← B. Alan Wallace

Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 23)

B. Alan Wallace · 2015 · 1 h 14 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 0:58

    meditating on awareness or awareness on awareness. seems great, so there's nothing, that there's a residual of something impressive.

  • 1:52

    And no matter how much they change, they're all, because they're now seen as empty, they're all within, no matter how much they change, whatever arises, they're stored within awareness. But the awareness continues unchanged.

  • 4:36

    I would suggest that there are two aspects here, and one is blank in terms of, in that field of awareness, an absence of any explicit activity. But when, and I'm paraphrasing, and so if I'm paraphrasing wrong, then you can tell me I'm wrong. And I'll welcome that correction. But one may be just aware of awareness, but it's being blank, not in the sense that you're passing out. Becoming unconscious, not in the sense that you're no longer aware of being aware, but in that awareness of awareness there's nothing added to just the awareness in terms of some activity or some explicit appearances that are arising.

  • 10:54

    And the answer is yes. And that's viewing appearances from the perspective of pristine awareness. That's quite a challenge, but it's not for me to say that you didn't experience that, but I think I've given enough feedback to give you grist for your mill so that then you can take that hypothesis and put it to the test yourself.

  • 30:35

    Dead, then you move on to the clear light of death and then on into the bardo, but you don't get to come back. Whereas you go into shamatha, of course you come out of shamatha whenever you like, and you go back in whenever you like, it's a revolving door. Stay as long as you like, come out as long as you like, and then you see, boy, is this not dangerous? And that is you can slip right into that state which is the terminus of the dying process, but you go in perfectly healthy and you come out perfectly healthy.

0:18 So this time, any hands can go up, whether new or old hands. And we'll start with, if we can, start with emphasis on practice. We can get to theory a little bit later. And in the spirit of impartiality, I'm just going to swing left to right. So, swinging left, going left, going once, going twice. Report an error

0:40 Yes. Please. I feel I know you very well, but when I don't see you for a year, I forget your name. So please tell me again. My name is Donald. Donald. Thank you, Donald. Good to see you again. Report an error

0:58 meditating on awareness or awareness on awareness. Report an error

1:07 seems great, so there's nothing, that there's a residual of something impressive. Something? Yes. Something implicit, off stage, very awareness. And then at other times, everything is explicit. Awareness is there and it's full of appearances. Appearances as they normally appear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

1:52 And no matter how much they change, they're all, because they're now seen as empty, they're all within, Report an error

2:08 no matter how much they change, whatever arises, they're stored within awareness. But the awareness continues unchanged. Report an error

2:21 So my question is, really, whether that's anything right. Dijon was describing, or whether this whole thing or the sense did something completely off track. Yeah, very good, very good. There's Report an error

2:43 a basic principle. I'm going to start with a general statement and then go to specific. The general statement, if you want an exact source in prasangaka-majamaka, which is prasangaka-majamaka view, widely regarded as the pinnacle of Buddhist philosophical thought. Report an error

3:01 Immediate perceptions of appearances themselves, just the immediate contact, the immediate just that, you know, the contact, that it's never mistaken, just the awareness of the appearance themselves. Now, as an example, one of the Tibetan examples or Buddhist examples, if you have very strong hepatitis or jaundice, you may actually see something like a white snow mountain as yellow. Report an error

3:30 Well, you are seeing yellow. And so if you report, when I looked at the snow mountain, I saw it as yellow, that's a valid perception. It's a valid statement, you did see yellow. If you say, the snow mountain that I saw is yellow, that's a problem. So as long as you're simply describing appearances that are arising, whether it's a tingle in the knee or a background subliminal murmuring of awareness, as long as it's just a straight... Report an error

4:04 This is what I experience, and you try to find words for that, it would be very difficult to refute. And I listen a lot to people's meditative experiences, and I can't remember the last time I said, no, you didn't experience that. I can't remember saying that, you know, because I just assume they're not deceiving me. It would make no sense for people to come to deceive. So, that said, when practicing awareness and awareness, and you commented, if I'm paraphrasing correctly, it seems blank. Report an error

4:36 I would suggest that there are two aspects here, and one is blank in terms of, in that field of awareness, an absence of any explicit activity. But when, and I'm paraphrasing, and so if I'm paraphrasing wrong, then you can tell me I'm wrong. And I'll welcome that correction. But one may be just aware of awareness, but it's being blank, not in the sense that you're passing out. Report an error

5:02 Becoming unconscious, not in the sense that you're no longer aware of being aware, but in that awareness of awareness there's nothing added to just the awareness in terms of some activity or some explicit appearances that are arising. Does that happen? The answer is yes. Might sometimes appearances be subliminal or even just about on the verge of coming up, but not quite break the threshold into explicit consciousness? Report an error

5:31 The answer is yeah. Tsongkhapa, the great Tibetan master from the 14th, 15th century, he comments in the context of shamatha that when one has very well refined one's faculty of introspection, monitoring the flow of mindfulness, monitoring whether even subtle excitation, that is, this perturbation or agitation is arising or not, he comments that when you get very sharp there, I call it qualitative vividness, You're able to detect very subtle events taking place in the stream of consciousness. He said you may be able to become aware of a thought that is about to emerge and doesn't quite. Report an error

6:15 I found that to be true. I'm not the only one, it seems. And I've referred to this many times, and every time I do, now out of sheer habit, the image that comes to mind as an analogy is if one is gazing out over a very, very still pond, very, very still pond. And as you're looking out there, you see a fish that's just coming to the surface and doesn't quite break the surface. You'll see the water rise a little bit and then it goes right down again. Report an error

6:44 So something like that. I think it's a nice image. So all of that is true. And then on other occasions, as you said, as one is resting in this awareness of awareness, there's also an explicit emergence of and ascertainment of Appearances, contents, movements, and so forth. And those are clearly illuminated by, and when we say illuminated by, all that means is made manifest by. Report an error

7:15 Their appearances are made by, are made possible by this luminous aspect of consciousness. The luminous aspect of consciousness makes it possible for anything to appear at all. And so what you're seeing there is on the one hand, What I'm sensing is an unbroken flow of cognizance, the cognizance of simply being aware and not losing that, not falling unconscious or becoming oblivious of the fact that you're conscious. Report an error

7:42 That's an ongoing. But then as for the luminous aspect, sometimes it's not illuminating much, except for perhaps some subliminal movements of the mind. Report an error

7:56 And other times the activities that are arising in the field of awareness or of, of, yeah, of the mind. Report an error

8:00 are made explicit, and what you're seeing there are the expressions of the luminous aspect of consciousness. So we have these two aspects, cognizance and luminosity, and we're seeing sometimes more of one and sometimes more of the other. Final point, because it was quite a dense account you just gave, a lot of content, the final point of the, as one is attending to the appearances, the appearances, They do, just by nature, and I think this is very much our ubiquitous or ever-present experience of appearances, is they do tend to be in motion, in flux, changing, changing, changing, nothing really stable there in this field of appearances. Report an error

