fades away and disappears. So where do the thoughts go? Is there some repository of dead thoughts? Or Report an error in the passage at 18:38 Highlight the passage at 18:38

18:58 do they become nothing? Report an error in the passage at 18:58 Highlight the passage at 18:58

19:03 If so, how do they become nothing? All at once or do they fade out? And how can something become nothing? How is that possible? Examine closely. Where do thoughts and images go when they fade away? Off Report an error in the passage at 19:03 Highlight the passage at 19:03

19:40 screen, like off to the left or to the right? Do they get smaller and smaller in size and vanish into a point? Or do they just fade out right where they are, having the same size but just getting smaller and smaller or more and more faint? How do they disappear and where do they go? So Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

· · · silence, 3 minutes

22:38 we examine the origins, the location and destination of thoughts and other mental events, Report an error in the passage at 22:38 Highlight the passage at 22:38

22:47 determining whether they really emerge from anywhere, whether they're really located anywhere, whether they really go anywhere. And as we examine them, we may also look closely to see. Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

23:03 Are they really there from their own side? Are they real? Do they have their own inherent nature? Examine closely whether they are anything other than empty appearances like reflections in a mirror, like rainbows or a mirage. So Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

· · · silence, 3 minutes

26:17 with Samatha and Vipassanā we have two different strategies for finding freedom from suffering. Very practical. Report an error in the passage at 26:17 Highlight the passage at 26:17

26:25 In practice of Samatha, of course, we're withdrawing our attention, which means we're also therefore withdrawing the identification with Everything outside the body. So when you're really resting in shamatha, then you're just not clinging to or identifying with anything outside yourself. So if something happens there and you're not even focusing there and you're not identifying with it, then you don't suffer. Of course, this can work when you're out of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 26:25 Highlight the passage at 26:25

26:54 So here's a cell phone and it actually belongs to SBI, but I'll pretend it belongs to me. And so if this gets scratched or broken or just doesn't work, And I have that sense, it's being mine. It's mine. Somebody scratches or breaks my cell phone. That can make me disturbed, right? Get upset. That's my only cell phone. But if tomorrow I go to an Apple shop because I've heard about the iPhone 6, and I say, I don't want this iPhone, whatever this one is, this is an old one. Report an error in the passage at 26:54 Highlight the passage at 26:54

27:25 So I trade it in and I get a new one. And then I hear the next day that an anvil dropped on this one. Completely smashed it to smithereens the next day after I traded it in. I don't care. Apple will survive. Nobody's going to suffer. So when I identify with it, then I can suffer. But I don't identify with it. I don't care what happens to it. It doesn't matter. Not mine. And Apple, they won't care either. It's one cell phone. So that's it. Report an error in the passage at 27:25 Highlight the passage at 27:25

27:52 And I just gave that as an example. It's everything else. When we identify with it as mine, then we're just putting up a sign, ready to suffer. Ready to suffer. And the bigger the extension of mine is, the bigger the possibility for suffering. So when you're withdrawing your attention from everything outside that you identify with as mine, then you've given yourself a lot of freedom there. Report an error in the passage at 27:52 Highlight the passage at 27:52

28:18 And then we come, let's just go right to the chase, right here to the mind. We know the mind can really upset us, really make us feel hopeless, as loser, unhappy, anxious. Angry and so forth and so on. We certainly know that. There's no question about it. The mind has a lot of causal efficacy in our mind's influences for the better or worse all the time, even in our dreams. Report an error in the passage at 28:18 Highlight the passage at 28:18

28:38 So the mind is very powerful, let alone what the mind can do by way of the body to the environment and other people. So if we ask a very simple question, how can I suffer less from my mind? How is that possible? There are two strategies. And one is, well, treat it like a cell phone. Stop identifying with it. Just don't identify. You just release. They're just thoughts. They're not your thoughts any more than that. Yeah, this is conventionally my cell phone, but only because we say so. Report an error in the passage at 28:38 Highlight the passage at 28:38

