The Wisdom of Addiction: Turning Poison Into Medicine

0:02 if you don't mind. Here's the mic. Baking into that. Sure. Report an error in the passage at 0:02 Highlight the passage at 0:02

0:34 Were your friends, there was a couple here that I spoke with, were they your friends or was it other people? No, actually. Oh, okay. Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

0:49 Are you a resident here? Where's whom? Oh, okay. Report an error in the passage at 0:49 Highlight the passage at 0:49

1:11 Reading on it? Oh, the blurb you mean? Yeah. other two. I'm checking two. Check it Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

1:19 Your name again? I'm sorry. Joe. Hi, I'm Anna. Were you in one of the... Yes, I was. I think in the weekend thing I did. That's right. Great. Report an error in the passage at 1:19 Highlight the passage at 1:19

1:36 Should we sit for maybe a minute? Report an error in the passage at 1:36 Highlight the passage at 1:36

· · · silence, 1 minute

3:02 So it's a nice small group. Maybe we could have a roundtable discussion on the topic. I spoke about this a couple times, and I think one of the talks are online. Report an error in the passage at 3:02 Highlight the passage at 3:02

3:17 So maybe we can start with... If each person can see what is of interest to them around addiction. Report an error in the passage at 3:17 Highlight the passage at 3:17

3:30 Kind of curious what brings people here. Report an error in the passage at 3:30 Highlight the passage at 3:30

3:39 One of the nuns in Australia who certainly has done a lot of talks at our centre and workshops around addiction. So she's like a psychotherapy background as well. So she's drawing on that. And there seems to be a great interest. Report an error in the passage at 3:39 Highlight the passage at 3:39

4:13 Oh, we forgot about that. Yes. So we have a nun in Australia who's writing about addiction and also runs workshops. What's her name? Tenzin Churni. Oh, okay. Did she make a presentation? She might have. She was at Land of Medicine Buddha, I think, earlier this year, so she might have done something here. Report an error in the passage at 4:13 Highlight the passage at 4:13

4:33 So yeah, she's writing on that at the moment. But just for some years there's been a sort of lot of interest and various times people have said, you know, at times could we have something more on addiction and so forth. So sort of quite interested in that from that point of view. Report an error in the passage at 4:33 Highlight the passage at 4:33

4:55 What actually brought me to Buddhism or directed me to Buddhism in the first place was Kevin Griffin and his book One Breath at a Time. Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

5:07 It just seemed so sensible to marry and show the similarities between Buddhism and the 12 steps. And it really got me hooked and made me want to study it further. And I was telling Venerable Czeg before we began that it was actually precipitating my move to San Francisco. It was to delve further into my Buddhist studies from New York. Report an error in the passage at 5:07 Highlight the passage at 5:07

5:33 Oh, nice. Welcome. How long have you been here? Six months? Eight months. Report an error in the passage at 5:33 Highlight the passage at 5:33

5:44 And I wanted to come to this presentation because I always think of addiction as attachment, of course. So I want to explore that a little more. And I did come to that presentation you made and I found it very useful. And I found the handout that you gave us was very useful too. And I've actually gone back and re-read it a few times and, you know, given it more thought. Report an error in the passage at 5:44 Highlight the passage at 5:44

6:12 And it's been helpful. It's pretty deep. It has layers to it. Oh, yeah. I'll talk a little about the text that she's mentioning. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:31 Oh, yes. I found it. Report an error in the passage at 6:31 Highlight the passage at 6:31

6:36 Absolutely. Yeah. Actually, the text that's being referenced is a 19th century text written by a Nigma master, Jigmitempa Nima. He was a renowned scholar known for... His amazing lectures on the bodhicitta avatar at the age of eight to assemblies of a thousand people. And he was an incarnate of the Dodrupchen lineage, which is one of the toku lines of the Nigma. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

7:15 A lot of this might be. And so he spent most of his life in solitary retreat. Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:31 So he didn't actually write. It was interesting because he was a scholar and he wrote. He had the ability to have mastery over these amazing texts as a child. But he himself did not write very much. And so one of the things he did write, he wrote a couple of major commentaries on the good Garbha Tantra. Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

7:56 They were very big. And then he wrote a third text, and that third text was a really essentialized pith instruction on transforming suffering into happiness. And that was the text that I presented. It's maybe, what was it, 15, 16 pages in the even less... Report an error in the passage at 7:56 Highlight the passage at 7:56

8:20 Yeah, it was maybe 10. It's not very much, but it essentializes, from his point of view, the entire... The main points of the Boreachara Avatara and how to transform suffering. So I'd like to actually talk about that text again sometime. That would be a great thing to revisit, that text. And maybe we can reference it tonight a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 8:20 Highlight the passage at 8:20

8:52 So the topic tonight of addiction, I actually got interested in this topic because I was interested in college in... Mind and what allows some people to change and what prevents some people. They want to change but they find themselves repeating the past habits and patterns. Report an error in the passage at 8:52 Highlight the passage at 8:52

9:17 So I went from philosophy, which is what I was studying, to psychology and that's what I practice now. I'm a psychologist. And I was really interested in the topic of addiction because... Among all the mental disturbances like depression, anxiety, it happened to be the only one that I knew of for which there absolutely was not treatment, a drug treatment, pharmacological treatment. Report an error in the passage at 9:17 Highlight the passage at 9:17

9:49 Whereas in depression and anxiety, there's a protocol for being able to target very specifically the neurotransmitters involved. And then there are antidepressants and even in cases of very severe mental disturbances like schizophrenia, we have medications. So it's fascinating that we can actually target and have this sort of treatment plan that's pharmacological and really much relates to the whole organism as a biological entity. Report an error in the passage at 9:49 Highlight the passage at 9:49

10:21 And at the time, I was really interested in beyond the biology. Consciousness is a non-biological process. So. And there's the debates about that and I was really interested in those debates. So addiction happened to be really fascinating because we really didn't have a treatment protocol and we still don't. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:43 That can relate to the situation as a sheer biological model. Report an error in the passage at 10:43 Highlight the passage at 10:43

10:53 And the topic in philosophy is called second order desires. It means the desire to have a desire. So if you're wanting to quit smoking, model Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:02 The desire to not desire cigarettes is regarded as a second-order desire. So that was specifically what I was interested in. Report an error in the passage at 11:02 Highlight the passage at 11:02

11:12 We can have a desire around something, and some people are able to follow through with their aspiration, follow through with their desire to stop smoking and succeed, and so many people can't. So I was interested, what is there? What's the difference there? Both want to. Both people want to stop smoking or whatever it might be. Report an error in the passage at 11:12 Highlight the passage at 11:12

11:43 But we see really differences in how that happens. Report an error in the passage at 11:43 Highlight the passage at 11:43

11:59 So the Report an error in the passage at 11:59 Highlight the passage at 11:59

12:07 basic field of addiction as it stands relates to the issue of dependence and abuse. As what they call biopsychosocial. So it has components of, they regard biology and the situation around what happened to us, the experiences of early childhood, psychology and then the social environment. Report an error in the passage at 12:07 Highlight the passage at 12:07

12:41 So if we begin with sort of the notion of addiction, you know, beyond the idea of second order desires. The desire to want to do something. It may not be an addiction. An addiction has a component to it where the individual's repertoire gets narrow. Their experience of day-to-day activities falls by the wayside. There is a component to addiction that's compulsive, where the person is beyond a situation of engaging it on a level of... Report an error in the passage at 12:41 Highlight the passage at 12:41

13:22 A one-time thing or maybe a weekly thing, that's an abuse. We call that substance abuse. So we distinguish abuse from dependence. Report an error in the passage at 13:22 Highlight the passage at 13:22

13:33 The word addiction is loaded, so I'm parsing clinically what we relate to it as. Report an error in the passage at 13:33 Highlight the passage at 13:33

13:43 And then the real distinction between... Dependence, which is more severe in abuse, is dependence is characterized by tolerance, withdrawal and a pervasive, it pervades a person's life. Report an error in the passage at 13:43 Highlight the passage at 13:43

14:16 But the interesting thing about the phenomenon is that it's a, the basis of addiction, we can kind of relate fundamentally to all of our issues of desire, attachment and how we relate to ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 14:16 Highlight the passage at 14:16

14:32 When we look at someone who has a full-blown addiction, one of the most common characteristics in the personality is a split in the personality. So what I'm going to talk about is just a little bit about what we understand psychologically about addiction and how can that be related to spirituality. The example that I usually give, that my professor gave in graduate school, which I think is a great one, is... Report an error in the passage at 14:32 Highlight the passage at 14:32

