Dzogchen Retreat 2015 - Realising our true nature (part 26)

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0:41 So going beyond the shamatha and even going beyond the papashana, when we go to the meditation of Dzogchen itself, as far as I can tell, there's not a lot of variety, but the practices that are done are very incisive. And so I know two of them that I know exactly where they come from and they're very clearly taught as Dzogchen practices for cutting through to pristine awareness and both taught by Padmas and Baba. Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

1:11 And they really have kind of a yin-yang complementarity to them. So one of them, some of you will remember from the eight-week retreat where Padmasambhava says, look at your mind, look at your mind. And it's a refrain. He raises the question, then look at your mind. It's almost like an axeman felling a tree and hitting in the same place. Always come back to this. Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

1:33 And so that's what I'd like to do. For this first session, and I'd like not to clutter up your meditation. We've done it before, but I'm just going to give a brief preface now. And that is, we can simply be resting in the experience of being aware, which is a very effective method, and it's proven itself to be so for many centuries, of really ascertaining the relative nature of consciousness, the essential nature of mind, again, relatively speaking. Report an error in the passage at 1:33 Highlight the passage at 1:33

2:01 You ascertain just that, that sheer... Luminosity and cognizance of awareness. It's a great discovery. And so that's one method. But when we move beyond that to really try to cut through the substrate consciousness, then we don't simply rest in that experience of being aware, but we turn the awareness inwards in a kind of very deep probe, and that is try to observe that which is observing. Report an error in the passage at 2:01 Highlight the passage at 2:01

2:27 And it's not trying to do that which is impossible. It is a method. Pretty straightforward method of inverting the awareness right in upon that which is observing. And then it's a simple question of see what you see. So it's not a koa and like there's no solution here, you can't do it, ha ha ha, got you. It's no, actually do it and see what you see. Report an error in the passage at 2:27 Highlight the passage at 2:27

2:52 But of course it can be a bit exhausting. I mean just keep on, because it's almost like there's a centrifugal force of awareness. And it's just so easy to go out. You know, that's where all the goodies are. That's where all these appearances are. Oh, and that's where I like. Oh, looking in? Okay. But it's kind of like we're swimming, like one of those salmon trying to swim upstream. It's hard to invert the awareness and keep it there. Report an error in the passage at 2:52 Highlight the passage at 2:52

3:18 So skillful means is what we need here. We don't want to be getting our knickers under twist, getting tight and tighter, getting inverted, getting pressure building up in the head. Don't need any of that. At the same time, the practice of inverting awareness right in upon the observer is very profound and again is not confined to Buddhism. You don't have to believe anything before you do it either. Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:39 And so a very good skillful means is that oscillation that I mentioned before. And that is, first of all, just rest. Rest there without referent, without direction. Rest in the experience of being aware. Very straightforward. And you can stay there if you'd just like to achieve shamatha. But if you'd like to go deeper, then... Report an error in the passage at 3:39 Highlight the passage at 3:39

3:59 Either set your own rhythm, which is optimal, just however slow or fast, or if you still find it helpful, to have something a bit to hold on to, then conjoin the rhythm with the in and out breathing, but it's inversion right in upon the observer, almost like a swing, and then release out into space. Report an error in the passage at 3:59 Highlight the passage at 3:59

4:20 But see that when you release, you're releasing into non-objectivity, that is, you're not releasing and then... Trying to grasp to any object, including space itself, but just releasing into an objectless, open expanse, inverting in upon that which is aware, see what you see, release, and then as you get into the rhythm of that, then there's a question, and I'll end on this note for this first session, and that is when you release into non-objectivity, just into an openness with no object. Report an error in the passage at 4:20 Highlight the passage at 4:20

4:55 And then you invert in upon the observer, do you see anything more or less? Simple question. When you're observing the observer, turning inward in upon the observer, are you seeing something that you didn't see earlier? Is there more or is there less than when you release into this objectless openness? Very simple question. Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

5:16 More, less or the same? If it gets to the point where it's the same, you may as well stop the oscillation. So that's a complete description. Sometimes it's helpful for me to front load it, you write it down, and then you just do it and you don't have to multitask going back and forth between listening to me and doing the practice. Report an error in the passage at 5:16 Highlight the passage at 5:16

5:37 The second one takes fewer words. So that's young. That's a bit of, that's pretty, doing something, right? Doing something. And then the second one is doing nothing. And that is that non-meditation. Again, you start out in the same way, just resting in awareness. And then... It's four knots. I can use more words, but I'll just use the four. You're resting there, simply resting. Report an error in the passage at 5:37 Highlight the passage at 5:37

6:06 It's not doing anything, it's just resting. It's what's left over when you're not doing anything. But then to hammer the nail in deeper, that is just to get the point very clear, rest there without desire. It's very easy to rest there and wait. Like, okay, I'm ready. Anytime, what's going to happen? Report an error in the passage at 6:06 Highlight the passage at 6:06

6:31 Breakthrough? Pristine awareness? Coming? I'm patient here, but when are you going to arrive? Come on. So that's waiting. But it is waiting. You may as well go stand on a queue at the grocery market. You're doing the same thing. You're waiting. So don't wait. Waiting is not a posture. It's a mind state of not getting something you want. And so it's releasing all desire. Resting without desire. Report an error in the passage at 6:31 Highlight the passage at 6:31

7:00 Resting without effort. You're not trying to rest. Resting is what's left over when you stop trying doing anything. So resting, second, is without effort. First is without desire. Secondly, without effort. Thirdly, without modification. There's nothing to fix here, nothing to improve. Report an error in the passage at 7:00 Highlight the passage at 7:00

7:24 You're doing the practice, which means not doing anything, or else you're doing something, in which case you're not doing the practice. So when you see you're not doing the practice, you can stop doing that and then return to non-meditation. But you're not fixing the practice. You're recommencing it. Is that clear? That's not doing. No, that's not modification. And the fourth one is basically the summary without doing anything at all. Report an error in the passage at 7:24 Highlight the passage at 7:24