29:09 Only because I grasp onto it, frankly. And so likewise, the thoughts are, sure, they're my thoughts, they're your thoughts, but only because you grasp onto them. Otherwise, they're just thoughts. And really, how yours are there? Are they really? When you're just resting, resting, resting, and a thought comes up. Report an error in the passage at 29:09 Highlight the passage at 29:09

29:26 Exactly why is that thought yours? I mean, when you're thinking a thought, you say, I know I want to put my mind to something. I want to figure this out. I'm going to think about this. Then that's fine. You're doing it. That's kind of understandable. But those thoughts are just kind of knocking on your door. Why should we think they're ours? If somebody knocks on your door, you don't think they're yours. Report an error in the passage at 29:26 Highlight the passage at 29:26

29:44 They're just a person knocking on the door. So these thoughts come knocking on the door. Memories just come up. Ideas, fantasies, desires, emotions, they just come up. So the mere fact that we witness them. Clearly is not sufficient grounds for saying we own them, let alone that we have to own them. So this process here is the shamad itself is very simply, straightforwardly a process of observing carefully, so it's not that dissociation withdrawal business, being totally present but without the identification with, in which case, as one great 19th century master Lerap Lingba said, When you become very adept at this practice, then you have this non-conceptual sense, intuitive certainty, that whatever comes up in your mind, whether or not thoughts are continuing, whatever comes up in your mind cannot possibly harm you. Report an error in the passage at 29:44 Highlight the passage at 29:44

30:35 And it's so very, very similar to a very lucid dream, like this woman that just took the knife and put it in herself. She did that, not because she was a masochist, because she knew there's no possibility of harm here, so why don't I play with it? Report an error in the passage at 30:35 Highlight the passage at 30:35

30:50 Because she knew that nothing there could harm her. So many years ago, I went into a very strict, quite intense six-month retreat doing this practice, just this one alone. Hardly saw anybody for six months. But once every couple of months, maybe six weeks, two months, I would go down to the nearest town. It was in the high desert in East California and phone Gyajaramuchi because he was guiding me. Report an error in the passage at 30:50 Highlight the passage at 30:50

31:11 He's been my Lama for 25 years now. He was specifically guiding me in this practice. So when I had a question, rather than just praying to him, I'd phone him up. It's a bit more practical. And so I was talking about my practice and he was saying, you know, as you become familiar with this practice, even if a thousand maras arise, who are all grimacing and growling and really menacing and really want to make you miserable, even if a thousand maras arise in your mind, Alan, they will not be able to harm you. Report an error in the passage at 31:11 Highlight the passage at 31:11

31:42 And even if a thousand appearances of Buddhas arise, they will not be able to benefit you. Their appearances. Whether it's the appearance of a Buddha, that's nice. It's an empty appearance of a Buddha. And if it's some horrible thought, horrible memory, horrible, horrible anything, it's empty. It's empty. About as empty as images on a television screen. And they cannot harm you. But of course, if you identify with them, identify with the non-lucid dream, become non-lucid, oh, the dream can torture you, right? Report an error in the passage at 31:42 Highlight the passage at 31:42

32:15 And if one is a little kid... You know, little kid doesn't really know about television. You see some really, really, really scary imagery. You can be terrified by that. Kids are sometimes. I was when I saw Godzilla at the age of five. I thought, I don't want to go to Japan. It looked as real as anything I could imagine. I'm five years old. Report an error in the passage at 32:15 Highlight the passage at 32:15

32:35 And so there it is. So if you're reifying it, anything can make you suffer. And if you don't reify it, nothing can make you suffer. So moving on. So now he finished his presentation of shamatha there. That was it. And then he goes back to autobiographical narrative. He says, now I have heard elders say, you know, the old yogis, I've heard the old ones say that meditation is the fine path of the Buddhas. Report an error in the passage at 32:35 Highlight the passage at 32:35

33:02 So after giving this careful thought, I concluded that maybe this was something that could be seen with the eyes held in the hands or heard with the ears. So he's playing the clown again. Like meditation is something you can, you know, I want to, meditation is the path of the Buddhas? Good, I want to see it. I'd like three kilos, please. Report an error in the passage at 33:02 Highlight the passage at 33:02