15:03 Considering a four or five-year-old child who, let's for the sake of argument say, their mom comes home around 10, 10.30 every night after being out friends and dating and whatever and brings home like a lollipop. And so the child, this is a very extreme example to illustrate the point. The child grows up remembering their mother as being really wonderful because whenever she came home she would bring a lollipop. Report an error in the passage at 15:03 Highlight the passage at 15:03

15:31 That illustrates that the basic... The fundamental need for the child is to maintain some form of contact, that the child is willing to brush under the rug their needs and is willing to distort their experience of what's happening. They're not being put to bed on time. They're not being fed at an appropriate time. They're not being cared for. But if they're in touch with that, if they really get in touch with how they're being neglected, That's going to undermine their investment to have a contact with the caretaker. So the investment of being connected trumps what they might feel is more beneficial for them. Report an error in the passage at 15:31 Highlight the passage at 15:31

16:21 The idea of being fed, the idea of being put to sleep on time. They distort their experiences. And so an addict... Typically, the profile of someone with dependence issues in particular, beyond abuse, because it's more common to have one too many and get a DUI. Not maybe a DUI, but to have one too many and to get sick. That can happen to a lot of people. But dependence actually is more rare. Report an error in the passage at 16:21 Highlight the passage at 16:21

16:50 It shows a more consistency in the way the person is relating. To being altered, to the use of the drug. So when we see the profile of someone with a dependence issue, we see someone typically who has developed a very good ability to deny their needs, to not really be in touch with their needs. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:14 And so what ends up happening is that the child is vying for the mother or the caretaker's attention, is vying for approval. And they are going to be ignoring maybe what they would like and they will err on the side of what the caretaker would like. They'll err on the side of what would make their mother or father happy because they want the approval, they want the contact. Report an error in the passage at 17:14 Highlight the passage at 17:14

17:45 So then what happens is the personality splits. If it's severe enough, this dynamic, there's a split. And it doesn't have to be a situation where the child is neglected. It can be a situation where the child is living in a really affluent, opulent situation, but their parents are very judgmental. Their parents are constantly putting a very high expectation. And the message is that my mom or my dad or my guardian is going to love me conditionally. Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

18:13 That if I don't meet these... I'm not going to be loved, regardless of whether that might be true or not. That's the message that the child will get if there's a really severe, judgmental, critical environment or a neglectful environment. Report an error in the passage at 18:13 Highlight the passage at 18:13

18:33 So then if that's prominent, then what happens is the personality splits in what we call a real self and an ideal self and then an impoverished self. The real self is neglected. The real self is the one with the genuine desires and the authentic needs that's not being met. The child's not in touch with that. And instead, there's an ideal self of wanting to be Superman or Superwoman for mommy or daddy. Report an error in the passage at 18:33 Highlight the passage at 18:33

18:58 And then that also creates a split in terms of an impoverished self. So if your mother is very judgmental, very critical, and then also can like, you know, If there's a pendulum swing around the mother maybe putting the child on the pedestal and saying, you're so wonderful, and then cutting them down and saying, I wish you were never born, that creates a real big dissonance psychically. Report an error in the passage at 18:58 Highlight the passage at 18:58

19:24 The child feels either on top of the world, an over-idealization of their capacity, or they feel like completely crummy and they feel like dirt. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:38 Yeah, that would be a really extreme kind of toxic situation. The basic point is that there's a message around conditional love. Report an error in the passage at 19:38 Highlight the passage at 19:38

19:55 There's often an inconsistent connection. So the inconsistency is there where the mother might really smother the child and then suddenly be gone or the mother might be very overbearing and constantly critical. There's a message around Report an error in the passage at 19:55 Highlight the passage at 19:55

20:11 Giving the child this mixed message around love on the one hand but at a price on the other. Is this making sense? Report an error in the passage at 20:11 Highlight the passage at 20:11

20:24 Yeah, that's the cost. So that's a mixed message. So if I'm the mom and I'm smothering you and then I'm suddenly absent. So not all parents are neglectful. Some parents are overbearing. Some parents are fine. There's a saying by Winnicott that we just need good enough parenting. There doesn't have to be this... Report an error in the passage at 20:24 Highlight the passage at 20:24

20:45 Perfect situation. But if there's not that good enough parenting, if that's not meant, what that usually looks like is either overbearing, judgmental, high expectations or neglectful, very inconsistent in the quality of care and love. So we get this split in the personality between the ideal and then... Report an error in the passage at 20:45 Highlight the passage at 20:45

21:13 And in between, in that no man's land is their real self that's not being given any juice, that's not being given any spotlight or attention. So the experience that then happens is the child themselves experiences themselves as either on top of the world or completely like low self-worth and worthless. Report an error in the passage at 21:13 Highlight the passage at 21:13

21:36 And they go back and forth, this pendulum swing. Report an error in the passage at 21:36 Highlight the passage at 21:36

21:43 So that's a very typical profile of someone with a drug dependence. Report an error in the passage at 21:43 Highlight the passage at 21:43

21:55 Traditionally, it's regarded as a narcissistic situation because not being in touch with your genuine real needs, what ends up happening is you are going to mirror and try to basically mold whatever the others might want you to be like. or kind of Proceed with this idea of what you think you should be like as opposed to what you really are like. Proceed with the idea of credentials being the main motivating factor, for example, and putting so much energy and time and maybe establishing yourself as a highly successful businessman when really that may not have been your genuine desires and needs, but you're looking for this sort of outer criterion to measure up to. Report an error in the passage at 21:55 Highlight the passage at 21:55

22:50 So the phenomenon of addiction is actually a rampant modern phenomenon. In England, in the turn of the century, there was heroin prescribed for medical purposes and there was much less addiction. So the actual substance obviously is important. Yes, nicotine, heroin, these are addictive properties. But the real foundation of addiction is its root has to do with the sense of self. Report an error in the passage at 22:50 Highlight the passage at 22:50

23:19 Now, I'm coming from the point of view of psychology. If you had maybe a neurobiologist, they would say something different. But my understanding of addiction really is that it has to do with a sense of self. And so the experience of oneself as empty, feelings of emptiness, feelings of loneliness that are very deep, because there's an experience that the others does. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:49 The others don't see me. The others don't really know who I am. And I don't know who I am. Report an error in the passage at 23:49 Highlight the passage at 23:49

24:01 Deep alienation, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 24:01 Highlight the passage at 24:01

24:06 Yeah, that's right. A deep sense of alienation. Because there's a lack of cultivation in what would otherwise be considered a genuine passion. The child, for example, let's say you have a child who loves music and wants to be a musician, but is very much... That desire is very much undermined and suppressed by their caretaker. Well, it's quite possible they'll actually grow up without having connected in a real way with that desire. Report an error in the passage at 24:06 Highlight the passage at 24:06

24:41 And it may not even be a conscious at some point, that they've suppressed it to the point where they're not even conscious that this was really something I love to do and I'm not doing it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:17 What do you mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:21 You mean subject-object? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 25:21 Highlight the passage at 25:21

25:45 I think that it's a good thing you're bringing up because Buddhist philosophy, it has these terms like ego, self, and I think it's important to really get a sense of what are we talking about. In psychology, the term ego is a good thing. It has to do with... A put together structure of the psyche where you're not experiencing, where your consciousness is not basically dissipated in many ways. Report an error in the passage at 25:45 Highlight the passage at 25:45

26:30 One of the fundamental pieces around that is something called object constancy. So if I, let's say, hit it off with you and I've just met you and then a few days pass and then, If I don't have very good object constancy, I'm not going to be able to really bring up that experience with you. It'll be like whatever's in front of me is what I'm really going to engage in. Report an error in the passage at 26:30 Highlight the passage at 26:30

26:55 And it'll be more difficult for me to invest in relationships in general because I lack the ability to really connect to the experience of connection. Report an error in the passage at 26:55 Highlight the passage at 26:55

27:08 Excuse me? Isn't that San Francisco? It's urban. It's not New York City. Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:15 Maybe the flaky California. But the point of object constancy is something like the word ego in psychology, ego strength, it has to do with many things that are actually positive. So the subject object duality, that you're starting to get into the field of Buddhist metaphysics, which may not be as relevant. Report an error in the passage at 27:15 Highlight the passage at 27:15

27:41 Ultimately, it is relevant. Right now, what I'm talking about is actually on a much more gross level. Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

27:56 A very common thing, for example, is the sense of self versus self-grasping. When a lot of times we talk about ego in Buddhism, it can become synonymous with what we would normally consider the sense of self. Report an error in the passage at 27:56 Highlight the passage at 27:56