7:50 And the implication here is you're not activating in any way the mind of a samsaric being, your samsaric mind, your dualistic mind, your deluded mind. You're completely putting out of work and a total state of when you're really doing the practice correctly, you're really doing nothing at all or not doing anything at all. Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

8:10 And in the, how do you say, when the sun of the activity of the mind sets, the moon of pristine awareness may rise. But as long as the sun is up, you're not going to see the moon, right? One obscures. One is conventional reality that obscures a deeper reality. The activities of the mind may be very useful, and they are often, not always. But they always do when we're caught up and tangled in and snared with, cognitively fused with the activities of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:42 Well, that's just like hustle-bustle within the midst of a non-lucid dream. As long as you're very active there, you're not going to become lucid because you want this, you want to avoid that, hoping this, fearing that. No hope. No hope. And so the mind, the dualistic mind, is deactivated and then either it drags you down into sleep in dullness and laxity, you're just spacing out, in which case then you're taking a nap, or the mind is deactivated. Report an error in the passage at 8:42 Highlight the passage at 8:42

9:11 And you remain in the clarity of your own pristine awareness. That's all that's left. You just let that moon rise and illuminate itself more and more clearly. That's the second session. All clear? Okie dokie. Find comfortable positions for both sessions. Report an error in the passage at 9:11 Highlight the passage at 9:11

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11:22 By this time tomorrow we will have gone our separate ways and questions are bound to arise about the theory and the practice and I won't be as available to you as I am right now. so... Report an error in the passage at 11:22 Highlight the passage at 11:22

11:38 And I really can't handle hundreds or thousands of emails a day. And so what to do? Because questions will arise and there are many things to be done. But one is to review the text. As Dujam Lingpa elsewhere says in another text, in his commentary to the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra, he said, in times when vidyadharas are quite rare, if you can't... Report an error in the passage at 11:38 Highlight the passage at 11:38

12:04 If you can't pose your questions to a Vidyadada, if you're not under the direct guidance of a person with direct realization, then rather than relying upon people who are ignorant, better to rely on the Vidyadadas of the past. Report an error in the passage at 12:04 Highlight the passage at 12:04

12:20 Like this one. He didn't point to himself, but he clearly is a Vidyadada. And go back to their own instructions and seep your mind in it. So questions come up. Naturally they'll come up. Uncertainty's come up, points of clarification come up. And one strategy, pretty good one, is go right back to the material with which you're very familiar and by the time we finish here you will have the oral transmission, the commentary. Report an error in the passage at 12:20 Highlight the passage at 12:20

12:50 This text should come alive for you. You should continue talking and not just be dead letter on a page. But continue to be in dialogue with you as you're posing questions to it. It continues talking to you and things come off the page that you didn't see earlier. That's just the nature of such teachings as this. Report an error in the passage at 12:50 Highlight the passage at 12:50

13:07 And so go back to the text, go back to the text, and more and more clarity is bound to arise as you're reading it and reflecting upon it and investigating. Report an error in the passage at 13:07 Highlight the passage at 13:07

13:17 And questions may still arise. And then a strategy that people have been using for hundreds of years. is to first of all clearly articulate the question or the point of uncertainty, get a really good question, nice bullet, and then raise that, put that succinctly, cast it up in the space of your mind, and then go into meditation. Report an error in the passage at 13:17 Highlight the passage at 13:17

13:40 Go into any of these practices, shamatha, resting in awareness, practicing non-meditation, but especially we're in that passive mode, not so much the active, probing here, probing there, asking this, asking that. But go into that passive state where you're simply resting, you're open, but you go into the practice imbued with the question. Imbued with a question. Report an error in the passage at 13:40 Highlight the passage at 13:40

14:02 Now you know that phrase, that's a very juicy one. As your practice is imbued with bodhicitta, for example, you go in and you're going in with a question, but that means you don't have to keep on asking the question. Ask it at the beginning. Just drop the seed. It's like planting a seed in the ground. See, it's well watered, fertilized, and then just let it be. Report an error in the passage at 14:02 Highlight the passage at 14:02

14:22 And then see what comes up. See what comes up. And very likely, sooner or later, something will come up. And it may very well look like an answer to your question. Report an error in the passage at 14:22 Highlight the passage at 14:22

14:37 And then, should you believe that anything that comes up is infallible? No, of course not. Should you believe that anything that comes out of my mouth is infallible? Of course not. Should you believe that anything here is infallible? Well, you got that by way of a translator. If I screw it up, then it's not. So how do you know whether that's infallible? Report an error in the passage at 14:37 Highlight the passage at 14:37

14:56 And then after all, what do you really know about Dujum Lingva? You can't just assume. You can't assume. So whatever we're receiving teachings, whether it's reading the Pāli Canon or reading a text by Dujum Lingva or hearing a commentary by me, or something comes up for your meditation, the response, the authentic response should always be the same. Report an error in the passage at 14:56 Highlight the passage at 14:56

15:15 All right, I hear you. I've got it. And now I'm going to evaluate that using my intelligence. But if it was clear instructions on practice and it seems reasonable, it doesn't violate anything else I've understood, it seems intuitively this may be the right track, then you try it. It's like being presented with a new recipe that you've never tasted before. But if you've cooked before and you see the recipe, you'll have some idea, you know, whether it's just bloody awful or, that's interesting, that might be very tasty. Report an error in the passage at 15:15 Highlight the passage at 15:15

15:55 Never tasted it before, never had that combination, no, never done it, but that was, yeah, that's worth trying. And then cook it and eat it. And if you get indigestion, you've just learned something. And if it really nurtures you well, then you've learned something. It's a win-win situation. But that's his carte blanche, not carte blanche, that's a universal statement, whatever teachings you receive. Report an error in the passage at 15:55 Highlight the passage at 15:55

16:19 It's really against the whole theme, the spirit of Buddhism, to just listen and accept whatever is being told to you. As just, okay, God just spoke in the most naive sense of the term. I've just received infallible wisdom and all I have to do is accept it. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