8:45 Relative to them, the flow of awareness itself may seem to be unchanging. So there's some subtlety there, and it would be interesting over time. To see if you can enhance what I call the temporal vividness of awareness. So qualitative vividness, you might recall, because I know you've been to a lot of my retreats, qualitative vividness is where you're able to detect very subtle events, like the subliminal movements of awareness, that's qualitative. Report an error

9:19 Temporal vividness, as you may recall from earlier retreats, is where you're able to detect extremely short, short events, very brief events. So your temporal resolution is getting finer and finer, right? And so as that occurs, and you are sustaining this cognizance of awareness, the awareness of awareness, attending to it very closely, enhancing that temporal vividness of your awareness, of the flow of awareness, you may find that instead of being unchanging, it's rather like an ongoing strobe light of very, very brief pulses. Report an error

9:59 Pulses, pulses, but quite continuous and quite homogenous on occasion. Sometimes it's not going here, there and here and there, but quite homogenous. Like when you're in the flow of awareness, of awareness, and there's little if any other appearances arising, then the later moments of awareness will be very similar to the prior ones. Report an error

10:18 And it may have a sense of being unchanging, just because you're not latching onto a wide variety of appearances that are coming, going, coming, going. So there's a possibility to check out. That it seems unchanging, but unchanging and continuous in a fluid homogenous fashion can easily be conflated. Report an error

10:40 So is it possible to be viewing these appearances from a perspective of awareness that is truly and utterly unchanging? And the answer is yes. And that's viewing appearances from the perspective of pristine awareness. Report an error

11:01 That's quite a challenge, but it's not for me to say that you didn't experience that, but I think I've given enough feedback to give you grist for your mill so that then you can take that hypothesis and put it to the test yourself. Report an error

11:16 Very good, very good. Okay. So I was going left to right. I'll swing around. You missed your chance. And so I'm going to swing around, but since there's only one on the left hemisphere, I'm going to swing right and probably circle around again. So going left to right, any questions or comments? Yes, please. Report an error

11:36 Tom, yes indeed. Yes, thank you Tom. What's up? Yeah, that's fine. I couldn't hear. Yeah, I understand, yeah. Report an error

11:58 I didn't understand that sentence. Just a comment about when he said that I do have a question. Yeah. Report an error

11:50 Sometimes a quick comment first... Something you said that you weren't sure it was still going to come out for Australia. Report an error

11:59 Sometimes I could say that you debate whether he's taught to keep on coming to Australia rather than sitting in your cabin. you have a half? To come to Australia. You were debating whether you would still come to Australia rather than sit in your Report an error

12:17 That's kind of an ongoing debate in my mind. Not specifically about Australia, but do I really need to go out? That's kind of like an ongoing question. But not picking on Australia, like I'm pooped out of Australia. That's not the case. It's just, do I need to come out at all? Why couldn't I just sit in my room and just do podcasts? That's a lot easier. Report an error

12:37 And the airfare. No airfare. And it's free. I'd offer it all for free. I wanted to encourage you to come in. Well, I thought, having encourage you to come, I thought, it's better for you to come here directly than to have us come and sitting outside in a hut. Report an error

12:56 Get my shotgun. Hey, trespassers. We have very loose gun laws in America. you know? Report an error

13:10 You're welcome. And I am joking about the gun. I don't have one. So your question then. I just want to make sure that I'm not fading and I'm being quite famous in my meditation. Good, good. And I feel like I've made some good progress at the moment. So earlier today, I've noticed this happening a couple of times when I'm really famous and I've noticed that all the color of the other vision. Report an error

13:35 The color vision, yes. There's no color, so everything fades to black, so I've got my eyes off. Yeah, yeah. I think it's just my focus back there. But I find it hard to tell when I'm being really bad or when I'm really being aware of this. Because when I'm, it's like it's so huge, it's so subtle and it seems to sit, if I had a position, it would sit somewhere here rather than at the front. Report an error

14:04 So any guides you have about about that and make sure I'm not being bad at the end. Yeah, good. Report an error

14:17 By the time we go into the inner sanctum of awareness, we've gone inwards when we're simply attending to the mind. That's already inwards, right? Because it's not out there in the sense fields, not out there in intersubjective reality. So let's say we're going inwards when we're attending to the thoughts and images arising in the mind, and then when we withdraw even from that, let's say, into the inner sanctum, where we're not even interested any longer for the time being. Report an error

14:40 In appearances, thoughts arising in the mind, but just going right into the nature of awareness of awareness. We're going right into the very nature of luminosity itself because consciousness, that's one of its two salient features. It illuminates, it makes manifest. So if we're going there and just resting there, then it's by nature clear, naturally clear. Report an error

15:05 Just like if you put your hand in fire, it's naturally hot. Hot's not something added or subtracted from fire. That's his nature. And consciousness is by nature luminous. At the same time, you can put a wet blanket over a fire, and that'll have an effect. And you can also shroud the luminosity of awareness, and it happens every time we fall asleep, unless you fall asleep lucidly. And so there's a bit of nuance here, in the sense that insofar as you're really resting in the awareness of awareness, and you're not identifying with... Report an error

15:39 That cognitive fusion business with what's arising in the mind because they are distinct. Otherwise this whole issue of remaining in the stillness of your awareness with emotions of mind wouldn't be possible because they would always be going together but they don't have to. And so here's an issue that might be relevant and that is if you're resting right there and truly just aware of what's coming up around awareness. Report an error

16:07 There may be kind of a dullness that arises, a dullness, a vagueness that arises, and you may have a very vivid awareness of that vagueness. Report an error

16:19 Now, if you cognitively fuse with that vagueness, dullness, laxity, torpor, etc., then your awareness is dull, but only because of the additive. Report an error

16:32 But if you can really rest, this is where we want this Teflon awareness that doesn't stick. To any of the agitations, the movements, but also the dullness and laxity of the mind. So this makes it possible in principle, and it does happen, for your mind to fall asleep and your awareness to remain clear and go right into lucid, dreamless sleep. Report an error

16:53 So this is an inside job, as they say. This is an inside job to determine, is my awareness becoming vague or not? In the final analysis, you're the only one that can make that call, unless you find some teacher who just has direct clairvoyance and tap right in to your mind stream. But until that happens, here's what I would suggest. When it comes to introspectively noting the occurrence or lack of excitation, not that difficult, because it's movement. Report an error

17:28 It's real movement. So it can be coarse excitation where you completely lose the object. It can be medium excitation where you've mostly lost the object but kind of staying in touch. And it can be subtle excitation when you're mostly on the object but there's noise, there's static, kind of drift, but you're still mostly on target. So that's not that difficult, not that subtle. Report an error

17:49 And one can talk about it very easily. I just gave some really nice analogies like drift on an old-fashioned radio. When it comes to laxity... Laxity, dullness, that spectrum is by nature subtler. And it's harder to simply convey in words. It's something you need to see introspectively and internally, relatively. Report an error