28:11 Whereas self-grasping is... I'm sorry, when we talk about ego, we're talking about self-grasping. Not the sense of self, because if we don't have the sense of self, then we're psychotic. We don't know that we're in this room. So when we talk about ego in Buddhism, what we're normally talking about is self-grasping, the suffering that ensues from relating to the situation from a really distorted place. Report an error in the passage at 28:11 Highlight the passage at 28:11

28:42 So the piece in the addiction is fascinating because there's this experience of... There's this lack of a foundation of our real wants and our real needs. So then the self-grasping that comes from that is a basic intolerance around suffering because there's not a foundation that's able to... And we can talk about the human condition. Report an error in the passage at 28:42 Highlight the passage at 28:42

29:17 A lot of the harm we cause is being intolerance to basically handle our stuff. Violence and major breakdowns in communication and relationships have to do, again, with this intolerance of the distress that might come about, not being able to handle loneliness, not being able to handle jealousy. The addiction process is extremely an isolated process, so it's not going to involve others. It's a question of checking out and disconnecting. Report an error in the passage at 29:17 Highlight the passage at 29:17

29:55 That allows for not experiencing the alienation, not experiencing the loneliness, not experiencing perceived feelings of failure, not experiencing feelings of lack. It's really what it does. The idea that might be helpful here is it's a situation where for a period of time there's been a lack of cultivation of things that make our life full, of what makes our life feel meaningful. Report an error in the passage at 29:55 Highlight the passage at 29:55

30:28 That could be talents that we didn't develop. That could be desires and pursuits. And this is an interesting issue because in Buddhism we talk, you know, it's very oftentimes those things can have a bad rap, you know, pursuing. Our passion, pursuing what makes us happy. And it's one of those kind of scenarios where almost before we are going to transcend, there has to be something to transcend. Report an error in the passage at 30:28 Highlight the passage at 30:28

30:59 Before we renunciate, there has to be that capacity to know what is it we're renunciating. So, uh, uh... In philosophy, it's called the pre-trans fallacy. To kind of try to put the cart before the horse, you're taking something that's pre-egoic, pre-developmental and confusing it with a transcendental state of mind. Report an error in the passage at 30:59 Highlight the passage at 30:59

31:28 Confusing that non-dual, let's say, place of the womb as being an enlightened place. Whereas being a place that is like when we talk about going beyond subject-object, it's called a pre-trans fallacy. It's a mistake to think that they're similar. They're completely two different balls of wax. And so similarly, when we talk about addiction, what we have is a situation where the garden has not been cultivated. Report an error in the passage at 31:28 Highlight the passage at 31:28

32:00 So it's not the same as... Not engaging in the fruit, because there is no fruit. There really has not been a cultivation of genuine desires and authentic connection with people as a spectrum. I mean, I don't want to be talking in absolute terms, but by and large, the more of an addiction you have, the more of an addictive situation is going on, the less of a foundation there is in a meaningful, authentic life. Report an error in the passage at 32:00 Highlight the passage at 32:00

32:34 socially, occupationally. Occupationally, artistically. And that's why one of the hallmark features, as I said in the beginning of addiction, is a narrowing of the repertoire of life where the beginning phases begin recreationally. Addiction begins recreationally where we're trying things out. Then it begins on a more kind of ritual level. Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

33:03 Thanksgiving, Christmas we drink or maybe Friday night after work we drink. It begins becoming a little bit more in our schedule. And then it begins developing a situation where it becomes a motivating factor where we won't even go to the party if there's not cocaine. Report an error in the passage at 33:03 Highlight the passage at 33:03

33:20 And then that motivating factor then becomes, and that's an example of the narrowing of the repertoire, right? We're not going to the party to forge old and new relationships. Report an error in the passage at 33:20 Highlight the passage at 33:20

33:32 So there's this, and so it becomes really obvious by the end that the driving force has been not a genuine connection to life. Report an error in the passage at 33:32 Highlight the passage at 33:32

33:53 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, I'm not sure how many of you might be familiar with the name, he really talked about the three lords of materialism. And by materialism, he meant... Report an error in the passage at 33:53 Highlight the passage at 33:53

34:06 BSing ourselves. Trungpa, Trungpa, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 34:06 Highlight the passage at 34:06

34:20 He talks about psychological materialism, material materialism and spiritual materialism. These are ways of bypassing our genuine authentic experience. Psychological materialism being one in which Where we kind of invest in a sort of self-help kind of program and then go to another self-help program and another self-help program and fundamentally just don't sit with our own stuff. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

35:04 But it's this sort of situation of going to that weekend and expecting to come back, you know, feeling like you're going to be blissed out and your problems will be going away. Report an error in the passage at 35:04 Highlight the passage at 35:04

35:15 And you can go to any bookstore and look at the pop psychology books. It's a whole market for that. Then there's the piece around material materialism, and that's obviously when we're taking refuge in the Mercedes and the labels and our current economic crash can be also an obvious symptom of that level of material materialism, the level at which people live their lives on credit. Report an error in the passage at 35:15 Highlight the passage at 35:15

35:46 In order to have what their neighbors are having or have what their friends are having. So again, another way of bypassing the situation of our reality. If you're experiencing a hang-up, go shopping. So that's material materialism. And then the one he focused most on and the one that's most subtle and difficult to catch is spiritual materialism. Report an error in the passage at 35:46 Highlight the passage at 35:46

36:11 And spiritual materialism is using spiritual... Teachings as a way to bypass our own stuff. Using spirituality as another credential of how great I am or how accomplished I am. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:34 Relating to the spiritual path as another way to try to bypass pain. As opposed to process suffering, bypass suffering. it's it's a Report an error in the passage at 36:34 Highlight the passage at 36:34

36:33 mean Report an error in the passage at 36:33 Highlight the passage at 36:33

36:45 If I go to this empowerment, then I'll be able to get this girlfriend or get this car or I'll do the mantra so many times. It's a basic relationship to the spiritual teachings as a way to just continue pursuing what we call the eight worldly dharmas. The basic pursuit. narrow, just Narrow-minded pursuit for our pleasure beyond other people's pleasure, our avoiding pain for ourselves regardless of causing pain for others, invested in our own fame, invested in our own gain, invested in, I forgot one of them, Report an error in the passage at 36:45 Highlight the passage at 36:45

37:39 pleasure and then fame and then gain. I always forget the fourth one. Report an error in the passage at 37:39 Highlight the passage at 37:39

37:51 You get the point though. So, and you know, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, he said something really beautiful in one of his books around if we look at animals and we look at humans, they're indistinguishable insofar as they are, they both are engaged in the worldly dharmas of wanting to be, you know, that the big bird will feed herself or himself, you know, first and will be more invested in that or the basic, Report an error in the passage at 37:51 Highlight the passage at 37:51

38:25 Pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain as a sense of beyond the idea of others, beyond the idea of what can be considered more of a place of equanimity. So what distinguishes humans from animals really is humans have the ability to not engage in these eight worldly dharmas. They're able to engage in a place of... Report an error in the passage at 38:25 Highlight the passage at 38:25

38:55 Just much more magnanimous action, and there's many figures in history that we can point to. They're able to engage with more wisdom and compassion. So kind of going back to the addictive process, the drug is very powerful, or the behavior can be very powerful, because what happens then is relationships fall by the wayside, and that's a further confirmation for the person. Report an error in the passage at 38:55 Highlight the passage at 38:55

39:26 In terms of their expectations, the expectancy of someone who grew up in a very conditional environment where deep down they felt they were not loved unconditionally and that they felt that, you know, mom or dad will leave me if I do this, you know, that A, there's a sense of if my core is somehow unlovable and at the root I'll eventually be left if I don't measure up somehow. Report an error in the passage at 39:26 Highlight the passage at 39:26

39:56 Well, in relationships, that can manifest as entering a relationship with the expectation that the other, if they really see who I am, will leave me or will not be as interested in me. Report an error in the passage at 39:56 Highlight the passage at 39:56

40:08 Entering relationships with an expectation that this person isn't really connecting to me in the way that they don't really see who I am. If they really saw me for who I am... Then they wouldn't want to be with me. It's a repeat of the experience they may have felt on a very subtle level in childhood of that conditional push-pull. Report an error in the passage at 40:08 Highlight the passage at 40:08

40:34 Or it could happen the opposite way, where they feel that they don't feel like they can be in the relationship fully and they'd rather just check out of the relationship. They'd rather just disconnect and be in that place of isolation. Report an error in the passage at 40:34 Highlight the passage at 40:34