16:36 Then robots should be able to achieve enlightenment because robots are very good at following a program. So that's it. So as the days, the months, the weeks go by, whatever, as questions come up, that's what I would suggest. Articulate them clearly and go back to material, especially the teachings, the texts and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 16:36 Highlight the passage at 16:36

16:54 That have really come alive for you. And that's the whole point of the oral transmission and commentary. That you're not just picking up a book and putting it back, but you're picking up a book in which you're already in dialogue. And the dialogue does continue. And it's not just this. Now you can only read this. No, in fact, I have found this to be true now for decades. Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:14 And that is for a certain topic, like with Dzogchen. I told you before that when this scholar at Stanford and I tried to read some Dzogchen texts, both of us seasoned scholars already, And I don't know what she picked up, it's not for me to say, but I know what I picked up was almost nothing, even though I understood most of the words. And then only months thereafter, then I received the first transmission from Yatradamuji, it was on dream yoga, and then suddenly, dream yoga literature, suddenly, whoa, it wasn't just that one text, it was like, whoa, that cast light on all the other dream yoga literature that I had encountered, and did encounter later. Report an error in the passage at 17:14 Highlight the passage at 17:14

17:50 And then the next text he's going right into A Spacious Path to Freedom. That's the first text he taught me. And I was transmitting it as an interpreter. And there comes Mahamudra, there comes Dzogchen, really razor sharp. A number of you know now just how definitive that is. It's just radiant. And he taught it with the transmission, with the commentary. And then once that, then I could look at other texts and that light would be cast on them as well. Report an error in the passage at 17:50 Highlight the passage at 17:50

18:14 So it's not like the light is confined only to the text you've read. But if you get a root text on Dzogchen, You get the transmission, you get the juice. Then if you read another Dzogchen text, maybe simply one you buy on Amazon or what have you, it's bound to flow over there. So the root text. This has been a strategy that's been followed for centuries. If we take classic monastic education, you get one read, and mostly they'd memorize, for example, the Abhisam Alankara. Report an error in the passage at 18:14 Highlight the passage at 18:14

18:45 Okay? Classic text. Lays out the five paths, the ten Bumis. There it is, the whole path to enlightenment. There's a root text. When I was in the monastery, we memorized the whole thing. All of us did, verbatim. But then if you really receive training in it, teaching in it, then you take at least one commentary. It could be any of the commentaries, but one of the commentaries. Report an error in the passage at 18:45 Highlight the passage at 18:45

19:04 And you get the transmission and get the explanation of the commentary. Once you've had that once, you don't need to have oral transmission and oral commentary on all the other commentaries. Get one and it's going to illuminate out all the others. And so you've opened a door and there's the treasure trove of all the related material, other commentaries, sub-commentaries, kagyu approach, nyingma approach, sakya approach, seragandandepung approach, and get one and it illuminates all. Report an error in the passage at 19:04 Highlight the passage at 19:04

19:32 But if you don't have any transmission commentary on even one, It's hard. It's hard to really kind of have it come through. That's been my experience. Okay. So let's go back. This is a root text on the core practices of Dzogchen, up to but not including the direct crossing over. But in principle, this actually is enough. This could actually take you all the way to Buddhahood. Because some people, even without practicing the direct crossing over, that Kolmereni phase, they can go all the way with this practice here of just cutting through to the original purity of pristine awareness, which is called Tek-Chu. Report an error in the passage at 19:32 Highlight the passage at 19:32

20:06 For some people that's sufficient, as I think we'll see here. So, this is the last sentence here on page 20. Report an error in the passage at 20:06 Highlight the passage at 20:06

20:17 They, that is all these phenomena within the physical world, its inhabitants, they do not exist beyond the expanse of that essential nature, the essential nature of your own mind, just as the reflections in a mirror do not exist beyond the face of the mirror. Report an error in the passage at 20:17 Highlight the passage at 20:17

20:34 So again, pause. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

20:41 If it's true, if it's true, it's an enormous hypothesis, the repercussions, which is monumental, If it's true, each of us has a continuum of consciousness that carries through from lifetime to lifetime, going back time out of mind, out of which from life to life to life, these different configurations of a man's mind, a woman's mind, Tibetan, Argentinian and so forth, emerge, dissolve back, emerge, dissolve back. Report an error in the passage at 20:41 Highlight the passage at 20:41

21:09 But each time this continuum is storing memories, storing imprints, but storing memories. That's your... It's a terrible analogy, but that's your hard drive. And there is a theme that we actually find in quantum field theory that not only are mass energy or matter and energy, not only are they conserved, and that's a very hardcore principle in physics. Report an error in the passage at 21:09 Highlight the passage at 21:09

21:35 Matter is conserved, energy is conserved, right? But you go to quantum field theory and it turns out information is conserved. Information is conserved. As an objective reality, something that can be physically measured. And if any of you follow the science news, you'll know a couple of weeks ago Stephen Hawking came up with a new theory about black holes and how information is actually conserved with respect to black holes. Report an error in the passage at 21:35 Highlight the passage at 21:35

21:58 It's preserved on the event horizon. But they're taking it very seriously that information is something that is not matter, not energy, and it is conserved. But they're speaking about it in a physics context where information is simply the degree of organization of a system. It's not semantic information having a referent. Well, Buddhism is fundamentally, primarily and overwhelmingly looking into the nature of the mind, not black holes or energy or matter, primarily mind. Report an error in the passage at 21:58 Highlight the passage at 21:58

22:24 It's going from the inside out. And a hypothesis that I would pose, I think it's there, is that from this Buddhist worldview, number one, of course energy is conserved. You can't make energy out of nothing. You can't get a whole bunch of neurons together and go poof, shazam, and get... Unprecedented consciousness popping out of neurons. It's a cute idea, but it's totally without any basis in reality or evidence. So you can't create consciousness out of nothing or turn matter into consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 22:24 Highlight the passage at 22:24