33:19 I'd like to see what, I'd like to hear, I want to hear it. What's meditation? You know, he's playing the country bumpkin here. It's cute. So, and if those old monks could get it, you know, meditation, they could get it, then I should certainly be able to do so too. Report an error in the passage at 33:19 Highlight the passage at 33:19

33:37 So I went to a remote solitary region, leaned my back up against a red boulder and spent three days staring in front of me. While I was, so that all sounds pretty cool and then the next part's a bit unusual. While I was asleep on the evening of the final day, a white child appeared to me. So here's a dream. A white child appeared to me and asked, why are you sitting here? Report an error in the passage at 33:37 Highlight the passage at 33:37

34:02 And I replied, well, I'm sitting here wondering whether I might see something like meditation. Maybe in meditation they can bump into him and he'll recognize meditation. So he said that. And the child closed his eyes and then sang this song. Hey, hey. You blind one, you who wish to enter the authentic past, listen. The body is like a paper bag blown by the wind. Speech is like the sound of air passing through a pipe. Report an error in the passage at 34:02 Highlight the passage at 34:02

34:30 This mind is the creator of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Among these three, identify which is primary. You have a long time to wait before you'll see or hear something called meditation. Report an error in the passage at 34:30 Highlight the passage at 34:30

34:44 With those words I woke up. So see how he's going kind of back and forth here. It's kind of like a dance, kind of a weave. Because we've seen this theme before. He said it in one line. Among body, speech and mind, which one's primary? Report an error in the passage at 34:44 Highlight the passage at 34:44

34:58 And there was something following that. And then he goes into taking awareness and appearance as a path. The shamatha focused on the mind. And he didn't elaborate because he really doesn't have time to elaborate on much of anything here. But he's now referring right back to that issue. Report an error in the passage at 34:58 Highlight the passage at 34:58

35:19 Just deepen it. Among body, speech and mind, which one's primary? So this were the questions that came up in this dream with those words, I woke up. Then I gave this some thought and determined the mind to be primary, among the three. And pragmatically speaking, we care more about our mental well-being than our physical well-being. Report an error in the passage at 35:19 Highlight the passage at 35:19

35:42 Ontologically speaking, at death, the body turns into a not body, it turns into manure, the speech just vanishes. It doesn't just vanish, it dissolves into a subtle continuum and a mind stream does continue. So over time, clearly one of those three is primary. Report an error in the passage at 35:42 Highlight the passage at 35:42

36:02 And so he came to this conclusion. So a few days later in a nighttime dream, a yogin claiming to be the lake-born Vajra, Padmasambhava appeared, and placed a vas on my head and said, The obscurations of your youthful body have been purified, and with this vast empowerment your body has matured into a nirmanakaya, your Buddha form. Report an error in the passage at 36:02 Highlight the passage at 36:02

36:25 I anoint you as my regent. So Padmasambhava made Dujjum Lingva as regent, when he's quite a young man it seems. And I noted too, his Holiness Dalai Lama, he referred to Dujjum Rinpoche, the later incarnation. He was offering just words of praise and of respect. Reverence to this great Lama. And he referred to him as a regent of Padmasambhava. So that, a theme that continues here. So Padmasambhava himself appoints him, or anoints him as his regent. Report an error in the passage at 36:25 Highlight the passage at 36:25

36:57 I anoint you as my regent. Now you must diligently investigate the origin from which this mind first arose, the location where it abides in the interim, and the destination to which it finally goes. Meditation is just that. And then he seemed to dissolve into me. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:19 So, That dual theme there, it's a very recurrent theme, it's very paradigmatic, very characteristic of Dzogchen as a whole, of setting the stage because the whole thrust, the whole central point of Dzogchen from start to finish is to fathom the nature of the mind, to understand how is it the mind, the psyche, the ordinary mind with which we're so familiar, how does that emerge, what is its nature. Report an error in the passage at 37:19 Highlight the passage at 37:19