40:57 So that's called expectancy. And expectancy is very difficult to change. So the drug confirms that expectancy. The drug, you know, one of the famous things that's said about it is that the fallout is part of the payoff. That the fallout of the drug, you know, that we think that what we want is to get high. But what happens then after we get high is the social fallout. Report an error in the passage at 40:57 Highlight the passage at 40:57

41:21 You know, we lose our job a lot of times. Lots of carnage occurs. Being so checked out and out of control and so that confirms our expectancy around that low self-worth. So then let's say something happens where our wife leaves us. We just can't handle the drinking and she leaves us or is going to threaten to leave us. Report an error in the passage at 41:21 Highlight the passage at 41:21

41:51 Then that kicks in our desire for redemption. So there's that again. That early childhood dynamic of wanting to redeem oneself. And then once we feel redeemed, then there's a sabotage. And so that because the sabotage allows for that cycle of acting in and acting out over and over again, falling off the pedestal, feeling like dirt, and then creating the situation of I'm going to redeem myself. Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:19 And that becomes a dynamic of the relationship. The relationship doesn't ever really leave the ground in a real way. It's a yo-yo of acting in and acting out. That can be in work as well. Report an error in the passage at 42:19 Highlight the passage at 42:19

42:34 Coming unraveled at work, not being able to perform, getting a reprimand by our employer, getting maybe a probation, and then kind of that kicking us into motivating, into sort of stepping up. you know, Report an error in the passage at 42:34 Highlight the passage at 42:34

42:51 Doing double time and kind of really just basically there's a lack of moderation in the whole thing. There's a lack of balance. We're either going in one extreme or the other. Report an error in the passage at 42:51 Highlight the passage at 42:51

43:10 Is there any questions so far on any of this? Is it making sense, this dynamic, this psychological portrait? Report an error in the passage at 43:10 Highlight the passage at 43:10

43:27 We started late, so if it's okay, I'll go a little bit over. I think it's 7 to 8. Um, the, the... Report an error in the passage at 43:27 Highlight the passage at 43:27

43:45 Okay, I thought for some reason last time it was an hour I did it. So I'll go to 9. Report an error in the passage at 43:45 Highlight the passage at 43:45

43:53 So, I could say, maybe I'll say one more thing in terms of the psychology and then I can talk about the spiritual piece of it. Report an error in the passage at 43:53 Highlight the passage at 43:53

44:03 The... The general tendency is black and white thinking. The general tendency is either I'm great, Or I'm horrible. And the filter of experience does not really allow for a shade of gray. Either I'm successful or I'm a failure. And then that creates the intolerance because when you're a failure, that really feels intolerable if that's what we're really experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 44:03 Highlight the passage at 44:03

44:35 So that becomes a motivating factor for wanting to check out. Report an error in the passage at 44:35 Highlight the passage at 44:35

44:46 One of the things that we found in terms of change in general is that change occurs in stages. And they talk about change, and it's called the stages of change, developed by a psychologist whose father died of alcoholism. He was interested, why do some people change, why others don't? De Clemente and Procesca are the developers. And so in the stages of change, it always begins with not even knowing that you need to make a change. Report an error in the passage at 44:46 Highlight the passage at 44:46

45:15 It's called pre-contemplation. Basically, it's not even on the radar that I need to change at first. Report an error in the passage at 45:15 Highlight the passage at 45:15

45:26 And then things occur usually from the outside. People maybe begin bringing up the fact that you're blacking out every weekend or bringing up something along the lines of you're already in debt and you keep going shopping. Report an error in the passage at 45:26 Highlight the passage at 45:26

45:49 You start getting some signals from the outside that maybe I have a problem. Sometimes it can even come up from inside. From within you might start. But usually it has to do with you start waking up to maybe I have a problem from the outside. People begin saying things. Your boss begins maybe getting on your case for coming to work late because you've had a hangover. And so that pre-contemplative stage. Report an error in the passage at 45:49 Highlight the passage at 45:49

46:19 Bleeds into what's considered contemplation. So you begin contemplating. I wonder if I have a problem. Report an error in the passage at 46:19 Highlight the passage at 46:19

46:31 Most addicts spend a long time in that stage of contemplation. That can be among the longest of the stages, of the five stages I'm going to talk about. The contemplation has been regarded by people with addiction issues as being among the most painful because in a way they... Themselves are no longer able to blissfully engage in their use, but they constantly have this background noise, you know, this may not be okay. Report an error in the passage at 46:31 Highlight the passage at 46:31

47:03 And sometimes the background noise can be so loud that their whole being is able to resonate with how out of control and unhappy they are, and yet they continue with the behavior compulsively. Report an error in the passage at 47:03 Highlight the passage at 47:03

47:22 Now, in the contemplation stage, there's basically a point at which the person comes to a conclusion around, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to only drink Friday nights. Or, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'll do cocaine one more time and I won't do it again. There's a conclusion around something, around the problem. Report an error in the passage at 47:22 Highlight the passage at 47:22

47:42 And then once that conclusion has been made, that's the end of the contemplation stage. And they enter what's called the preparation stage. Now this is actually something which we often overlook, but indeed when we have a really deep habit, it requires a level of preparation. Even when we have come to the conclusion about what to do, we often have to really prepare ourselves to do it. Report an error in the passage at 47:42 Highlight the passage at 47:42

48:10 If you've come to the conclusion that you're going to stop drinking and you've been drinking for 20 years, it requires a... A degree of getting ready to do that, getting ready to no longer drink. It's like the difference between saying goodbye to a lover for a few weeks versus burying your lover in the ground. Report an error in the passage at 48:10 Highlight the passage at 48:10

48:28 It's very intense, the idea of saying goodbye to something. And that stage can last up to a month. You can be actively using and actually come to the conclusion you're going to stop using and be in the preparation stage and you can be getting ready to not use. For weeks while using. But you're in the preparation stage because you've come to the conclusion you're going to stop using. And you're just trying to get yourself ready to stop using. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

49:00 Then there's action stage. The action stage involves obviously enacting whatever conclusions we came to. It's very rare for the action stage to endure. Oftentimes we find that we have to make adjustments. It's like going to a terrain we've never been to, going to a country we've never been to. There are going to be things that surprise us, things that we weren't expecting. And so a lot of times there are situations around lapses and relapse. Report an error in the passage at 49:00 Highlight the passage at 49:00

49:34 In addiction medicine, we distinguish a lapse as basically falling off the wagon for like a few days or a week. It's not that you've come to a different conclusion about your relationship with the drug. It's just that the situation was such that it was extremely difficult to resist and the urge overpowered your logical decision making and you used. Report an error in the passage at 49:34 Highlight the passage at 49:34

50:03 We distinguish that from a relapse because a relapse is when you're no longer... On board with the conclusion you made. So if you've made the conclusion I'm going to not drink anymore and then you have a few slips and then you just begin drinking, let's say, on weekends again. Well, that's no longer continuing with that conclusion. You've kind of gone back to the contemplative stage, made another conclusion. Report an error in the passage at 50:03 Highlight the passage at 50:03

50:34 So there's a circle there. And a lot of times we have to go back to the contemplation stage, preparation, action. Figure out what we need to make adjustments in. Again, contemplation, preparation, action. And then once we've found something that works for us, where we're able to maintain it for a six month period at least, then we are in what's called the maintenance stage. Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

50:59 And the maintenance stage is maintaining that consistency. What all of this speaks to is that recovery from drugs and alcohol is not black and white. It is not a... It is not a clear-cut situation where the normal addictive mind thinks, you know, this is what I have to do. If I don't do it, I'm a failure. The actual process of change really involves many shades of gray, involves a work in progress. Report an error in the passage at 50:59 Highlight the passage at 50:59

51:32 And it's completely not compatible with the normal mindset of that black and white thinking. It's one of the reasons... It's such a struggle for people with addictions to recover because their normal habit is to relate to the situation as all or nothing. Report an error in the passage at 51:32 Highlight the passage at 51:32

51:56 And it doesn't have to be abstinence. If I'm an addict, I could think, okay, I'm going to only drink on weekends. And if I don't, if I fail at doing that, it's going to feel like a complete failure. I'm going to experience... Report an error in the passage at 51:56 Highlight the passage at 51:56

52:12 A lack of efficacy. I'm going to experience a lack of confidence overall. I won't see the situation as, well, you know, this was a slip or these were the factors that were involved. Report an error in the passage at 52:12 Highlight the passage at 52:12

52:30 So that piece, that's the psychology of it. Report an error in the passage at 52:30 Highlight the passage at 52:30