22:53 But once there is a flow of consciousness, there's nothing you can do to it to make it disappear. There's just nothing. There's just no way to exit reality to terminate your consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 22:53 Highlight the passage at 22:53

23:06 So there's a preservation of consciousness. That's perfectly clear. But then also the issue of information. Information, now semantic information, meaningful information. You learn something. You learn German. I learned German from the time I was five. And then through teenage years, and I was in university in Germany when I was 20. I lived again in Switzerland in my late 20s. Report an error in the passage at 23:06 Highlight the passage at 23:06

23:28 And so I got pretty fluent. So there's a lot of information there that right now is not readily accessible because I hardly used it for the last 20, 30 years. But that information isn't nowhere. It didn't turn into nothing. It's stored there. It's stored there in the substrate. And there's one avenue there that Tibetans take very, very seriously. Report an error in the passage at 23:28 Highlight the passage at 23:28

23:50 You all know of it. But I don't know if you connected the dots. There was a great Lama who must have passed away in probably the 60s or early 70s. I don't know exactly. His name was Kangyuramuche. Kangyuramuche. This is the Lama that Thomas Merton met when Thomas Merton went up to Kalimpong, Gargining area. Report an error in the passage at 23:50 Highlight the passage at 23:50

24:09 He was blown away by him. Thomas Merton was blown over by him, so impressed by him, great Dzogchen master. And Thomas Merton wrote in his Asian journals, I'm coming back to this guy, I want to study with this man. And he wasn't talking about converting into Buddhism, he was talking about seeing if this man could help him deepen his own Christian insights. Because Thomas Merton was 100 % Christian. Report an error in the passage at 24:09 Highlight the passage at 24:09

24:30 Well, one of the things, I'm rambling a little bit, but kāngyuramuche, kāngyuramuche means the collected teachings of the Buddha. Translated into Tibetan. Ka, words of Buddha, Gyur, translation. It's a hundred volumes, a hundred volumes. It's a lot of material in the Tibetan canon. And Kangyur Rinpoche, he's the Kangyur Rinpoche, he was renowned for, periodically, giving the oral transmission for the whole, all of the collected teachings of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 24:30 Highlight the passage at 24:30

24:59 That's a hundred volumes or so. And he would give it, and he would just, and what that means is, you just read it. You sit down, and hour after hour goes by, day after day, week after week goes by, and you're just reading one 800-page volume after another, and you set it aside until you've gone through all the 108 volumes or what have you. Report an error in the passage at 24:59 Highlight the passage at 24:59

25:19 And he would do that repeatedly, and hundreds if not thousands of people would come to sit quietly and hear him read. Others will do that with the collective works of Tsongkhapa and his two spiritual sons, get the oral transmission. There's no commentary. You would just read it. Back in 1988, when I was living with Gyanam Rinpo for this one year shamatha retreat, I asked him if he would give me some teachings on Kalachakra, for which I had a very strong interest and still do. Report an error in the passage at 25:19 Highlight the passage at 25:19

25:49 We had a fair amount of time on our end. He was only teaching 12 people. We lived in the same house for a year. I said, would he give me anything? He's a very fine scholar as well as a marvelous contemplative. He said, well, I'll check. And then I think he checked with, I don't know exactly what he did, but he came back to me and said, would you like the complete oral transmission of the root tantra, the great commentary and the sub-commentaries on the Kalachakra tantra? Report an error in the passage at 25:49 Highlight the passage at 25:49

26:13 Would you like the oral transmission? Report an error in the passage at 26:13 Highlight the passage at 26:13

26:17 And I said, I think I probably, yeah. He said, okay, then I'll order the text from Dharam Zala. It's, they're like that thick. It's three volumes. They're about 800 pages a piece. And it took us four hours a day for eight months. Report an error in the passage at 26:17 Highlight the passage at 26:17

26:35 I sat at his feet and he read with very little commentary. And for eight weeks, for eight months, he simply downloaded the root tantra of Kala Chakra, tantra, the Vimala Prabha, the great commentary from the king, the king of Shambhala, and then commentary, sub-commentary, sub-commentary, one after another by Bhutan. Report an error in the passage at 26:35 Highlight the passage at 26:35

26:59 And it took eight months, four hours a day. My understanding of Kala Chakra... Didn't grow much. I'm sitting there, I didn't understand very much because it's very dense. And he knew that. But what had happened earlier was, not many years, maybe two years earlier, is Kirti Tsangshara Rinpoche. Kirti Tsangshara Rinpoche was the only Lama they knew of who had got out of Tibet, who had the complete oral transmission. It's one Lama. And once an oral transmission is cut, if he dies and he doesn't pass it on, you never get it back again. Report an error in the passage at 26:59 Highlight the passage at 26:59

27:34 Anybody else can read it, but you don't get the oral transmission. And so His Holiness kind of put out a red alert. And what he did was he called in a few of the yogis from the mountain and some other tulkus, young tulkus, and he just said, you, you, you, come in here. And Kichirambachi was in bad health at that time and didn't know how long he was going to live. And he had him sit down and then His Holiness said, okay, download, download. Report an error in the passage at 27:34 Highlight the passage at 27:34

27:58 And they did. And Yan Lam Rimba was one of those who got downloaded. And then he saw me. He's going to pass the buck, as we say in America. And so he downloaded it for eight months. What that means is that for anybody who's received that transmission, whether it's all of the Ganggyur, whether it's all the teachings of Tsongkhapa, whatever it may be, and there are a lot of transmissions out there, you now have those stored in your substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 27:58 Highlight the passage at 27:58

28:28 And it doesn't go away. It doesn't get lost. When you die, you go to the bardo, get born as a frog, come back, the substrate just continues on. So you're a stupid little frog for a while, but that'll pass. And then you're on. It's stored there. It's stored there. And all you need to do is achieve shamatha and maybe some Vipassanā would help. Report an error in the passage at 28:28 Highlight the passage at 28:28

28:50 And then you can get into your hard drive and get into that database. Report an error in the passage at 28:50 Highlight the passage at 28:50