18:09 So here's what I'm getting at. And that is if, for example, at the start of a session, you feel quite light, your stomach's not heavy with a lot of heavy food in it, you feel cool, the mind is clear, you're fresh, you're not at all sleepy, and you start out with a lot of interest, and all systems go away. Report an error

18:27 All these good markers, right? And you sit down and maybe you're even in a sitting position. So the spine is straight, so you're ready to go. Let's give it a try here. And you go right in. Report an error

18:43 In those first seconds you can say, okay, that's my benchmark. The degree of clarity right then, that's about as good as it gets for the time being. I just right went in and here we go. Bang. Report an error

18:57 Okay, for me that's clear. So you kind of remember that. And then you see whether it's that good later on. And it's internal. But if you see it's not like that, then you've slipped into laxity. Okay? Report an error

19:14 To the right, to the right. Yes, please. Report an error

19:23 My name is Tom. I think you might have actually been saying that for me, Chris, because you were referring to him as Tom, but I'm actually Tom. And you are? Chris. Chris. Thank you, Chris. Yes, I did indeed. Thank you. Thank you for the correction. And Eric is behind Chris, by the way. Even though he's being a bit sneaky before anybody's hand up. Report an error

19:42 Go ahead. Tom, what's up? So I found this morning, so over this retreat, I think I've sort of progressed well, and I'm very enthused about my meditation, but I found some resistance this morning to the practices. Business? So resistance. Resistance, oh yeah. I found a bit of fighting. Yeah. Report an error

20:14 Going that deep into awareness of awareness. And if I may interject, can you articulate exactly what you were afraid of? Was there a referent of a fear? And I'm not saying there necessarily was. Sometimes there is and sometimes not. In this case, could you tell? Sort of. It's sort of... What Report an error

20:39 is the fear of losing control of a mental? Yeah. Which is sort of the point. Yeah, that's a realistic fear. Report an error

20:49 It could happen. When you release, release, release, give up all control, you might actually lose control. Yeah, it is. That's quite good. You're exactly right. Report an error

21:18 So, very good. Number one, you're in a lot of company for hundreds of years. It's a very, very common experience. Genlam Rimba, when he was leading this one-year retreat 27 years ago, right at the beginning, before people had hardly even gotten their feet wet yet, he said, well, now you're going to be spending a year practicing shamatha. Report an error

21:37 Some people were practicing awareness of awareness, others doing different methods. And he said, it will very likely happen over the course of this year. That you will experience some real fear, I mean strong fear, not just a little bit of uneasiness once in a while, but some real fear. It may be quite intense fear. Report an error

21:58 And he said when that occurs, it's very important that you observe the fear without simply cognitively fusing with it. That is, you simply note, it's very similar to the earlier issue of having a very clear awareness that your mind is becoming vague. Report an error

22:17 Having a very clear, serene, still, fearless awareness that fear is arising. Winston Churchill, the other thing we have to fear is fear itself, something like that. And so how can you do that? Because if you're stepping out into heavy traffic and you didn't notice a car whizzing around the corner, heading right towards you, and fear arises, that's really healthy. Report an error

22:42 It's a really good idea. It's an evolutionary response. We need that. It's very good. The blood goes from your head down into your big limbs so you can get out of there very, very quickly. And so that's the kind of fear that you want to take seriously and act upon it because you can really harm. You can be harmed. And so it's not a time to step out in traffic right in front of the car and say, I will simply watch the fear. You do that for a very short time and then you'll be watching the bardo. Report an error

23:10 And so the big issue here, the one important thing. Your fear is illegitimate in the sense of, yes, you are fearing something that is taking place or might very well take place soon. So that's true. But if that does take place, is taking place now or is taking place soon, is that in fact dangerous? Does harm lurk there? Now that's a real important issue. The car whizzing around the corner, yeah, harm lurks there. You'll be in the hospital very soon if you don't step back or dead. Report an error

23:45 Does harm lurk there? That's the question. How do you know? Well, if we take, and I mean, if with absolutely no deprecation, your question's perfectly good. But if a young child is afraid there's a boogeyman in the closet, you know, small children, three-year-old, four-year-old children, there's a boogeyman in there. Report an error

24:03 I think there's a bad man in my room. It's dark, and I think there's a bad man there. There's a ghost or a boogeyman or a monster. Then the loving parent will not ridicule the child, but say, well, let's check. Let's check. What do you think is in the closet? Let's take my hand. I've got a baseball bat here. Report an error

24:21 And let's step into the closet and turn the light on. And let's check together. But I'm right here with you. And they say, oh, let's check more carefully. Let's look between the coats. It might be in the shoe. Let's look really carefully here. And then, you know, dad's there. And then the child's fear probably dissipates quite quickly. Report an error

24:40 When you see, yes, the fear was there, that was very real, but in fact there was nothing there that could actually inflict harm. And so an analogy. So what to do with that? How do you take, you know, how does somebody take you by the hand and show you there's no boogeyman, no harm in that loss of control that is voluntary and you can take it back any time you like? Report an error

25:03 You should probably know that, that you can relinquish control. But at any time, if you want to take the reins back in your hands, That's how long it takes. But during that interval where you've lost control, which means you've surrendered, you've given up, you've voluntarily relinquished control, between that time and the time later on when you regain it, you feel you're back in charge of your mind, is there any danger there? Report an error

25:30 Is there anything that actually can harm? And the way to explore that is to go gently from the shallow end of the pool. And that is gently step into it with not feeling that you have to, no pain, no gain, not feeling pushy, not feeling aggressive, not feeling I'm not a chicken, you know, just gently go in and then see for yourself. Report an error

25:50 See for yourself whether any danger lurks in that stillness and in that darkness. And I think you've already figured out conceptually there isn't any. Report an error

26:03 There isn't any. And then very much on the contrary, that's one of the safest places you can go. Report an error

26:14 Now, just one footnote to that. It can be, as you go deeper and deeper, and you see that, well, this loss of control is pretty sweet. And, you know, just draw an analogy in a personal relationship. It could be a romantic relationship. It could be any kind of intimate relationship. If we are, by disposition, people who like to be in control, have the sense of security being in control, in control, and now we enter into a relationship where there's a lot of mutual dependence, A lot of intimacy, a lot of closeness. Then one may feel, well, I think I'm kind of maybe losing control here because I can't control this person. Report an error

26:59 And then that can be threatening at first until you find this is just delicious. With a person you trust and a person who trusts you and where there's mutual affection, then the very notion of I want to control you banishes. Report an error

27:20 But the deeper point here is as you go deeper and deeper into the practice and you're already getting into the sense, you're experiencing, you're tasting it, that this loss of control is sweet, it's loose, it's relaxed like never before, much more relaxed and soothing than being in control, which is kind of exhausting after a while. Report an error

27:39 But as you go into that, then something else may come up. And if one puts it into words, it's a sense, it can be phrased as a question. Report an error

27:50 If I go further, what will become of me? That's the classic phrasing. What will become of me? Because I feel I may be slipping into a space where there won't be me any longer. That I may disappear. And that has a certain resonance with death. And I don't want to die. Report an error