52:46 The experience in recovery becomes like a garden. So you begin gardening. recovery you begin cultivating relationships you begin cultivating new things you do It's a garden. And so when there's a lapse, when there's a situation like that, rather than throwing out the baby out with the bathwater, the experience would be, one would be better served in relating to the situation as, okay, well, I didn't water my garden for a week. Report an error in the passage at 52:46 Highlight the passage at 52:46

53:15 It doesn't mean that the garden is going to die. The training is again and again, Developing a different sense of self, it's really profound. It's very difficult because we're going from an experience of ourselves as this back and forth idealization and impoverishment to the good, bad and the ugly. This is all me and this is what I am. Report an error in the passage at 53:15 Highlight the passage at 53:15

53:50 In psychology, the treatment that really has been powerful Among the treatments has been 12-step programs and the 12-step program begins with the idea of powerlessness, that I'm not at the helm. Not all treatment plans necessarily have to be in the 12-step. Was that not the first step or you're nodding your head? No, no, no. Oh, the 12-step program. Report an error in the passage at 53:50 Highlight the passage at 53:50

54:19 Yeah, not all treatment plans are 12 steps. We have also lots of relapse. Relapse prevention models that relate to the situation as just reducing the amount of harm we're causing. So relapse prevention, harm reduction focuses more on reducing the harm and looking at success as being a measure of reducing how much we're harming ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 54:19 Highlight the passage at 54:19

54:50 I'm curious, what's your disagreement with 12-step programs? Report an error in the passage at 54:50 Highlight the passage at 54:50

54:57 The concept of power. Powerlessness. If you are powerless, I had an endless debate with several fellows. If I'm powerless, that means that I can't, that I am powerless over picking up a substance. I am powerless over the duration and I am powerless over putting it down. In other words, it will continue to rule my life. That is an acceptable bucket, I think, that... Report an error in the passage at 54:57 Highlight the passage at 54:57

55:30 That may be true for many people. Unfortunately, my beef with 12-step is that it is sort of a catch-all. Brilliantly written, worked for millions of people. Unfortunately, that's also the guise that it's operated anytime there's dissidents. There's no room for debate. Well, this has worked for millions of people, so how can you possibly say that you're any different? Report an error in the passage at 55:30 Highlight the passage at 55:30

55:53 Then you must feel that you're terminally unique, so therefore you are wrong and you are bad and therefore you are isolated. Report an error in the passage at 55:53 Highlight the passage at 55:53

56:00 And I don't buy it. That's interesting because most people I talk to who have an issue with the 12 steps has more to do with their alienation with the notion of a theistic being, omnipotent theistic being. But the powerlessness piece is fascinating because there's actually a line in that text that I mentioned that you brought up, turning suffering and happiness into enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:31 One of the advices that Tempanema gives when you're suffering is to really allow that to be an aid and a guide to remember how we're at the mercy of our karma. And he says that when you suffer, one of the benefits of suffering is that it ravages pride. Report an error in the passage at 56:31 Highlight the passage at 56:31

57:01 calls pride as the basic... I mean, literally is like the bad apple that rots the whole barrel. You can have all these amazing qualities, but pride is like this germ that rots it all. Report an error in the passage at 57:01 Highlight the passage at 57:01

57:15 And he talks about suffering as a positive thing insofar as it can, if you relate to it in this way, really undermine your assumption that you are not at the mercy of your karma. Report an error in the passage at 57:15 Highlight the passage at 57:15

57:34 It's kind of a powerful idea if Report an error in the passage at 57:34 Highlight the passage at 57:34

57:44 you relate to your suffering in this way. So if I'm suffering and I think about it, rather than sort of get mired in the suffering, I can think about it as this is because of my karma and I didn't see this coming and I'm at the mercy of my karma. Report an error in the passage at 57:44 Highlight the passage at 57:44

58:03 Please. Report an error in the passage at 58:03 Highlight the passage at 58:03

58:09 So at the beginning of the year, Chodron Rinpoche was in Sydney and... I'd just arrived back in Sydney and I was very ill and ended up in hospital and feeling a little bit sorry for myself before it occurred to me to actually ring my Geshe and say, what should I do? And so he checked out with Chodron Rinpoche and of course the first thing was to see the suffering as a blessing and it completely changed my mind. Report an error in the passage at 58:09 Highlight the passage at 58:09

58:49 To sort of regard it rather than, oh, I'm here missing out on something and, you know, sort of looking at it from a very self-centered point of view to actually saying, oh, right, because the message was like, this is a result of your karma and better to purify it in a human form than eons of hot hells. Report an error in the passage at 58:49 Highlight the passage at 58:49

59:14 And it certainly connects you with other people's sufferings immediately, especially if you're in hospital. It was very concrete transforming of that. It wasn't about addiction, but it was about what the mind does with it and how quickly you can turn that around. It's amazing. That shift that you mentioned is really, from my point of view, reflective of the whole situation. Report an error in the passage at 59:14 Highlight the passage at 59:14

59:48 There was once a text that I had. I still have it. And in the text, it talks about the nature of ignorance as being a small but deep problem. Report an error in the passage at 59:48 Highlight the passage at 59:48

1:00:04 I liken it like a situation around a spark plug. If your spark plug isn't working, you don't have to overhaul the transmission. It's not this sort of reinvention of this machine. Like, it's... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:20 It's a minor repair, but if you don't repair it, you've got a big problem. You're not going anywhere. So ignorance, it's this sort of just this not seeing. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:20 Highlight the passage at 1:00:20

1:00:35 The Buddha nature is there, and there's just this layer of not seeing, and it's not that our core is confused, but just a little, The shift can make the whole difference. So that shift from, you know, you have that experience of suffering and just relating to it from the point of view of karma. The difficulty is karma is difficult to see, very difficult to see. So it has to do in that sense, you know, Nagarjuna said if only our ribs would break the moment we stepped on a cockroach, all our problems would be solved. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:35 Highlight the passage at 1:00:35

1:01:21 Because there would be that immediate relationship, very easy to see. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:21 Highlight the passage at 1:01:21

1:01:30 Oh, the powerlessness, you mean with the 12-step program? The relationship you mean with the first step or powerlessness? No, I mean, my thought at this point is that there is another way. Of what? I'm not a proponent of total absence. I believe that there is a germ, that there is something that is... Report an error in the passage at 1:01:30 Highlight the passage at 1:01:30

1:01:53 That causes suffering and you don't have to eliminate anything that may be similar to it. Everything that may be similar to a particular substance in order for you to grow. Not to drink the mouthwash and stuff like that. Right. And I just think that it gets confused and it gets mired in this grand concept of 12 steps. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:53 Highlight the passage at 1:01:53

1:02:22 I'm a big fan, I think, in many ways. Of the steps, I think it's the program that I have issues with. And the dogma of what works, what doesn't, and you see it in my travels around the U.S. But that's why I was looking for much more of a spiritual solution, which is the 11th step. What's the 11th step? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:22 Highlight the passage at 1:02:22

1:02:48 It's sound through parent meditation, right? It's a conscious contact with a god. uh, Report an error in the passage at 1:02:48 Highlight the passage at 1:02:48

1:02:58 Isn't there also the first few steps involve recognition of a higher power? Second is the possibility. Third is making the decision to, and that's probably almost referencing the preparation stage. Making a decision to connect with the higher power. And then you get all the way up to the 11th step, which is meaning to some sort of spiritual contact in the hopes of... Report an error in the passage at 1:02:58 Highlight the passage at 1:02:58

1:03:26 Resolving all of your character defects that you addressed earlier on between the fourth and all the way up to the ninth. I mean, what you're reminding me of is when the Buddha said, look here, regard yourself as sick, regard me as a physician, and regard my teachings as the medicine. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:26 Highlight the passage at 1:03:26

1:03:46 There's that similarity, isn't there, around recognition, the recognition piece. So the powerlessness could be recognize. You are sick, right? Now I know in terms of, that's a loaded word, sick and powerlessness, right? Right. Well in Zen Buddhism, the issue I had with what I've studied up to, the text I've studied out of Zen is, well now that you know that you have the problem, don't do that anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:46 Highlight the passage at 1:03:46

1:04:19 Once you've come to this realization, see that's where the disconnect is between an addict and a normal person. Right. Because the ad can't. Yes, and as you were saying earlier, many times is quite aware of the issue, and that's where the inability lies to cease use of whatever the substance is. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:19 Highlight the passage at 1:04:19

1:04:45 And I think that's right. I mean, once you see the problem, then stop. And why aren't we doing that? And so that has everything to do with... With having the experience of sympathy towards ourselves, sympathy towards our condition, individually, like my situation, having sympathy around my suffering as opposed to judging my suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:45 Highlight the passage at 1:04:45