29:02 But if all of this is true, and I guarantee you that the great Islam is living for hundreds of years have taken this extremely seriously, they're not going to waste their time. They're not unintelligent. This means that we have in our mind streams memories. Going back thousands, hundreds of thousands, who knows how long. Memories of being here, there, here, there, here, there. So if you can tap into that hard drive, you can not only retrieve the knowledge of German that you used to be fluent in, you can retrieve memories, memories, memories. Report an error in the passage at 29:02 Highlight the passage at 29:02

29:35 You can actually write a history of the universe, drawing from not God's perspective, but just I was here and I was there and I was there and I was there. And these multiple perspectives from lifetime to lifetime. And you can give your own narrative. of a short history of time from the inside out. Report an error in the passage at 29:35 Highlight the passage at 29:35

29:55 If you break through that, and that you can see there's an enormous amount of information there, if you can tap into it, but if you can cut through that to pristine awareness, then you've tapped into a dimension of space and awareness from which all of reality emerges. Report an error in the passage at 29:55 Highlight the passage at 29:55

30:19 But your perspective is timeless and is atemporal, so you have equal access. You won't just be In that lifetime I was there, in that lifetime I was there, these little pinpoints here and there and here and there, you're actually going like sheet lightning and reality should be in the palm of your hand. Report an error in the passage at 30:19 Highlight the passage at 30:19

30:37 That's a hypothesis worth testing. So this is physics from the inside out, rather than trying to get to the mind from the outside in, which has been the strategy for the last 105 years. Let's see if we can understand the mind by not looking at it, but by looking outwards to the brain behavior and asking other people, what's it like to have a mind? Report an error in the passage at 30:37 Highlight the passage at 30:37

30:58 That's one way. So now we can continue. Moreover, wherever you transmigrate and take birth, within the three realms of existence, you do not proceed to new places after leaving earlier ones behind. Report an error in the passage at 30:58 Highlight the passage at 30:58

31:15 Rather, like daytime appearances and dream appearances, one experience of delusive appearances becomes another. Therefore come to the certain recognition that saṃsāra consists of delusive experiences. And that is, there's no truly existent place that you left behind. And no truly existent place you're going to, having traveled through some truly existent bardo. Report an error in the passage at 31:15 Highlight the passage at 31:15

31:40 In fact, you're not going anywhere and you're not coming from anywhere. You are exactly where you are. And it's very much like going over to the IMAX on Darling Harbour with the three-dimensional sitting in the seat. And you have a sense of going here and there and this is going by and this is going by and so forth. And you're sitting in your seat the whole time. Report an error in the passage at 31:40 Highlight the passage at 31:40

32:01 But if they have those motion picture cameras mounted on a roller coaster, it can be quite thrilling. But you're not going anywhere. It's just the appearances are changing, and they don't go anywhere. The appearances that have just gone by, they're not stored in some appearance treasure box, and the appearances that have come aren't waiting to pop out. Report an error in the passage at 32:01 Highlight the passage at 32:01

32:20 They're just all arising from moment to moment to moment. It's all a 3D cinema, a holographic universe, and you're the one spectator. all right? Report an error in the passage at 32:20 Highlight the passage at 32:20

32:30 It's a show just for you, your own cinema. It's your saṃsāra. And you have the center seat, so definitely VIP. VIP seating. Report an error in the passage at 32:30 Highlight the passage at 32:30

32:45 Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa are wholly present in your own perceptions. They don't exist anywhere else. Other people, Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa, okay, they exist for other people, but your saṃsāra, you are the only... You're the only spectator. You have the center seat. And when you experience nirvāṇa, that's wholly present in your perceptions. And they're wholly included in the expanse of the essential nature. Report an error in the passage at 32:45 Highlight the passage at 32:45

33:08 And the essential nature, of course, is your ground pristine awareness. This essential nature is called the ground. So you have to center the whole notion of coming down, coming down. Well, ground would kind of imply that. But it's that release, that free fall into a ground that is itself space. So there's no hard landing. Report an error in the passage at 33:08 Highlight the passage at 33:08

33:26 The unaware aspect, the avidya. Vidya aspect of the ground is called the substrate. So you've heard that before, that's its essential nature, unawareness, because you're not explicitly aware of anything. That's its unaware aspect and the pure aspect, its pure aspect is called Dharmakaya. So the ground, when veiled, appears as a substrate. Report an error in the passage at 33:26 Highlight the passage at 33:26

33:50 When it's unveiled, you see it in its original purity, timeless purity, and that's Dharmakaya. They're the same thing. Viewed from two different perspectives. Due to its being exhausted in the darkness of unawareness, it dwindles away, you don't see it, it's gone. This very primordial ground-like space which enables all appearances to arise is the substrate. So the Dharmakaya, when veiled by unawareness, is the substrate. Report an error in the passage at 33:50 Highlight the passage at 33:50

34:23 The substrate isn't something else. It is the Dharmakaya, veiled. The appearing aspect of dualistic conceptualization manifests As the delusive experiences of displays of the three realms. The appearing aspect. So we have these three. We have the unaware aspect, its pure aspect and its appearing aspect. These are exactly what's called Rigpetzel, the creative expressions of pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:51 And when viewed from the perspective of mind, they are seen as dualistic conceptualization, dualistic grasping. And they manifest as all these appearances. The desire realm, form and formless realms, all of these appearances and all of them misleading, carrying us away. The essential nature of the ground is like the essential nature of space. Report an error in the passage at 34:51 Highlight the passage at 34:51

35:12 The essential nature of the ground, again, dharmadhatu, dharmadhatu, the essential nature, its emptiness, its nirvāṇa, its dharmata, ultimate reality, essential nature. That's like the essential nature of space. So not the sky, which is blue, it's gray, it's dark, it changes a lot, it gets cloudy, it gets rainy and so forth. No, the essential nature of space, which is not transformed by the day or night, does not change in any way, does not turn into anything else, and enables the appearances of light and darkness. Report an error in the passage at 35:12 Highlight the passage at 35:12