28:13 Yeah. that's actually how everyone has created the It was exactly that. Yeah. Well, that's also one more. It's the same theme now. It's the same theme. Yep, in fact, you're approaching the substrate consciousness and that's where you wind up when you're dead. Report an error

28:30 Now, when you're dead, of course, this means your body is either so old and worn out or it's injured or it's ill that you're not going to get it back. And when you're dead, you don't get this mind back, this mind that arises independence upon this brain. That'll be history, like worn out socks that you just throw away and you never get them again because they really are worn out. Why would you want to get them back again? Report an error

28:50 So it's irreversible, of course, in most cases. And there's subtlety that I won't go into. But that's when the brain is so damaged, the whole body is so damaged, that you're going to lose your mind and you're going to lose your sense of identity and you won't get it back. Because the body is going to be dead, irreversibly dead. Report an error

29:09 Whereas in shamatha, shamatha has never proven to be lethal or terminal. Because your body is perfectly healthy and your brain is perfectly healthy. you know. Report an error

29:22 And in fact, there's evidence from the Shamatha project that is actually very good for you in terms of the impact on telomeres. It slows the aging process. I mean, there's pretty strong evidence from that. Sarah Lazar found that people who are meditating regularly for a sustained period, less cortical thinning, so less likelihood of senile dementia, cognitive deterioration as you get older. Report an error

29:44 There's more and more data coming in that in this regard... In terms of brain activity, chromosomes, genes and so forth, meditation is really healthy for you. I don't need any persuading, because I know from my own first-person experience, but it's good to get scientific studies, because I certainly didn't know from my experience anything about telomeres. Report an error

30:05 Elizabeth Blackburn, and I read this morning, she's from Tasmania. The first and only Australian with a Nobel Prize, is that possible? But in any case, she has a Nobel Prize, I know her. She was on the Shamatha Project. And she's the one that did the telomere study. In any case, when you're moving towards shamatha, you're moving along the final stages, seven, eight, nine, and then on to shamatha, it is slipping right into that state of consciousness, which is where you arrive when you're dead. Report an error

30:35 Dead, then you move on to the clear light of death and then on into the bardo, but you don't get to come back. Whereas you go into shamatha, of course you come out of shamatha whenever you like, and you go back in whenever you like, it's a revolving door. Stay as long as you like, come out as long as you like, and then you see, boy, is this not dangerous? Report an error

30:53 And that is you can slip right into that state which is the terminus of the dying process, but you go in perfectly healthy and you come out perfectly healthy. And you say, whoa, yep, I disappeared. My constructed, ordinary, habitual, very familiar sense of identity was completely vanished, dissolved. Report an error

31:11 Evaporated away, and boy was that nice. And you know it for yourself. But it's not one of these existential plunges, like somebody throwing off a cliff into the abyss of the substrate conscious. It doesn't happen that way. You slip into it, you get spikes, you get flashes, you get intimations, and then coarse mind comes in again, and then you go in and get the same thing. Report an error

31:34 So this is not a violent path, the path of shamatha. It's really not violent at all. Insofar as any violence comes up at all, It's not created by your shamatha practice. It's certainly not created by the substrate consciousness. It's any upheavals, when I say violence, upheavals of very, very strong emotions coming up, grief, fear, sadness, hatred, lust and so forth. Report an error

31:57 That's not caused by shamatha and not caused by the substrate consciousness. It's what's being catalyzed that was already there and coming to the light of consciousness. Then you face that and you make your way through it. And when you come out the other side, your mind is much, much healthier. You've done some very, very deep, let's say, depth psychology on your own mind of dredging the depths, having them come to light and having them resolve themselves. Report an error

32:22 So it's extremely healthy. So we see physically telomeres, cortical thinning and all of that, physically healthy. Nervous system, really good idea. And then psychologically and neurophysiologically, it's a very healthy thing to do, Shama. When done correctly. And I think you are. Okay? Very good. You're welcome, Tom. Scan me to the right. Yes, please. My Report an error

32:54 name is Angela. Angela, hi. We have two Angelas here, at least. Yeah. We're going to page 16 of the text. Other slaving, me, self-knowing, self-alumination, false, there's genuine, christine awareness. Yes. And you, earlier before lunch, you were speaking about the rough, having the wrong view, and others just sit there, but they don't. Report an error

33:19 Go to the next step and then break through. Is break through always a downward motion? Any type of imagery like that is bound to be misleading, whether one says, is it ascending upwards to pristine awareness or going laterally or going down at an angle or down. Any of those, of course, are going to be poetic at best because you're not going in any direction, right? Having said, so there's fact. Report an error

33:48 It's not really going down someplace, like in an elevator or something like that, on the one hand. On the other hand, this phrase comes up a lot, and that is, now back to shamatha, so we're just going to step back for a moment, but back to shamatha, and this comes in repeated, and I've translated all this work, so I know how many times it's come up, a lot, and that is when you're following this trajectory from your ordinary coarse mind, And then that's dissolving, melting into the substrate consciousness until eventually you actually achieve shamatha and you're totally resting there. Report an error

34:25 Repeatedly, Dujyum Lingva refers to, or Padmasambhava refers to this as the descent to the ground. The descent to the ground, which is the relative ground of the substrate, the descent to the substrate consciousness. That word is used. Bapa. Bapa means to fall, to descend. And they never say ascend to it or that you kind of scuttle off to the side. Report an error

34:45 It's always dissent. And so there it is. Well, is that a metaphor? Well, of course it is, because your substrate consciousness is not literally below your coarse mind. At the same time, Freud is only one of many, many people that speaks of the subconscious, not the superconscious, but the subconscious, which implies sub, like submarine, it's beneath. Report an error

35:08 And so that metaphor comes up there a lot. And why would it? Well, If the sense of release, I sometimes think of it as a fly that's trapped with its legs up in a spider web, right? And it's upside down like that. And if it can just release, Report an error

35:32 it'll descend. If it can just get its feet unstuck from the spider web, it'll go like that. And that is the feeling. But the really good news, coming back to Tom's point, Is if you're on the, let's say, the underside of an airplane and you're holding on, airplane up in the sky, and you're holding on and after a while you can't hold on anymore, and you go, well it's nice for a while, and then it's not. Report an error

36:02 And the big difference between falling out of an airplane and descending into the substrate is in the substrate you never hit. There's no impact. Because that's space. And so it's like going to free fall, and that's the end of the story. You're just there. In space, gravity free. Now as for the cutting through, poetically, metaphorically speaking, sure, you can still say descent. Report an error

36:32 And the reason for that is this substrate and hyphen substrate consciousness, these are the relative ground, as you well know now. And they call it Mavanga, the ground of becoming, becoming, the ground from which. Your thoughts, emotions, memories and so forth emerge and into which then they descend. They go back into dormant state, into an implicit state when you fall deep asleep. And so the word ground is there. Report an error

36:57 Or kun ji, all foundation, all basis. You're coming back to the basis. Well, basis always implies something beneath. So that's the relative level. But then, as he said about a page or two ago, you must recognize ground pristine awareness. I think it was a Dakini that said that. You must identify. This is good, but it's not enough. You need to go further. You must identify ground pristine awareness. I think I have that pretty close to verbatim. Did I, Pema? Report an error