1:05:17 By now it's, I think, pretty well known, the famous sort of interaction between His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Western. Teachers around this notion of self-esteem, where His Holiness was really at a loss in what that would be in Tibetan. There was not really a word for low self-esteem. And I was actually listening to a teaching by Sogyun Rinpoche today, where he said that the Buddha, he was quoting the Buddha along the lines of saying that the being among the... Report an error in the passage at 1:05:17 Highlight the passage at 1:05:17

1:05:58 The being that first really deserves your love is yourself. That's like beginning there. That's the basis of caring for yourself and loving for yourself. But you see, that's why I kind of took that time around the psychological portrait because the habit is not to love oneself. The habit is to judge oneself. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:58 Highlight the passage at 1:05:58

1:06:20 And then also just speaking a little bit about the piece around abstinence versus using sometimes. Twelve steps aside, the research that's been done on people who have met criterion for dependence is that about 5 % managed to use moderately afterwards, after they've met criterion for dependence. So after you've sort of developed an addiction, then the research has shown that 95 % cannot use. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:20 Highlight the passage at 1:06:20

1:07:02 Moderately. Which is not an, I'm not arguing for 12 steps. I mean, I didn't even know all the 12 steps. So I'm not going for or against. But that research really was pointing to the biological piece. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:02 Highlight the passage at 1:07:02

1:07:16 That's my point. I mean, for instance, if you're addicted to cocaine, does that necessarily mean that that is necessary to give up wine? If wine was your precursor to cocaine. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:16 Highlight the passage at 1:07:16

1:07:29 I think that's a different story, but I think it has to do with how many degrees of separation there are. So clinically, what would you say to that? Clinically, I would say that the real issue is dopamine and the off switch for dopamine. That when you've developed an addiction, whether it's eating, overeating, sex addiction, gambling or cocaine, the common factor in all of that is a flood of dopamine. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:29 Highlight the passage at 1:07:29

1:07:58 In your brain, you're flooding your brain with dopamine, especially if it's a substance like cocaine or alcohol. You're really at that point taking a crowbar at your neurotransmitters and just opening that dopamine door or speed. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:58 Highlight the passage at 1:07:58

1:08:18 So what then happens is normally if I, let's say, have a piece of chocolate, I have some dopamine and then my brain... retrieves the dopamine you know there's an uptake kind of like because the the brain's job is to maintain Now, if I'm doing something like gambling in Las Vegas for 12 hours straight or doing cocaine or drinking, I'm forcing my brain to not be able to take that dopamine back. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:18 Highlight the passage at 1:08:18

1:08:51 I'm breaking the off switch. Now, there's a certain point at which the off switch, When it breaks, then it's broken. The dopamine floods the brain and we don't reuptake it in the way that a normal person would. There's a physiological shift that occurs, similar to diabetes. If you have a really bad diet with sugar, you can actually change your physiology with insulin and thereby develop diabetes. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:51 Highlight the passage at 1:08:51

1:09:28 Weren't born with it. You can develop diabetes. It does involve genetics. Genetics are involved in that off-switch breaking and also the degree to which that off-switch is broken. There are some people for whom the off-switch is so broken that they can't have wine. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:28 Highlight the passage at 1:09:28

1:09:53 For some people, the off-switch may be broken but not to the point at which you know, if they've developed, if they've kind of, Report an error in the passage at 1:09:53 Highlight the passage at 1:09:53

1:10:01 They can't, for example, have maybe some kind of something on Christmas or Thanksgiving, but it's Russian roulette too. In other words, think about it like Russian roulette. One person may have such a compromised brain chemistry situation where it's like Russian roulette where you put in, out of four times or five times, the gun will go off. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:01 Highlight the passage at 1:10:01

1:10:34 Whereas someone whose brain may not be as compromised, it will be like maybe 20 times, but then that gun will go off. The vulnerability for that gun going off is there once addiction has been developed. For some it may be 1 out of 100 times, others may be 1 out of 5 times. It really depends on the extent to which that brain chemistry has been compromised. The off switch has been broken. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:34 Highlight the passage at 1:10:34

1:10:57 This is making sense? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:57 Highlight the passage at 1:10:57

1:11:14 Why do you want that switch back? Your brain's at equilibrium now, so there's a question of, okay, there's an attachment of I want to still be able to have, for example, wine at dinner. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:14 Highlight the passage at 1:11:14

1:11:30 So there's this sort of desire and a sense of an attachment to that outcome. There's an attachment to that outcome. Now, in terms of mind training, Report an error in the passage at 1:11:30 Highlight the passage at 1:11:30

1:11:48 There are things, I think, that can be done, sure. For example, being very mindful of the environment, avoiding situations that might be particularly triggering. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:48 Highlight the passage at 1:11:48

1:11:59 But by and large, it's an uphill battle because what you're dealing with is a physiological situation. There are many lamas who have physical symptoms, physiological imbalances, and they have great mind training. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:59 Highlight the passage at 1:11:59

1:12:17 Again, the situation there is the karma could be a physical situation. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:17 Highlight the passage at 1:12:17

1:12:29 There's only so much you can do sometimes with your karma. That's one of the fascinating things. We do have control of our experience. For the most part, what we're experiencing has come from past, according to karma theory, has come from past lives. You know, and that, and, Report an error in the passage at 1:12:29 Highlight the passage at 1:12:29

1:12:46 And we can control our destiny, but we also have to work within the confines of our current karma. Is this making sense? And so recognition, part of mind training is recognition of that too, of is this my karma? I mean, to what extent do I accept this? To what extent can I make aspirations? Report an error in the passage at 1:12:46 Highlight the passage at 1:12:46

1:13:09 To move further from this situation, there are things that people can, there's lots of kind of guidelines around karma. Like if you're having a certain experience karmically, there's many amazing kind of instructions on, okay, we'll then do this. Tsongkhapa's commentary of the Abhidharma is amazing. His fourth chapter on karma, you know, he lays out amazing detail. Okay, if you're experiencing poverty or experiencing sickness or... Report an error in the passage at 1:13:09 Highlight the passage at 1:13:09

1:13:37 This is because of this. This is because of this karma. And so this is what would be helpful for purifying the karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:37 Highlight the passage at 1:13:37

1:13:46 Padmasambhava said, if you want to know what you did in your past, look at your current situation. If you want to know what's going to happen for you in the future, look at your current situation. What are you doing? And so really, I would relate to it as a physiological situation. And to some degree, you might have the karma. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:46 Highlight the passage at 1:13:46

1:13:55 you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:55 Highlight the passage at 1:13:55

1:14:08 to not be vulnerable to that physiological situation you also might be and it doesn't mean that your mind training is weak it means that the karma is of that physiological situation is very strong this is making sense Report an error in the passage at 1:14:08 Highlight the passage at 1:14:08

1:14:24 so my beef were 12 It's an abstinence-only model. It's an abstinence-only model. Trust the millions of people who have gotten Sober in the past that if you go out and you try to use or enjoy something... Don't experiment. Don't even go there. Don't experiment. If you didn't consider yourself to be an alcoholic yet you were addicted to a drug, don't drink even though you didn't find yourself abusing that because you're going to and it's going to lead you back to... Report an error in the passage at 1:14:24 Highlight the passage at 1:14:24

1:15:10 Right back to where you were and therefore your life blows up again. My Report an error in the passage at 1:15:10 Highlight the passage at 1:15:10

1:15:21 understanding of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it goes through and says, it identifies, are you truly an alcoholic of this variety? And it goes through three different models and it says it'll work for this, which is the fifth, not for the other four. And then at some other point it says we don't have any monopoly. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:21 Highlight the passage at 1:15:21

1:15:44 So it's saying, this is a model. And I think it's like the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha saying, you know, there are many paths. So it's sort of looking in our own minds. So I know that even the lack of treatments that I had in the 1930s for alcoholism at the time when that, I mean, your options were a psychic institution, asylum or the street. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:44 Highlight the passage at 1:15:44

1:16:09 That was it. And even then they said, we don't have... This is not exclusive. And here today we've got so many modalities all around us to choose from. It's a dime it doesn't. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:09 Highlight the passage at 1:16:09

1:16:26 So I think you really need to investigate what it actually says if you go back to the source and see what it actually says there. It doesn't claim that this is for everybody. Well, the fellowship is so large. There's so many... Different varieties within the fellowship. I mean there are people who, individual people in AA who are much more open to different approaches and there are individual people in AA who are very rigid. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:26 Highlight the passage at 1:16:26