37:47 So the whole mind-body problem is very integral to all of it. And then as one probes deeply into the mind and allows it to dissolve of its own accord, dissolves into the substrate consciousness, then really know the lay of the land, know that very well. Achieve shamatha, fathom it, taste it, know it, until there's nothing more to be known. And there is a point at which you pretty well got it. Report an error in the passage at 37:47 Highlight the passage at 37:47

38:11 It's bliss, it's luminosity and non-kept sexuality. And you will see when you're resting there in the substrate, or the substrate consciousness, that although it's said to be non-conceptual, commonly said non-conceptual, it doesn't mean absolutely non-conceptual. It does mean that the coarse chit-chat of the mind, the concepts, what we're familiar with, that's gone dormant. But this is now also called subtle mind. Report an error in the passage at 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11

38:39 So coarse mind, familiar. Subtle mind is this very subtle mind, is this pristine awareness, also called the innate mind of clear light. And so when you're resting in this subtle mind, it's said to be, relatively speaking, non-conceptual. But is it totally non-conceptual? And the answer is definitely not. It is conceptual on a subliminal or very subtle level and in the following way. And that is, it's known for generations now, one of those extremely time-tested, intersubjective truths. Report an error in the passage at 38:39 Highlight the passage at 38:39

39:06 About this mode of practice and what comes out of it is that different people, again, by their own predilections, their own tendencies, their own preferences, as they're along that trajectory to shamatha, when they actually experience it, when they're resting in the substrate consciousness, then some really, among the three qualities, they really gravitate to, they cling more to the bliss than to the luminosity and the stillness or stability or non-conceptuality. Report an error in the passage at 39:06 Highlight the passage at 39:06

39:33 Some people identify with that and that very identification with, that preference, that clinging to, that is a form of grasping and that is conceptualization. And that is grasping. It's subtle but it's also very powerful. So some really gravitate there. They're experiencing all three but clearly they're leaning over towards the bliss. Report an error in the passage at 39:33 Highlight the passage at 39:33

39:52 That's what they cherish. They probably cherish that all along before they started meditating. As they weren't the thrill seekers, they didn't care that much about safety, but they really loved to just enjoy themselves, right? And then others, you probably figured out the rest, others really gravitate to the luminosity. Report an error in the passage at 39:52 Highlight the passage at 39:52

40:09 And these are the people looking for excitement, for thrills, for intensity, for vibrancy, danger seekers, extreme this, extreme that, people living on the edge. Some people just love that. And if they should ever get over it. Looking outside for that, going to shamatha to achieve shamatha, you know what they're going to cling to when they get there. It's going to be luminosity. And then others, the same thing. Report an error in the passage at 40:09 Highlight the passage at 40:09

40:33 What they're generally more oriented to is they like the peace and quiet, they like calm, they like security, they like simplicity. And they'll pay big money for it. And if they should get around to achieving shamatha and they get there, they're going to be clinging to the non-conceptuality. Report an error in the passage at 40:33 Highlight the passage at 40:33

40:50 So broadly speaking, if you achieve shamatha and then you cling to, identify, grasp to the bliss, and you just stay there and don't do anything more, that will just, you know, when you die, that will be, that karma will propel you off to a deva realm, to become a deva in the desire realm. And if you're clinging to the luminosity, that will propel you off to the form realm. And if you're clinging to the non-conceptuality, that will propel you off to the formless realm. Report an error in the passage at 40:50 Highlight the passage at 40:50

41:17 But wherever it's propelling you, it's just more saṃsāra. And so all of that is because there still is conceptualization, there's still grasping, there's still preference, there's still hope and fear on a very subtle level, but it's there. And so that's the limitation of shamatha, and that's why one brings in this investigation of origins, location and destination. Report an error in the passage at 41:17 Highlight the passage at 41:17

41:42 Now the first part, which is primary, if one really thinks, a very important point, It's a totally pragmatic point. It's not like you just have to follow the Buddhist catechism or get your dogma right. It's not that at all. But if one, very practically speaking, is aware of course of one's body, of one's speech, of one's mind, and one really thinks, well, actually the most important is my body. Report an error in the passage at 41:42 Highlight the passage at 41:42