35:45 That is, if there are no space, there would be no manifest sky. If there are no space, there would be no sky. And sky is what manifests as light and dark. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

35:55 So we see the essential nature of space, the manifest nature of the sky. The essential nature of the ground is pristine awareness. The manifest nature is the effulgences, including your own mind and all these appearances. Those are the manifest nature. Accordingly, it is called Samantabhadra, it. This is pristine awareness, primordial consciousness. Personified, embodied in a symbolic representation, Samantabhadra. Report an error in the passage at 35:55 Highlight the passage at 35:55

36:22 Symbolically manifesting, it is called Samantabhadra. Devoid of the good and bad, this is utterly transcended, that is there is no this and that, there are no conceptual constructs. Samantabhadra is this dimension of reality or dimension of awareness that transcends all internal divisions, all polarities, all dualities, all asymmetries. Report an error in the passage at 36:22 Highlight the passage at 36:22

36:45 And therefore that is the dimension in which good and bad are transcended. Now Padmasambhava, we'll have to pause there. Report an error in the passage at 36:45 Highlight the passage at 36:45

36:56 Because this is just one of the areas where if it gets it wrong, it can go catastrophically awry. If one thinks, okay, people have their tentacles up sometimes, a person of a certain mentality. They just have their tentacles up, just waiting, waiting to find a loophole. And I've heard this. I heard one well-known vipassanā teacher in the United States saying, oh, in Buddhism there's no such thing as good and bad. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:19 I heard that on a radio. I wanted to take the radio and throw it against the wall. Oh, come on, please don't. She said that on national radio. It may broke my heart, like, aye, aye, aye. Tell people that. They're going to believe you. You could not say anything more misleading about Buddhism than to say, in terms of Buddhism, there's no virtue and non-virtue. What could you say that would be more wildly wrong than that? Report an error in the passage at 37:19 Highlight the passage at 37:19

37:44 And she was pretending to speak from some mystical heights, but it's just poison. Coming from the lips of a person who is respected as a mindfulness teacher. It's really quite tragic. And so here it is, okay, Samantabhadra, embodiment of enlightened awareness, beyond good and bad. What on earth does that mean, though? It means once you're there, internally from your perspective, in your reality, there's no division. Report an error in the passage at 37:44 Highlight the passage at 37:44

38:11 I mean, there's no division between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. There's no preference for nirvāṇa over saṃsāra. Therefore, no preference from your perspective for good over bad. But Padmasambhava, then he jumps into caution. As long as you care whether you suffer or experience happiness, then be aware of the causes of suffering, which are mental afflictions and unwholesome behavior. Report an error in the passage at 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11

38:41 Be aware of virtue, which gives rise to happiness. As long as you care. As long as you care, you better take very, very seriously. Good and bad, wholesome and unwholesome, mental afflictions and freedom from mental afflictions, you should take those with extreme care. If and when you get to the point that your awareness is so free that it makes no difference to you, whether somebody's coming to you with a bouquet of roses or coming to you with a machete to cut off your head, when you get to the point where it's a matter of complete indifference, then from that point, once you're there, then you can totally relax. Report an error in the passage at 38:41 Highlight the passage at 38:41

39:20 Because whatever you do will be spontaneously an expression of bodhicitta and wisdom. Spontaneously. You won't have to try. That's all that flows out. You're not going to do nasty things. If you're enlightened, you're not going to go off and insult somebody or slap somebody or rob somebody. It's inconceivable. Report an error in the passage at 39:20 Highlight the passage at 39:20

39:39 Everything that flows from pristine awareness will naturally be only pure enlightened activity. And that is the very wellspring, the fountainhead of all virtue. So you don't have to worry. You don't have to monitor. Am I okay today? Am I still okay? There's no good and bad for you. Whatever flows up is spontaneously perfect expression of enlightened awareness. Report an error in the passage at 39:39 Highlight the passage at 39:39

39:59 So there's no reserve. There's no hesitancy. You don't need to fix. You don't need to worry. There's nothing to worry about. It's all spontaneously expressions of wisdom and compassion. So whatever comes out of your mouth, just relax. It's all spontaneous, effortless, free flow. Report an error in the passage at 39:59 Highlight the passage at 39:59

40:18 And of course you don't mind whether people throw javelins at you or whether they throw roses at you, any more than if you were in a perfectly lucid dream. Somebody comes with you with a big knife, somebody comes with you with a bouquet, I'll take both. You like the knife first, the bouquet, I don't care. I'll take the knife, now maybe the bouquet, but if you don't give me the one, that's equally fine. It's a dream, it's my dream. Report an error in the passage at 40:18 Highlight the passage at 40:18

40:42 So sometimes in that spontaneity, really weird stuff does happen. It's whole notions of crazy wisdom, crazy wisdom. Boy, has that been ever misused. Throw it out to America and, oh my goodness, just watch Après Mal Deluge. After that, everything goes crappy. Because now you get all these hippies thinking, oh, crazy wisdom, dude. Come over here, babe. Let's have some crazy wisdom together. You're my consort. And so all kinds of rubbish have been excused under that extremely dangerous rubric. Report an error in the passage at 40:42 Highlight the passage at 40:42

41:11 But when all is said and done, there is such a thing. And it's known in the stage of completion, if you studied it. You get to a certain point in the stage of completion and some really weird behavior can manifest, right? It does. It does. And that's part of the practice, part of the maturation, that some very, very strange stuff can come up. Report an error in the passage at 41:11 Highlight the passage at 41:11

41:26 And Gyalchur Rinpoche told me one of the strangest I've ever heard. I'll tell the story again. And it's from his own experience. And I heard him. I said, whoa. And I went back and I said, this is what I heard. Is this what you said? And he said, yep. So I double confirmed it. Because the story is pretty wild and not all of you have heard it. He was a young boy. He was identified as a tuku, very, very young, age three, something like that. And as he was growing up, of course, he had the tuku treatment. Report an error in the passage at 41:26 Highlight the passage at 41:26