1:17:00 So it's really difficult when we talk about AA to talk about it as a monolithic entity. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:00 Highlight the passage at 1:17:00

1:17:19 It also reminds me of a saṅgha when he said, rely on the teaching, not just the personality, the teacher. Rely on the definitive meaning, not sort of the popular culture part of the meaning. Get down to the root of it. It's the four reliances. Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your judgmental mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:19 Highlight the passage at 1:17:19

1:17:49 I think my sense is maybe there was some, for you, maybe the friction has to do with feeling that if someone's in the fellowship, they're going to judge. Another person who's not necessarily doing AA or something. That there's a sense of maybe more of a social situation. That it's kind of a social stigma or social kind of judgment around it. If you're not doing AA and you identify yourself as having an addiction issue. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:49 Highlight the passage at 1:17:49

1:18:31 Well, one thing that I think is definitely true regardless of the recovery program is whatever recovery one engages in, whether it's AA, harm reduction, rational recovery. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:31 Highlight the passage at 1:18:31

1:18:41 Their own spiritual path, whether it's Christianity, Buddhism. It's a question of deeply developing compassion for yourself first. Really deeply having a sympathy for your situation. And really feeling interested in others. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:41 Highlight the passage at 1:18:41

1:19:15 Interested in others, interested in connection. It doesn't mean you have to be a social butterfly, but it means having enough of an ability to sympathize with your own situation that you then begin empathizing with others too. And there's more of a relational situation of compassion, clarity and curiosity. Those are three things that I think are really key to any healing process. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:15 Highlight the passage at 1:19:15

1:19:46 Some people do better when it's a very structured program around developing those qualities in relation to the drug, right? It's like, look here, you know, let's talk about this process of this journey of healing in relation to this problem, right? So it's very explicit. Something like AA is very explicit in wanting to organize the healing process around Report an error in the passage at 1:19:46 Highlight the passage at 1:19:46

1:20:17 This kind of reference point of the drug. In Buddhism, we organize the reference point of the journey around this notion of self-grasping as the basis. That the other paths don't unfold unless we have real clarity around how we have self-grasping, how self-grasping works. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:17 Highlight the passage at 1:20:17

1:20:48 So it's just a question of reference point. The reference point of AA could be this basis of the absence from the drug. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:48 Highlight the passage at 1:20:48

1:21:01 I'm not familiar enough with Christianity, but I'm assuming it would have something to do with taking refuge with Christ, and having that being the reference point, that you don't really begin as a Christian until you completely take refuge in Christ. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:01 Highlight the passage at 1:21:01

1:21:18 So regardless, you know. I think the journey involves that piece around curiosity, compassion and clarity with oneself. And those are things that we generally don't have. Think about curiosity. When we have these knee-jerk responses to things, we are not curious about our reactions. We are not curious about our reactions. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:18 Highlight the passage at 1:21:18

1:21:36 Right? Um, Report an error in the passage at 1:21:36 Highlight the passage at 1:21:36

1:21:50 We see that person, that family member or something that always angers us. There's really a lack of curiosity in what the hell is going on here. Why do I end up wanting to kill this person every time? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:50 Highlight the passage at 1:21:50

1:22:18 In particular, do you mean like clinical addiction issues? Report an error in the passage at 1:22:18 Highlight the passage at 1:22:18

1:22:45 It's cultural bound. When you go in one culture... you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:45 Highlight the passage at 1:22:45

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1:22:48 One drug will be much more prominent than another culture. In China, gambling is a major issue. Much more addiction to gambling, for example. If you go down to the Bay Area casinos here, you'll see so many more Asians. It's a culturally bound addiction. That's why I said biopsychosocial. There's the biology, which we've touched on, the psychology, which we've touched on. There's a social element that's massive. I mean, that's why you can have something like in England, you know, very common prescription of heroin for many different ailments. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:48 Highlight the passage at 1:22:48

1:23:30 And there wasn't addiction like we see it because the social component of it, of it being related to as a basic situation of wanting to check out. It just was not, it wasn't, it was maybe people were checking out in other ways. The socially accepted, you know, the social kind of phenomenon, it was not being used in that way. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:30 Highlight the passage at 1:23:30

1:23:58 It just was basically like, why do we have more gambling among Asians? You know, because maybe there's components of stigma, components of, in Muslim countries, alcohol would be completely much more stigmatizing. Here, more alcoholism. Because it begins with that piece around it's more socially acceptable. So that social piece and one of my favorite quotations in psychology is social oppression precedes psychic repression. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:58 Highlight the passage at 1:23:58

1:24:35 Meaning before there's that psychic repression of whatever it happens to be, there's a social dynamic first. First you're getting a message socially. Around this is something for me to repress. So the fact that Buddhists came from Asia, for the most part Buddhism came from Asia, right? It's really recent in this country. So you're taking a whole paradigm and culture coming from a very different... Report an error in the passage at 1:24:35 Highlight the passage at 1:24:35

1:25:08 So it wouldn't necessarily be fair to say, oh, because they're Buddhists, there's not many alcoholics. Because alcoholism was not... really the the same phenomenon as it was in ireland where you had catholics and and you know Report an error in the passage at 1:25:08 Highlight the passage at 1:25:08

1:25:26 Alcohol Report an error in the passage at 1:25:26 Highlight the passage at 1:25:26

1:25:33 is the drug of choice in Australia. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:33 Highlight the passage at 1:25:33

1:25:40 I did a two-year internship in the Midwest, in Missouri, and it was phenomenal because it was actually horrible, but it was a phenomenon that I experienced that around alcohol over there is like cannabis here. In San Francisco, cannabis use is very high. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:40 Highlight the passage at 1:25:40

1:26:06 There in Missouri, it's much lower. You see these manifestations. DUIs are much more common. It's almost a rite of passage in college to get a DUI. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:06 Highlight the passage at 1:26:06

1:26:27 I think then we were talking about just the basic situation around know Report an error in the passage at 1:26:27 Highlight the passage at 1:26:27

1:26:34 It's relating to the self from that point of view of going beyond the reaction of the self-grasping. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:34 Highlight the passage at 1:26:34

1:26:46 I'm trying to think of the Tibetan word. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:46 Highlight the passage at 1:26:46

1:26:53 There's a sit-dak-zin. The term has to do with not attachment but reaction. When we think about attachment, the actual Tibetan term that I'm thinking of, Report an error in the passage at 1:26:53 Highlight the passage at 1:26:53

1:27:10 I want to say takzin, but I'm not confident that that's it. But it has to do with relating to the situation from one of a reaction, not attachment. That in addition to attachment, we have aggression and we have ignorance. So those can all be put under this umbrella of reaction. There's maybe a reaction to just implode inward and want to disappear, want to check out. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:10 Highlight the passage at 1:27:10

1:27:39 There might be the angry reaction to things. There might be the attached reaction to things. And so the term actually in translation, we have the famous, there's a famous thing around this teacher, Tilopa, who said, you know, it's not appearances that bind you. It's your, and then traditionally it was your attachment to them. And that got retranslated as it's your reaction to them. So that's kind of where this word was coming into my mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:39 Highlight the passage at 1:27:39

1:28:10 So it's not appearances that bind you. It's your reaction to them. And the reaction is an entrenched sense of self that we're coming from. We react because there's a me that's somehow being either assaulted or is feeling lack. I'm feeling lack. I'm feeling lonely. There's a basic sense of I'm not okay and there's a me there that's really entrenched, a sense of self that is involved in grasping in a reactive way. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:10 Highlight the passage at 1:28:10

1:28:54 When you say reactive way, are you talking about attachment, aversion or neutral? Yeah. Those are styles. In fact, one of the most popular books in psychology is by Karen Hornein. She wrote Our Inner Conflicts and her teacher at the time was in New York. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:54 Highlight the passage at 1:28:54

1:29:12 D.T. Suzuki, Zen teacher, and she actually wrote a book. She doesn't say this, but I believe she based it very much on the three poisons of attachment, aggression and ignorance because in the book she says our personalities are either moving towards, moving against or moving away. Are you familiar with that book? You're nodding. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:12 Highlight the passage at 1:29:12

1:29:40 The concept, yeah. So she actually became quite famous doing a riff on the three poisons, moving against being the aggressive style, moving towards being the attachment style, and then moving away being the ignorant style. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:40 Highlight the passage at 1:29:40

1:29:59 So these are just fundamental reactive processes. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:59 Highlight the passage at 1:29:59

1:30:06 Pema Chodron talks about this reactive dynamic. know Report an error in the passage at 1:30:06 Highlight the passage at 1:30:06