37:26 I'm not sure, sorry. Okay, but it's there. It's there. It's either that or something very, very close. You must not simply observe thoughts, not simply rest in the luminosity and cognizance of awareness, of consciousness, all good, but keep going. And where to go, where to keep going is identify ground pristine awareness. Well, when you say ground, That doesn't mean something above you. Ground is the same word. It's ground as in basis, as foundation. Report an error

37:55 And so, yes, you're coming to the ultimate ground. The ultimate ground. And it's called that. Ground of being and so forth. But then the ground of being, instead of being made out of dirt or granite, the ground of being, of course, is space. Report an error

38:12 But not the space of the substrate. That's relative ground. Space as in absolute space of phenomena. Dhamma Datu. So in that we get, sure, we can speak then poetically, metaphorically, allegorically of descending, releasing, releasing into the Report an error

38:34 ground, the absolute space of phenomena, primordial consciousness, which is space, without center, without periphery, and yeah, you've come home, you've come to the ground, and the ground is space. So sure, in a manner of speaking, yeah. Report an error

38:59 Stage left. Yes, Charles. Yes, Charles, there's a wee tad to your left, we'll get to you next. Report an error

39:26 we talk about dreams, we're saying what we're really meaning is ourselves, you know, as our mind. So I'm in a dream. some of the person and that that other person is just something that struck me by my mind, so there's no real communication with the real, actual other person in my face. No real actual communication with a person with another mind stream separate from your own. Generally speaking, generally speaking. Report an error

39:55 Yeah. Report an error

40:07 that experience really a bit more fun. trapped in your own And then I read about having a point in our vision and dreams, is it that's pointing out today? It's not something that's coming from its own substrate, surely it's something that you Report an error

40:30 going to come from some diva that I'm just seeing the contest and I'm just seeing the awareness, so I just thought that I'd ask about. Sure. Sure. So there are general comments which I often make about the dreams and I often just throw in the caveat in ordinary dreams or by and large or normal dreams and in normal dreams Report an error

40:54 Run-of-the-mill, that everybody you meet in the dream, they're all expressions of the society of your own mind. And it may be a very interesting full neighborhood with a gangster and a saint and a pickpocket and a mother and babies. And the fascinating thing about it, this is just an ordinary dream and doesn't even have to be a lucid dream, although it can be lucid as well. And it's most interesting when it's lucid. Report an error

41:21 That was actually the second dream that I had that I've referred to so many times in the diner. Just not knowing how people are going to respond. And you're lucid. That is just flat out bizarre. Because you know these are not actual other people who have dropped into your substrate. You know, like they left home and now their own minds are vacant. Report an error

41:44 Vacancy, I'm hanging out in Alan's mind for a while. I wouldn't advise it actually. Even if it were possible. But that is a very bizarre aspect of it, that you don't know what they're going to say, even if you're lucid. And so this term from Marvin Minsky, the society of mind, well, it's never more evident than in a lucid dream where you're having conversations with people and you don't know what they're going to say. Report an error

42:10 And they can surprise you or they can do things that are utterly unexpected. So that is all very interesting. And that's for the... Now, can it ever happen, can it ever happen, especially for a person like Dujung Lingva, that you might have access within the context of a dream, not even necessarily lucid, although lucid would make it more straightforward. Report an error

42:33 Is it possible, in principle, to be in the midst of a dream and to encounter someone who does have a separate mind stream from their own? Yeah, it's possible. Report an error

42:47 In advanced practices of a dream yoga, as explained for example in Natural Liberation, which I taught quite extensively last summer in Phuket, advanced stages of that, might you in a dream actually go to Sukhavati, a pure land, and actually receive teachings from Amitabha? Yeah, it's possible. And it's not the pure land that you perceive and the Amitabha, so this Buddha of discerning primordial consciousness, Report an error

43:18 The teachings you receive are not simply constructs, fabrications of your substrate. If you're an ordinary person and you've not had that kind of purity and so forth, then the appearance of Amitabha could arise. And that could be really 100 % a concoction. Could be. And whatever that person says might be just what you think Amitabha would probably say if you met him. Report an error

43:49 It can become total baloney. And so this is why there's a lot of caution. If the appearance of your guru or a Buddha or God or anybody appears in your dream, listen to it with a lot of discernment because there's no guarantee. And so I've met a number of accomplished yogis in my lifetime and one of them was a couple of years ago. You've probably heard it because I've referred to it a number of times. Report an error

44:13 This yogi from Tibet who did the burning? Oh, you don't know? Okay, I'll tell the story. Because it's relevant here. It's a very good story. Report an error

44:24 About a bit more than two years ago, it was kind of like May two years ago, I believe, I was contacted by some Dharma friends of mine up in Vancouver, and they said that their Lama, who's actually based in Oregon, so again on the west coast, a Lama really from Tibet, he wasn't a refugee, he came directly from Tibet to the west, made a Dharma center, very traditional, incredibly sweet Nyingma Lama. Report an error

44:47 So he has a center there. And this Nyingma Lama, I got to know pretty well. He wanted to find some yogis in Tibet who would still clearly manifest, show, demonstrate, siddhis. Just show it. Don't be coy. No, just show it. And he had to look around a bit because there are not that many. If they have the ability, they don't show it and many don't have the ability. Report an error

45:17 But he found one and he told me, He told me about it. He said, I did meet one yogi, a wild yogi back in Tibet, you know, the outback, really rough country. And I did meet one yogi who clearly had siddhis. And I saw him demonstrate it. And this yogi, kind of wild, crazy yogi type, you know, but genuine, but behavior very unpredictable. Report an error

45:45 This yogi, he saw him with some layperson, I think. He saw the yogi. Pull out a gun and shoot this guy. Report an error

45:57 Fell down. And then the yogi came over and just went like that. And the guy got up, perfectly healthy. And then he hopped on his horse and ran away as fast as he could. Report an error

46:09 And so this Lama from Oregon, he said, I saw that. And I didn't want to hang around. I didn't want to hang out with him. You know, even if he can heal me, you know, do something miraculous, I don't really want to be shot. You know, cool, but kind of from a distance. So he said, well, I think next. Report an error

46:27 And then he found this Lama, Lama Karma Gyume Rinpoche. Lama Karma Gyume Rinpoche. Excuse me. And he had become quite well known in Tibet and in China, in Beijing and Shanghai, because he had a city that he demonstrated very publicly. And he also told exactly how he got it. And the story is interesting. And it's relevant to the dreams. So this is a tangent, but it's not just rambling. And so this Lama Karma Gyume, he was one hardcore meditator. Report an error

46:59 Really intense. And some years ago, maybe 15 years ago, 16, 17 years ago, he found an empty cave at Samye Chingpuk. And Samye Chingpuk is a valley with a lot of caves, 108 caves, where the disciples of Padmasambhava had been meditating 1,200 years ago. He found an empty cave, he moved in, and he spent nine years in the cave. Nine years in the cave. Very austere. Very, very austere. Report an error