42:06 I need to stay healthy. I want to be fit. I want to be attractive. I want to have a long life. I want to have a lot of vitality and so forth. If that's where the priority is, you're not going to achieve shamatha. You're going to work out a lot in the gym. Report an error in the passage at 42:06 Highlight the passage at 42:06

42:19 you know, and, you know. Really taking care of your appearance and so forth, because that's what really seems to make you happy. And there are millions of people like that. If you ask them, would you like to meditate, say, I'm sorry, I have no time, I have to go to the gym. Report an error in the passage at 42:19 Highlight the passage at 42:19

42:33 My wife goes to the gym, keeping fit, but I saw some people there, man, their bodies are great. Not like mine, I would keep covered up when I was there. you know. Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

42:45 But I see, you know, men my age, man, really good bodies, trim waist, and whoa, you know, so they can see, you know, they really put some time and effort into that. Report an error in the passage at 42:45 Highlight the passage at 42:45

42:55 I'm sure it gives them some satisfaction. Nothing wrong with that. But if that's where your priority is, that's what you're going to be busy with. And likewise, if speech, your articulation, communication skills, and so forth, if you consider that's your real excellence, that's your strength, you're going to spend all your time there. Report an error in the passage at 42:55 Highlight the passage at 42:55

43:11 On the computer, on the cell phone, on the text messaging, on this, on that. You're a communicator, right? You'll do that. That's very understandable. So if either of those two, if you're placing a greater priority, greater primacy on communication, your voice or your body, you're not going to get around a shamatha or if you do, it'll just be a mere pastime. Report an error in the passage at 43:11 Highlight the passage at 43:11

43:32 It'll be a little hobby on the side. So if one really would like to have a deep commitment, a lasting commitment. Cultivating, transforming, purifying, liberating and awakening the mind, then one needs to see its primary. And the other two will follow. And I said, do take care of the health. It's important. So that's why that's there. But then this point here is very interesting. We have a couple of minutes here. Because I have been trained fairly extensively in the prasangaka, the prasangamajamaka view and vipassanā within that context. Report an error in the passage at 43:32 Highlight the passage at 43:32

44:08 I've known for more than 40 years now that the first initial challenge is to identify the object of reputation, that you're refuting your inherent existence, the inherent existence of your mind, body and other phenomena, but you're not refuting yourself. And a lot of people who are introduced to Buddhism, they actually think, I mean, it's quite a number of them, I find it, especially in the Theravāda tradition, think that anatma or anattā means no self. Report an error in the passage at 44:08 Highlight the passage at 44:08

44:36 I find that quite quaint because they think they don't exist. Because they think the word I actually refers to nothing at all. Like the five skandhas, yes, but there is no self. Report an error in the passage at 44:36 Highlight the passage at 44:36

44:52 The Buddha actually never said that. He said the five skandhas are not the self. The Buddha never ever said there is no self. That's kind of an important point. And in fact there was a nun, I think she was a bhikkhuni, named Vajira. Vajira. Remember that one from the Pāli canon? And she was challenged by a Māra. Report an error in the passage at 44:52 Highlight the passage at 44:52

45:14 A Māra came to her. I'm paraphrasing here, but I'm quite sure it's she. And the Māra was challenging her about this whole notion of no self, no self. You're a nihilist. You're following nihilism. No self. And she says, no, it's not like that. Take the example of a chariot. And if you look at the axle, the wheels, the seat and so forth, you don't find the chariot here, you don't find the chariot there, not there. Report an error in the passage at 45:14 Highlight the passage at 45:14

45:40 There's no chariot in any of the individual parts. And moreover, if somebody, she didn't say this, but I'll add it, if you go online to Amazon and you want to buy a chariot and they give you a kit, a chariot kit, in a great big box with all the screws and all the parts and then a big manual you get to read, would you say when that big box with all the assembled parts, every single part there, would you say, oh good, a chariot arrived? Report an error in the passage at 45:40 Highlight the passage at 45:40