41:52 He had absolutely marvelous teachers. And on one occasion at night, he said he was with a small group of monks, most of them were adult, I think. But he was a youngster. And he was a tuku, sitting in the front row. And it was at night. And there was this wild Dzogchen master. He was really an enlightened sage. But he was unpredictable. Report an error in the passage at 41:52 Highlight the passage at 41:52

42:09 Like that yogi who shot somebody. He fixed them and they were perfectly fine and then rode away into the wilderness. Well this is one of those, one of these wild yogis and so they're sitting and this master is giving teachings on Dzogchen and there's a group of monks sitting and for light they have this big bonfire and this wild yogi is giving them these, right from his own intuitive awareness, giving them teachings on Dzogchen and Gyatronabha is sitting right in the front row. Report an error in the passage at 42:09 Highlight the passage at 42:09

42:36 He's maybe eight years old, something like that. And then suddenly this yogi, I'm going to have to mimic because it's just too much fun. The yogi learns about it and he said, it's time to send one of you to hell. And he looks around and he spies Gautra Rinpoche. Report an error in the passage at 42:36 Highlight the passage at 42:36

42:51 And he comes over and picks him up and he puts him right in the middle of the bonfire. Gautra Rinpoche told me this double confirmed. Everything I'm saying is exactly what he experienced. He put him right down the middle of the bonfire. He sent him a hot hill, right? Hot hill, bonfire. And then the yogi stands back. Report an error in the passage at 42:51 Highlight the passage at 42:51

43:08 And this is his narrative. He said, I sat there and it was like, oh, Report an error in the passage at 43:08 Highlight the passage at 43:08

43:21 it was really pleasantly warm. Rather stunned. He hadn't been in a bonfire before. Just pleasantly warm. Report an error in the passage at 43:21 Highlight the passage at 43:21

43:33 And he's sitting there, sitting there. And then finally, I don't know how many seconds, 10, 20, 30 seconds, one of the monks sees him and kind of starts freaking out. You know, baked tuku was a really bad idea. And he reaches into the fire and pulls him out. And the monk's arms got singed when he did it. Report an error in the passage at 43:33 Highlight the passage at 43:33

43:50 Gyacharamachi came out of the fire and there's not even a thread of his robes that was touched. That's crazy wisdom. That's crazy wisdom. So one wants to be very careful about that kind of thing. Don't think, maybe I can do it. You know? And then fun little kid to put in the bonfire. No, in fact, you should be very, very cautious about that. But it made a big impression. Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:11 And that was skillful means. No one was harmed. No one was harmed. It was quite crazy. No one was harmed. And boy, they got some real pointing out instructions there on the illusory nature of bonfires. So, now back to the text as our time is going, going, gone. Report an error in the passage at 44:11 Highlight the passage at 44:11

44:34 So the appearing... Yeah, according to it, pristine awareness is called Samantabhadra, devoid of the good and bad, utterly transcending that. Its manifest nature delusively appears as the mind, but with the inner glow of the womb, Tathagatagarbha. Tathāgata Garbha is another synonym for pristine awareness. And Tathāgata Garbha is the womb of all the Tathagatas, that out of which all of the Tathagatas of the three times emerge. Report an error in the passage at 44:34 Highlight the passage at 44:34

45:09 Within the inner glow of the womb, it is self-emergently established. This pristine awareness is self-emergently established as the ground The origin, the source of the five facets of primordial consciousness, the five wisdoms, five primordial wisdoms. It's the ground of the five kayas, Dhamakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nemanakaya, Svabhavakaya and Vajrakaya. Report an error in the passage at 45:09 Highlight the passage at 45:09

45:39 And the five Buddha fields, the five Buddha fields corresponding to the five Buddha families. Just to name one, Sukhavati, and the corresponding Buddha field is Sukhavati. So this is the ground from which all of these arise. This one ground, your own pristine awareness, is that from which the refracted light, so to speak, of the five facets of primordial consciousness, they are emanated. Report an error in the passage at 45:39 Highlight the passage at 45:39

46:03 The five khayas are emanated and all the five Buddha fields are emanated. Therefore it, Samantabhadra, which is your own pristine awareness, not somebody else's, therefore it is great conate primordial consciousness. Conate, you're born with it. Report an error in the passage at 46:03 Highlight the passage at 46:03

46:19 The deities and Buddha fields of Nirvāṇa are also spontaneously, wholly present in your own ground. So deities, Tara, Manjushri, Medicine Buddha, and so forth, all of these are totally present in your own ground. They're not coming from outside, symbolically, with imagination and so forth. We imagine all the Buddhas coming in during empowerment and so forth, but not just imagination. Report an error in the passage at 46:19 Highlight the passage at 46:19

46:44 They're not coming from anywhere else. They're already completely present right now in your own grounds. So Buddha fields as well as autonomous deities who move to or are born into one realm after another are nothing more than dualistic appearances and experiences. So any sense of going to some Buddha field or deities coming from some place and going there to another one, this is all illusory. Report an error in the passage at 46:44 Highlight the passage at 46:44

47:09 This is all dualistic appearances, delusive appearances. For those who err in this regard, and err means for those who reify deities, Buddha fields, kayas, any of these, who think they're really out there someplace. If you hear about Sukhavati in the West, and you're wondering, how far west? And west from where? West from California? Report an error in the passage at 47:09 Highlight the passage at 47:09

47:38 Is it east from Australia? Or is it west from Perth, but east from Delhi? How far west? Is it on this planet or do you have to go off west, off on a trajectory, off into some other planet or some solar system? It breaks down. It's just a manner of speaking. It's not devoid of meaning, but if one reifies it, thinks that a Buddha field is really there or there or there, or there are Buddhas here or there, well then one does air. Report an error in the passage at 47:38 Highlight the passage at 47:38