47:25 And very intense focus, focused practice. And one major aspect of his practice was focusing on Padmasambhava, seeking to really actualize Padmasambhava and to lead to a direct encounter. Nine years. Nine years. And I heard this from the Lama's lips and through a very good interpreter. He had a calm dialect. I had a little bit hard. I could understand about 50 % of what he said. Report an error

47:47 But his interpreter is first rate, Bodhini's fellow. And so I did meet this Lama in Vancouver about two years ago. And so he was telling. That's exactly what had happened, totally transparent, candid. And he said, so after about nine years in retreat, then I had a dream. And here's his phrasing. In the dream, I saw the appearance of Padmasambhava. He didn't say, I saw Padmasambhava. I saw the appearance of Padmasambhava. Report an error

48:18 And in this dream, this one who appeared as Padmasambhava came to me and he had next to him a big cauldron of fire, a cauldron But inside the cauldron, just bonfire. And this apparition of Padmasambhava, I've already explained that, he took me by the hair and he lifted me up and then put me inside the cauldron in this bonfire. Report an error

48:47 And so I was there and I was incinerated down to atoms. It just completely disintegrated my whole physical presence there. Report an error

48:57 And then Padmasambhava reached in again and pulled me out. Intact. And then he commented to me, your samādhi is quite stable. And Report an error

49:13 then he gave him a boon. He gave him a boon, a city. And when the yogi woke up, his cave is probably a very, very simple, austere cave. And there's not much there. And so he noticed on the cave floor there was a stone, like an obsidian stone, like a polished, dark. Glossy, small stone about the size of your baby fingertip. That had not been there before. And so he thought, well, that may be something quite significant. Report an error

49:44 So he kept the stone, and he found it was significant, and he mounted it on a little handle, like ornamental little handle, like one of those delicate little teaspoons, you know, like spoon, but cute little handle. It's exactly like that. Nice silver little handle, mounted and kind of like that, and then embedded in. Report an error

50:04 But what he found from that point is that he had an ability that he did not have before. And this is what he was demonstrating all over China and Tibet and thousands and thousands of people had seen him do it. And this Lama, I think his name is Lama Chanchup, then saw this and said, well, you're the real thing and you're not scary. Would you be willing to come to the West? Report an error

50:28 Because I feel, Lama Chanchup said from Oregon, he said, I feel it's important that people in the West, including scientists, That they see there are among us people who can really demonstrate things that defy all of their laws and understanding of the physical universe. And Lama Karmagyuma said, yeah, I'd be happy to come. Report an error

50:46 And yes, I'll make this very public. And if any scientists want to examine what I'm doing to see whether it's, you know, hidden strings and hocus pocus, you know, phony baloney, let them come. Absolutely transparent. And so only a few days before he's coming, like five days before his arrival in Vancouver, British Columbia. Report an error

51:02 Then students of this Lama contacted me because they knew I had done a lot in terms of interface between Buddhism and science and said, Alan, can you find some scientist who at basically the drop of a hat can come up to Vancouver and they can do any measurements they like and study this in any way to see whether this Lama is really doing what he seems to be doing. Report an error

51:22 So I checked with some and they're just all busy. They weren't being dogmatic or anything like that. Scientists are busy. And they just couldn't drop everything in three days and just fly up to Vancouver. So no harm, no foul, but they couldn't come. So then I wrote back and said, can I come? Report an error

51:38 I'd like to see that. And so I said, sure, sure, come up, come up, come up. Because apart from me, the only people allowed there were disciples of Lama Tsongkhapa. So I was kind of allowed to come in as an outsider. Report an error

51:53 So... So the Lama told this whole story, and this was the first night. He was speaking to about 40 students in a room in a hotel convention kind of place, and told this whole story, and how he had been healing people. What he was able to do, and what I saw multiple times, was he would, number one, he'd just go into samādhi, and if anybody was ever obviously in samādhi, it was this yogi. Report an error

52:19 When he went to samādhi, you can't imagine there's anything else happening, and he's really in deep samādhi. I can't really explain why, but it's kind of like, whoa, he must be in deep samādhi. And so he goes into samādhi, and then he comes out sufficiently to take this black stone, small black stone, and puts it in his mouth. Report an error

52:36 So he's now like a kid with a sucker, like that. But then he goes into samādhi again, with now the stone in his mouth. And then he takes it out of his mouth. And at this point, he asked before he did this, before he started demonstrating what he could do, he said, I can be here for two days, tonight and then all of tomorrow. Report an error

52:57 And any of you who can't be here tomorrow, because of other commitments, then please come tonight and let me know where your physical problem is, because he's coming here as a healer. So is it a head problem? Is it an abdominal problem? Is it a back problem? And he had in classes, in groups. Here are the head people, here are the abdominals, and so forth. Report an error

53:15 And then... So he's going to Samādhi and then one by one, that night I just watched because I was able to stay for another day or two. And so what I watched was he would put this stone into his mouth and then he would take it out and he would scan, all I can say, I'm seeing from the outside, but he's scanning the person's body to see where to place the stone. Report an error

53:41 And then he would place the stone on the skin and the stone would be so hot it would melt the skin. It would be estimated between 1,000 and 2,000 degrees, coming straight out of his mouth. And you'd see smoke rising, and you'd see the skin melt. It would turn white and melt. And he'd do it sometimes repeatedly on the back or the abdomen or whatever, sometimes soles of the feet. I saw that. Report an error

54:04 And so I watched this all from afar, and I watched people, when it hit, you could see they're experiencing really intense heat. It's not pretend heat. It's real heat, and the skin is melting, and smoke is coming up. So I watched that take place. And then the next day, there were maybe 30 people or so that were to come to his room in the hotel. Report an error

54:27 And I was asked to go first. And so I did. So then I had my turn, the first thing the next morning. And I've had some very, very chronic kind of blockage in my gut. And so he took one look at me. So I went in there and there was Lama Chanchu, there was the interpreter, Sunam, and then myself. And I went in, and he looked at me and said, something in the gut, yeah? And I said, yeah, yeah. And then he said, okay, tell me where. Report an error

54:55 And I pointed areas of, you know, where the problem was. And he said, got it. So then he was sitting on his bed, and then they asked me just to take off my shirt, just so this would be bare. And then he, sitting on his bed, he put the stone in his mouth, went into samādhi. Sunam, who had done this probably hundreds of times, because he travels with him around Tibet and China. Report an error

55:17 Sunam says, I'll hold you. So he came behind me and put his arms underneath my armpits, holding like this. He said, you'll want this. So he's holding me firmly. My shirt is off now and I'm coming over. And then the Lama comes out of his Samādhi and then places the stone on the skin. And I've never experienced anything quite like it, in the sense it was like being a calf that was getting branded. Report an error