46:07 I don't think so. It's not a chariot. It's a bunch of parts. But they're all there. So the mere assembly of the parts, the fact that you have all the parts there, that doesn't make a chariot either. So the chariot's not equivalent to any one of the parts, nor is it equivalent to all of them together. Report an error in the passage at 46:07 Highlight the passage at 46:07

46:24 And the chariot, so what she was saying, this nun was saying is chariot, chariot. Well, we're not of course saying there are no chariots, that's just stupid. But we're saying, what we are saying is chariot is just a name. That's what a chariot is. It has only nominal existence, and that's in the Pāli Canon. Chariots do exist, but only by the process of naming, process of naming. Report an error in the passage at 46:24 Highlight the passage at 46:24

46:53 And we know that's true. If you can imagine watching from the chariot kit, if you imagine the various pieces being put together, put together, put together, at which point is it a chariot? Does it have to be the final screw? Does that have to be in before it's a chariot? Or maybe the final screw is not necessary. Report an error in the passage at 46:53 Highlight the passage at 46:53

47:15 After all, you look at him, that's a chariot, right? So maybe you don't need the final screw. But if you don't need the final screw, do you really need four wheels? Report an error in the passage at 47:15 Highlight the passage at 47:15

47:25 There's three wheel chariots. It would be unstable. But maybe you don't need four wheels. Do you need a seat? I don't think you need a seat. I don't think so necessarily. So now, you almost had a chariot, but then you start taking away pieces. How many pieces can you take away and it's still a chariot? Report an error in the passage at 47:25 Highlight the passage at 47:25

47:46 At what point you say, oh no, that's not a chariot. Oh, now it's a chariot. And all you've done is move a screw from here to there. Or move a seat from here to there. Now it's a chariot. No chariot. But you see, nothing's come into existence. You just move the seat from here to there. Or the wheel from there to there. Right? Report an error in the passage at 47:46 Highlight the passage at 47:46

48:06 I mean, a chariot with no wheels, that's not a chariot, is it? So you have all the wheels right here and the rest of the chariot completely finished. And the wheels are right there, right next to it. That's not a chariot. But then just move the wheel here and the wheel there and now there's a chariot. But nothing came into existence that wasn't there before. So the chariot's there when you say so. Report an error in the passage at 48:06 Highlight the passage at 48:06

48:28 Or one rather moving example of this. You've had a lot of fires here in Australia. We get quite a few in California too. There was one big forest fire some years back and burned a lot of houses. And one house was just utterly torched. All that remained was the stone chimney. The stone chimney. And the couple came to it. They're dealing with it. It happens. But they're looking at what remains of her house. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

48:58 And they said something like, and there's no humor implied here, well, our house got really damaged. Report an error in the passage at 48:58 Highlight the passage at 48:58

49:09 It's a chimney. A chimney is not a house. That's called a burnt-down house. Is a burnt-down house a house? They thought so. We just need to repair it. If they've got a house there, this is going to do some major repair, like add everything except for the chimney. Report an error in the passage at 49:09 Highlight the passage at 49:09

49:29 So it's cool. But is there a house there? To their minds, yes, because they remember what was there and they know what can be there, and they're just going to fill in the missing spaces, like the rest of the house. This is a severely damaged house. So you can break the door and it's a damaged house, or you can burn all but the chimney. That's a more damaged house, but it's still a house. Report an error in the passage at 49:29 Highlight the passage at 49:29

49:48 To other people, they say, that's a chimney. That's not a house, it's a chimney. Look, it's a chimney. It's a house if you say it's a house. And it's you if you say it's you. Because you're no more or less real than a house or a chariot. You're there if you say so. And if you stop saying so, that gets interesting. Let's read a tiny bit more. And on this point, His Holiness about a year, two years ago, suggested that I translate a text. Report an error in the passage at 49:48 Highlight the passage at 49:48