48:06 And if that's the case, if you're practicing state of degeneration very explicitly, if you're... If you err in this regard, in your practice of state of generation, even if such people, even if they actualize the Jnana Sattvas, the wisdom beings, these beings that are very part and part of the Samaya Sattva or the Samādhi Sattva, the Jnana Sattva, these are elements, aspects of receiving empowerment. Report an error in the passage at 48:06 Highlight the passage at 48:06

48:32 And integral aspects of any state of regeneration practice. Even if you actualize them, you really develop and actualize the divine pride of being Manjushri, of being Tada and so on. Even if you do, even if you have a very strong sense of actually being that deity, you've actualized it. Such people, they have no basis or root for transcending mundane existence. Report an error in the passage at 48:32 Highlight the passage at 48:32

48:52 They're still stuck. They're still grasping to true existence. Once the root that appears in this way is penetrated and severed, This is the root of ignorance, the root of reification. Once the root that appears in this way is penetrated and severed and not merely scrutinized, so once you're totally free of this old, old predisposition to reify everything you experience, then from then onward reification and clinging must naturally be severed as well. Report an error in the passage at 48:52 Highlight the passage at 48:52

49:28 So the root is that fundamental tendency, proclivity, potential for reification. Once you get down to that, And of course, not just to stop it, you have to see that that is not the nature of reality. You have to ascertain the nature of existence and optimally not only realize the empty nature of phenomena, but also see all as emerging from, as all appearances, as effulgences of your own pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 49:28 Highlight the passage at 49:28

49:55 Then reification and clinging are naturally severed. You're totally free, irreversibly free. That's what the path is about. So people can practice Dzogchen. Without having Samatha Vipassanā, but I don't see how it becomes a path. One can practice stage regeneration to stage completion without Samatha Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 49:55 Highlight the passage at 49:55

50:14 It's not a path. One can practice Vipassanā without Samatha. It's not a path. He's talking about actually finding liberation. And he's talking about doing it in this lifetime. And judging by his life story and what's renowned by his fellow 19th century and 20th century masters, he was phenomenally effective. Report an error in the passage at 50:14 Highlight the passage at 50:14

50:36 And leading others to such liberation for themselves. When you are on the path, so you can see how strongly this is emphasized. When you're on the path, do not engage in even the slightest bit of intellectual examination of the mere nature of existence. So now it's mere nature of existence, right? That is, if all you've achieved is shamatha, you're not on the path. Report an error in the passage at 50:36 Highlight the passage at 50:36

51:00 So you better do some of that investigation, that inquiry, that vipassanā, because all of the tendencies of reification haven't even been touched yet, right? But then once you have done that sufficiently, you've engaged the investigation, the analysis, the penetration, you've ascertained the nature of reality, the empty nature of reality, you've ascertained how all phenomena are arising by the power of conceptual designation and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 51:00 Highlight the passage at 51:00

51:25 You really fathom the nature of dependent origination. And its complete congruity with emptiness. You fathom that. Then, do not engage. Now you're on the path. You've achieved shamatha. You've really penetrated through with Vipassanā. Good. You've done the hard work with your intellect and your mind. And now, move on. Report an error in the passage at 51:25 Highlight the passage at 51:25

51:49 Don't keep on doing what you're good at. You're good at that. You're very good. But if you keep on doing it, now it's overkill. It's just like achieving shamatha and then just dwelling in shamatha for years. Total waste of time. So, now that you're on the path, congratulations, but now do not engage in even the slightest bit of intellectual examination of the mere nature of existence. Report an error in the passage at 51:49 Highlight the passage at 51:49

52:11 Without any investigation, analysis, meditative practice, so now you're really ready for non-meditation, right? Without any meditative practice, without modification or alteration, relax within yourself in the essential nature. Report an error in the passage at 52:11 Highlight the passage at 52:11

52:27 Okay, I don't know how I could say that possibly more clearly than that. So many people, it's happening so often today, they get some Dzogchen teachings here and there and they come across the phrase, relax within yourself in your essential nature. I want to do that. I'm ready. I'm ready. I like non-meditation. I want to do non-meditation. Oh, I like it. I like it. Report an error in the passage at 52:27 Highlight the passage at 52:27

52:48 I'm entering into an altered state. That's fine, fine. That's cute. But you're not on the path. So you're not even going towards the path. You're not even achieving shamatha. You're just hanging out. Totally blew it. And yet your life is so precious and now you're pissing it away. By loosely and completely resting there, appearances of creative expressions will naturally flow forth, releasing themselves. Report an error in the passage at 52:48 Highlight the passage at 52:48

53:16 They're self-emergent and self-releasing. You're viewing reality from the perspective of pristine awareness. And there's nothing to adopt and nothing to reject. Report an error in the passage at 53:16 Highlight the passage at 53:16

53:30 Everything you're seeing is arising purely as an effulgence of your own pristine awareness. This is called illumination by primordial consciousness of the face of the great perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. So congratulations, that's how you become a Vidyadhara. Report an error in the passage at 53:30 Highlight the passage at 53:30

53:48 It's exactly that. You come to rest in pristine awareness and your practice, once you're resting there, now you can practice rikpa choksa, just resting in pristine awareness. And there's nothing to do. And you do nothing. Or you don't do anything, that's even better, you don't do anything, simply rest there, and then everything comes to you, that is the realization goes deeper, deeper, deeper, until it's completely unmediated, and you become a Vidyadara, a fully matured Vidyadara, the first stage of Vidyadara. Report an error in the passage at 53:48 Highlight the passage at 53:48

54:25 And that comes through the practice of non-meditation, but only after you reach the path. And you get to the path only by Vipassanā. You stabilize Vipassanā only with Samatha. And you achieve Samatha only by having very authentic motivation and pure ethics. Report an error in the passage at 54:25 Highlight the passage at 54:25

54:43 So try to skip any one of those stages. Anybody can. It's a free world. You can do anything you like. But if you're looking for the path, then that's ill-advised. Report an error in the passage at 54:43 Highlight the passage at 54:43

54:55 Well, that's all. Let's come back at 10 minutes past the hour. See you then. Report an error in the passage at 54:55 Highlight the passage at 54:55