55:47 It was that kind of intensity, extreme hot heat and very local. And Lama Chanju videotaped the whole thing because he was watching and Sunam was behind me, holding me, so I wouldn't go into convulsions. And it went in and Lama Chanju saw smoke arising from my body and he watched the skin melt. I was basically very tense. Report an error

56:14 And then he went from one place to another to another. I had to put it up to another five times on my belly and each time burned a hole through my skin. The skin melted. It turned white. It just turned white. Report an error

56:31 So that was real heat. But after about three times, he needed to recharge the stone. He needed to recharge the stone. He'd put it back in his mouth, but he would wipe the dead skin off the stone first, the skin that had just melted. He'd take out a handkerchief and take the skin off and then put it in his mouth. He'd go into Samādhi again. He'd bring it out, but he would also show, like the Dalai Lama here, he'd show his tongue. Report an error

57:01 One of the happiest tongues I've ever seen in my life. Pink, healthy, nothing. It was right on his tongue. And that was just a perfectly happy, pink, healthy tongue. He takes it out of his mouth, put it on my skin and it's 2,000 degree. He puts it back into his mouth, recharges it. So I think he'd recharge it once or twice. Report an error

57:22 So he did it five times. And the interesting thing about it was that I saw, I've seen a number of times the video of me, of me while this is happening. And it was the strangest thing because it was intensely painful and very local and my face is smiling. My face is smiling. I'm just basically drinking this in and having a lot of faith in Padmasambhava. So it was physical, intense pain and mine quite happy, actually. Report an error

57:53 Simultaneously. I've never experienced such a strong distinction between physical and mental being so different. But what was further interesting was that as soon as he stopped, as soon as he did the last burn and took it off, there was no pain. There was no pain. And we all know what it's like to burn a finger on a hot stove. It burns and it burns and it burns. It really hurts for a long time after that. This didn't. Report an error

58:17 There was no pain afterwards at all. And so the Lama told me... Don't clean it, don't touch it, you can take showers, but don't do anything with it, and just let it do its thing. And so for about six months, eight months, twelve months, afterwards I had, at first it was all white, for about, I don't know, some weeks? Report an error

58:37 It was white. It just burned to fluid, kind of fluidish. And then gradually scarred over. And then, as the months have gone by, Then the scars have faded. This one's still pretty strong. This one used to be a great big round one. That's faded. This one's almost gone. That was a great big scar. This one's still there. There's one down here about like this. Those are the leftovers. That's two years later. Two years later. So he has healed thousands of people that way, in China especially. Report an error

59:13 He's coming back to the West, I think, next year. So all of that is an interesting story. But it is something I saw from myself, and I have to say it is simply inconceivable to me how what he did could have been a trick. Report an error

59:29 I mean, wires forget about it. We're not stupid. It's a spoon with a stone. And he did what he did. I can't imagine the scientist showing, aha, we figured it out. There's nothing to figure out. I've seen something else with a Taoist master. He also had received treatment. And he was doing that with just pure flow of qi. Report an error

59:51 He was doing it with his hands. And what he could do with his hands was the heat that he applied to my skin was so intense, he didn't speak English. He said, if it gets so intense heat that you can't stand it, just say, stop, he said through an interpreter. And I wanted as much as I can, I want to be macho, you know, I want to be like an Australian. So I would take as much as I could from this Taoist master, Qigong master, and so I'd have to say, stop, and then he'd lift off again. Report an error

1:00:18 But that was just flowing qi through his hands. That's very intense. So all of that was a tangent from dreams. So to wrap that up, but it is interesting, and you may be wondering, did it help? And the Lama told me I need to take three more sessions. So it wasn't quite as violent as getting shot, but I'm not really looking forward to the next time either. Report an error

1:00:42 We'll see. We'll see. But I know he's cured many, many people, and he's not a charlatan. And what really impressed me about him is his absolute purity. He's just a monk's monk. He said the one thing he dreaded more than anything else that might possibly happen is that he might break any of his monastic precepts. Report an error

1:01:00 So he's a monk, he's a bodhisattva, he's a vajrayana practitioner, highly accomplished. But it was his foundation, the monastic precepts, that he said, I'm cherishing those more than my life. And he really embodied that. And Sunam Topgya, his interpreter, I got to know him a bit. And incredibly good interpreter and fine man. Lives up in Canada. Report an error

1:01:20 And he said, I've been with this Lama month after month after month in a wide variety of circumstances. And this one, there is no difference between him on the inside and the outside. He's always this way. He never varies from just impeccable conduct. This is the real Lama. This is the real thing. And I'm sure he's not unique, but I have a lot of respect for Sunam. And this Lama, whether he could heal me on that occasion, that doesn't actually happen. Report an error

1:01:49 Much of an impact one way or another on my respect for him. He's really pure soul. So that did happen. So I would say he was being very careful, very cautious, but I would say, well, that was probably Padmasambhava and not some apparition of his substrate consciousness. Report an error

1:02:08 You're welcome. A longer answer than you expected. Yes, behind you, please. And that'll be it for tonight. Report an error

1:02:23 Salim? Salim. Salim. Salim. Yes, thank you. Report an error

1:02:31 All good. I missed that. Report an error

1:02:43 I want to understand every word and I'm not. And so can you articulate more clearly or maybe somebody can just... Subjectivity, got it. It's not about self-identity, but what I found Report an error

1:02:58 to get rid can we? Report an error

1:03:08 objection is, and it's what it is, you know? Right. Report an error

1:03:15 get rid of the sense of subjectivity, because there have to be some subjectivity. Sure. Very good. I have understood. I'm very glad. Yes, excellent. I think I understood every word. Report an error

1:03:29 So, to pinpoint the question, do we need to get rid of subjectivity? Is it even possible? And the answer is no and no. And that is, is it Dharmakaya? So now let's go right to the top of the mountain. Dharmakaya, is that a subject? Yeah, it's consciousness, a state of consciousness. Yes, it is. We don't want to get rid of subjectivity any more than we want to get rid of objectivity. Report an error

1:03:57 If objectivity refers to the world of objects, the strategy here is not to annihilate the physical world and have no more objects. So if that doesn't make any sense, and it clearly doesn't, that to achieve enlightenment would be to annihilate the universe, if that doesn't make any sense, which it clearly doesn't, then it makes no more sense to think that enlightenment must be... Report an error

1:04:17 Eliminating subjectivity and leaving objectivity behind. Because after all, subject-object, subjectivity-objectivity, these have exactly the same relationship as, or, I mean, very closely analogous relationship to left and right, up and down, yes and no, existence and non-existence. That is, if you take away one, you don't have the other. If there's no object, there's no subject. If there's no subject, there's no object. Report an error

1:04:48 So that's that. Object to remain after enlightenment, subject to remain after enlightenment. So then what's the issue? Why is he beefing so much, to put it in a vernacular? Why is he beefing so much about dualistic grasping? And the answer is, the problem is not in experiencing a subject and an object, because I'm a subject, as the Buddha did not refute people, and he did not refute I. Report an error