50:19 It was an anthology of essays on Dzogchen and Gulupa and Dzogchen and Prasangaka Madhyamaka, which I did. I finished the first draft. It was tough going. Very tactical, very high-level scholarship. And my sense is all of these scholars were galupa, because I can kind of tell the galupa vibe. And one of these scholars, they all have to be first-rate, otherwise the Dalai Lama would never have encouraged it to be translated. Report an error in the passage at 50:19 Highlight the passage at 50:19

50:43 It's a lot of work. But one very interesting thing came out. I mentioned in the galupa strategy, you identify the object of negation, and then you apply reasoning to it. We all know, everybody who studied, that's core, that's the strategy. Identify the object that is to be negated, and then you analyze it to see whether it's there or not. And when you see that it's not, and you identify the sheer absence of that, then that's emptiness of the self, the mind, or what have you. Report an error in the passage at 50:43 Highlight the passage at 50:43

51:09 Well, you see, that's not here. In fact, I've studied it, I've received teachings on, I've studied a number of pith instructions of Vipassanā within the Dzogchen tradition, and not a single one ever mentions an object of negation and then applying reasoning to it. They don't refute that, it's just not there. Report an error in the passage at 51:09 Highlight the passage at 51:09

51:26 And yet they certainly do have Vipassanā. This is a brief reference to Vipassanā. And there's a very interesting point, then we'll take our break for lunch, by a Galupa scholar, who really clearly knows his Galupa inside and out, but he was very erudite when he came to Dzogchen as well. He made this comment. And he said, the Vipassanā approach in Dzogchen is, first of all, you achieve shamatha on the mind. Report an error in the passage at 51:26 Highlight the passage at 51:26

51:51 In other words, your whole basis, your base camp now is different. Then practicing Vipassanā just by applying analysis and trying to find the object and more analysis. It's a different basis of operation. If you've achieved shamatha, as Pinchin Arbucci says, Pinchin Lozan Chukki Yansen, tutor of the fifth Dalai Lama, he said when you have achieved shamatha, and he's teaching exactly this method, then he said you have now identified the relative nature of your mind. Report an error in the passage at 51:51 Highlight the passage at 51:51

52:18 You've now, you've broken it down to its bare chassis, down to its core, down to its nucleus, not its inherent nature. But you now have your mind with no frills, no elaborations, no extras. This is just clear, straightforward, this is your flow of consciousness, this is your subtle mind. This is substrate consciousness, or they would call subtle continuum of mental consciousness. But he said, you have identified the relative nature of your mind. Report an error in the passage at 52:18 Highlight the passage at 52:18

52:46 Dujyom Lingba says virtually the same thing, actually has the same meaning. Now that you have ascertained your substrate consciousness, you have ascertained the essential nature of your mind. And he's not referring to rikpa or emptiness, he's referring to, now you know what mind is. You have identified the salient characteristics, the defining characteristics. Report an error in the passage at 52:46 Highlight the passage at 52:46

53:04 You've seen the mind in its nakedness, without all the configurations, male, female, human, old, young, etc., etc. You've got it naked. And you're resting there in this mind that can analyze, it can investigate, it's blissful, it's single-pointed, it's malleable, supple. That's a very special place to be. Report an error in the passage at 53:04 Highlight the passage at 53:04

53:25 And then from that vantage point, from that, we can only imagine it, if you haven't achieved it, but from that vantage point, then you investigate. Does this mind have an origin, location and destination? And that's enough. This Galupas scholar said, that'll do it. That nails the coffin of the reification of the mind from that platform. Report an error in the passage at 53:25 Highlight the passage at 53:25

53:47 Try to do the same thing without shamatha, it'll be a tougher road to hoe. I found that very interesting. Again, the complementarity between these two approaches is quite brilliant, really. Delightful and not at all disturbing or unsettling. In my mind, I'm absolutely at ease with it. So there we are. So enjoy your lunch and I'll see you at... I have to give you a little bit of prospective memory at 2.05. Report an error in the passage at 53:47 Highlight the passage at 53:47

54:11 See you then. Report an error in the passage at 54:11 Highlight the passage at 54:11