1:05:18 Well, I'm a subject, and you are for me an object, and I for you am an object. So just as the Buddha never refuted I, nor did the Buddha ever refute subjects or objects, so where's the problem? Well, it's probably self-evident. The problem is not that I exist, because we're not trying to obliterate or annihilate I, but we are seeking to stop reifying it, grasping onto its inherent, autonomous, self-existent nature. Report an error

1:05:50 Because that's not how we exist. I do exist. But this person, this sentient being, okay, just ordinary, Alan Wallace, do I exist? Of course I exist. And how do I exist? In profound interdependence with the environment relative to conceptual designation. As I've mentioned earlier, relative to one ten-year-old boy, I'm grandfather. To one woman, I'm husband. To some students, some people, I'm... Report an error

1:06:15 To others, I'm Lama. To others, I'm a customer. To others, I'm a passenger. To others, I'm a son. To others, I'm a brother. And all of those are true, but then none of those are autonomously true. Report an error

1:06:26 None of them are. I'm not a passenger if there's no airplane, or if I'm not traveling anywhere. I'm not a grandfather without a grandson. I'm not a spouse without a spouse, and so forth. And so I arise, and of course I like everybody else, I arise in multiple ways, always relative to context and relative to conceptual designation. Report an error

1:06:45 Having that merely nominal existence, I'm doing all kinds of stuff. Like right now, I'm responding to the final question for tonight. And yet, is there someone really here, autonomously, from my side, responding to your question, you existing over there from your side, autonomously, is any subject to be found? Report an error

1:07:02 No. Over there, where you are, is an object to be found from your own side? No. So, absolutely, inherently, intrinsically, from our own side, no. No subject, no object. But that's not a problem. If I did exist in that fashion, and here's the implication, we're going to get to that tomorrow, but by implication, it's not manifestly obvious, but if one probes deeper, it might become explicit. Report an error

1:07:29 If I did exist in that way, as really something, someone, some person, an agent, autonomous, self-existent, intrinsically having my body and having my mind and my thoughts, and I got them in this titanium, absolutely real grip. That this is me, and this is my body, and this is mine. If I exist in that way, and you exist in that way, we could have no communication. Report an error

1:07:56 There couldn't be any interrelationship. Because I'd be totally wrapped up in my intrinsic, separate, absolute identity, and you'd be wrapped up in yours, and there couldn't be any communication. I couldn't influence you, you couldn't influence me. By implication. It's not obvious, but I'm quite persuaded that is true. Report an error

1:08:14 And so as with I and so with you, so with atoms, so with galaxies. They don't exist by their own intrinsic nature. But are we as Buddhist meditators seeking to annihilate atoms? That'd be silly. The answer is no. So we're not seeking to annihilate anything that does exist, except ignorance. But even there it's interesting. And I'll end on this note. If we look at this question, mental afflictions, 84,000 of them. Report an error

1:08:43 Boil it down to make it simple. Three. Three poisons, delusion, craving, hostility. If you look in the foundational teachings, the Pāli Canon, look in Mahāyāna, when you become an Arhat, it said the continuum of mental afflictions together with their seeds are terminated. Report an error

1:09:05 They're no more. They're no more. They were and now they aren't. And they never come back again. They're burnt, they're terminated, they're obliterated together with their seeds. Nothing you can ever do to an arhat, let alone to a Buddha, to get them angry, lustful, indignant, and so forth. You can't do it. It doesn't matter what you do to them. Report an error

1:09:25 You cannot arouse a mental affliction if they've been terminated. So that's the sutrayana view. So it would imply then that something can become nothing. Because anger is something. Anger is really something. It has causal efficacy. It's as real as anything else, isn't it? Anger and greed and hatred and so forth and so on. Boy, they're about as something as anything can be. They exist as much as anything does. Just look at all the world wars. They have very great causal efficacy. Report an error

1:09:57 So they are something. But the Sutrayana view is, when you become an Arhat, they become nothing. They're terminated. Like that. Cut. But then you go to Vajrayana, and for example in the Dzogchen, and you see, no, they're actually not terminated. Nor do you have deluded, angry, lustful Buddhas. And they're not terminated. So how did that play out? Well, as in the manner of water crystallizing into ice, pristine awareness, of course, is metaphor, pristine awareness crystallizing into a dualistic mind that is reifying subject and reifying object. Report an error

1:10:38 As with that, so if you view delusion, let's take the root mental affliction, if you view delusion... From the perspective of pristine awareness, which you can. Just like you can be very, very clear, have extremely clear awareness of the mind being vague, right? You can see, oh, my mind is very vague, my mind is very sleepy, very mobile, very... you can. Well, you can view delusion from the perspective of pristine awareness. Report an error

1:11:08 And what does it look like? What does delusion look like from the perspective of pristine awareness? Primordial consciousness is the absolute space of phenomena, one of the five primordial wisdoms. That's what it looks like from there. And so when you become freed, when you become Buddha, for example, then delusion, the crystallized manifestation of delusion as delusion, as a toxin, it melts and it dissolves back into that from which it arose. Report an error

1:11:43 And that from which it arose is a facet of primordial consciousness. Nothing other than bodhamite. Hatred. That's a nasty one. That's really virulent, very toxic mental affliction. View it from the perspective of pristine awareness and what does it look like from that vantage point? Mirror-like primordial consciousness. Let's take the third one just for completion's sake. Report an error

1:12:06 Lust, craving, greed. That one. And that one, think of Amitabha. That one, when seen from the perspective of pristine awareness, is discerning primordial consciousness. Report an error

1:12:18 Viewed from the perspective of mind, it's attachment, it's hatred, it's delusion, and they're toxic and they create all kinds of misery in the world from that perspective. And they are. Viewed from here, they're not toxic at all. But they don't terminate. They don't terminate when you achieve enlightenment. They don't terminate. They go right back to their source. Report an error

1:12:39 And so when you get to Vajrayana and Dzogchen, the conservation principle holds uniformly. You never get something from nothing. And you never have something turn into nothing. So then you have it complete. Until then, it looked like there's some exceptions here and there. But they are not from Vajrayana. Report an error

1:13:06 So tonight, since we need a bit of homework, mindfulness of breathing, really good for people, Vata people, very active minds. Settling the mind as natural state as an avenue for falling asleep for people who have a lot of kappa. that's all, all. Report an error

1:13:21 A lot of earth element, fall asleep easily. And then the one in between that is quite subtle, that doesn't arouse, doesn't excite, doesn't agitate the mind, but also is not simply designed to give you a good night's sleep, is to fall asleep with just resting in the awareness without deliberately focusing on or taking an interest in the mind, activities of the mind, thoughts, images and so forth, coming and going, no particular interest. Report an error

1:13:47 Just resting in the awareness of awareness as you're lying there in the supine position. And whatever comes up, it comes up. Just basically just resting, resting, resting. Report an error

1:13:57 Resting in the light and seeing how far you can let your body fall asleep and your mind fall asleep and the awareness, the light of awareness stay on. Report an error

1:14:11 That's a middle way. It's interesting to do. Have a good night's sleep. See you tomorrow morning. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Dzogchen_Retreat_2015. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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