1:30:03 sussies. Um... Report an error in the passage at 1:30:03 Highlight the passage at 1:30:03

1:30:10 She says about the four R's. The four R's are recognize. It's got to begin with recognition of what's going on. So that's the curiosity piece. When we don't have curiosity, we're not going to recognize the pattern. We're just going to be engaged in the pattern. The second R is relax. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:10 Highlight the passage at 1:30:10

1:30:34 So that's sympathy because you're showing kindness towards yourself. You're not recognizing, oh, there I do it again. You begin beginning yourself up, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:30:34 Highlight the passage at 1:30:34

1:30:46 Because that's another thing you're doing, right? That's another pattern of beating yourself up. So it's a no, recognize that too, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:30:46 Highlight the passage at 1:30:46

1:30:56 The third R is refrain. And she likens it like an itch. There's the itch. Recognize the itch. Relax. Refrain from itching. She, in fact, at one point said, this is what distinguishes, this is what for me is that I consider the characteristic feature of my teachers as opposed to how I experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:56 Highlight the passage at 1:30:56

1:31:23 The general humanity. The only difference is my teachers don't itch. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:23 Highlight the passage at 1:31:23

1:31:33 So recognize, relax, refrain. And then the fourth R is repeat. Because you have this long habit of doing something. So maybe you actually do the right thing. You got to repeat that. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:33 Highlight the passage at 1:31:33

1:31:56 How to refrain. That has to do with recognizing when you understand the pattern. It's like if you knew how you went wrong, then you know how to get back on the road. If you don't know how you went wrong, then you can't really figure out the antidote. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:56 Highlight the passage at 1:31:56

1:32:21 That's why when we think about the Four Noble Truths, just by understanding the first truth, the rest come out. If you truly understand, what does it mean by suffering? What is the meaning of dukkha? What does that mean? Understanding that truly will reveal the source, the possibility and the path towards that possibility, the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:21 Highlight the passage at 1:32:21

1:32:50 So that's, again, the idea. When we recognize where did we go wrong, how did we go wrong? So that's recognize. A first R might be the biggest challenge. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:50 Highlight the passage at 1:32:50

1:33:05 Clarity. I talked about clarity, curiosity and compassion. So clarity and curiosity gives us that recognition of understanding the pattern. Then compassion allows us to relax, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:33:05 Highlight the passage at 1:33:05

1:33:22 When you talk about refrain how, I would also say aspiration. I'm a big believer in aspiration, you know, making the aspiration. Because if we have any idea of karma, if we believe in karma, then we also then understand the power of aspiration, Report an error in the passage at 1:33:22 Highlight the passage at 1:33:22

1:33:42 intent. And if you're not able to, at the time, to aspire to, to make the aspiration. Because what you're doing with aspiration is you're setting a momentum karmically. One of the biggest differences, psychologically speaking, from Eastern psychology and Western psychology is in Eastern psychology, there's nowhere you can hide. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:42 Highlight the passage at 1:33:42

1:34:08 Even your thoughts come back. Whereas in Western psychology, there's this idea of, you know, as long as you're not saying it or doing it, it's okay, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:08 Highlight the passage at 1:34:08

1:34:26 So that Report an error in the passage at 1:34:26 Highlight the passage at 1:34:26

1:34:35 piece around, I forgot what I was saying. The four R's. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:35 Highlight the passage at 1:34:35

1:34:49 Aspiration, right, exactly, aspiration. So that's right. That's the power of aspiration. We don't really learn about that in the West too much, aspirations. I mean, we talk about prayer. But it's really a situation of making it into a practice of aspiration. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:49 Highlight the passage at 1:34:49

1:35:09 The last piece I think in this is recognition, not only of the reaction at that point, because when we get deeper and deeper into the recognition, recognizing the pattern, recognizing how the self is grasping, how the self grasping occurs. We talked about when we know how did we go wrong, we can kind of then... Report an error in the passage at 1:35:09 Highlight the passage at 1:35:09

1:35:32 That also will reveal the path out. And that comes down to fundamentally recognizing nature of mind. Because the nature of mind is the organizing principle, is the basis for... Report an error in the passage at 1:35:32 Highlight the passage at 1:35:32

1:35:54 It's sort of a situation like when you recognize awareness, when you have a connection and understand the nature of awareness, to understand how awareness It's not a solid thing, it's not an individual thing, it's not an unchanging. Because when we experience ourselves, like me, we experience as a unity, you know, and we experience ourselves as enduring, but we're not, we're constantly changing. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:54 Highlight the passage at 1:35:54

1:36:27 So by the way, understanding the emptiness or the way that our own experience of this sense of self is dependently arising, like a... Like a rainbow. There are these factors that are coming together and this experience of me is a dependent arising like a rainbow. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:27 Highlight the passage at 1:36:27

1:36:53 It seems a few things happen. One thing that happens is the point of reference shifts. The more we acclimate ourselves and habituate ourselves to experiencing ourselves as we are, the nature of mind, which is empty and aware. And all pervasive. Then there's a, you know, like those pictures where there's like a woman and if you look at it, it turns into a butterfly. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:53 Highlight the passage at 1:36:53

1:37:23 It's like if you have a figure ground shift where that sense of self is me as this like individual enduring unity shifts to me as basically not singular. But dependent and aware and open and compassionate. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:23 Highlight the passage at 1:37:23

1:37:59 So that's where the meditation comes in. Meditation practice is for that purpose of recognizing the nature of mind. Recognizing the emptiness of the self as not being this thing that we think it is. And that's the other thing going back to what we were talking about earlier, that small shift. Oh, there's a mouth. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:59 Highlight the passage at 1:37:59

1:38:19 Because the shift is one of recognizing the colored rope as not being a snake. So initially there's lots of skillful means in calming ourselves down around the snake by calling the Humane Society and getting a net and doing a lot of things to calm ourselves down around this suffering that's happening. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:19 Highlight the passage at 1:38:19

1:38:45 And the various 230 forms of therapy out there. Are great for that. But meditation is not therapy. Meditation does not involve testimony. Meditation, for the purpose of recognizing your nature, is recognizing the snake as not ever having even been there. There is no skillful, there's no kind of investment in trying to get the snake out. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:45 Highlight the passage at 1:38:45

1:39:22 It's a question of completely shifting the whole thing. One of going from testimony to one of no longer testimony, but the problem isn't even there anymore. It's a sky flower. It doesn't exist. The problem of getting the snake out of the room never existed. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:22 Highlight the passage at 1:39:22

1:39:47 So this enduring situation of our lives... Since beginningless time, it becomes recognized as having been a problem that we were trying to solve, like a problem that we were trying to solve in a dream. You wake up from the dream and it's not a problem. The problem, when you wake up from the dream, then the problem you were having in the dream, let's say of getting out of a cave, is no longer a problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:47 Highlight the passage at 1:39:47

1:40:18 It's a very, very radical, profound alternative. What we're talking about can be approached from the point of view of psychology and it has benefits but limited benefits. And the limited benefit is that you're still dealing with self-grasping. The only thing I believe that will actually remedy self-grasping is the sitting practice of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:18 Highlight the passage at 1:40:18

1:40:45 Because the only practice there is you're cutting the storyline. You've got the story and you're cutting the story. No other activity do we really do that with. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:45 Highlight the passage at 1:40:45

1:40:56 It's really in the practice of mindfulness that we are cutting the story. We still have the experience. There might be risings of sadness, for example. I recommend to my patients, stay with the experience, drop the storyline. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:56 Highlight the passage at 1:40:56

1:41:17 The narrative... Is obviously necessary. We wouldn't be able to live without narrative. If I, you know, you and I have a relationship now and it has to do with tonight and when I see you, if I see you again, there is a narrative. That's why I said there's a difference between sense of self and self-grasping. If you don't have a sense of self and the narrative's all over the place, well, you're psychotic. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 1:41:17 Highlight the passage at 1:41:17

1:41:39 But if you are able to remedy the ability to not follow the narrative, if you're able to cut the story and just be with the experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:39 Highlight the passage at 1:41:39

1:41:48 Without identifying it as being me that's having this issue. That's kind of the situation of relaxing. Recognizing and relaxing and refraining. Not itching. Because the itching is the story. You're still engaged in the story there. As one meditation teacher of mine said, if you want something to die, don't feed it. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:48 Highlight the passage at 1:41:48

1:42:13 And then also, like with Shantideva, where he said, and I'll end with this. And we can ask any final questions. That if you want to get across a thorny landscape, you can either put leather on the landscape or you can put leather on your feet. When you put leather on your feet, it's much less effortful to put leather over the landscape, putting leather over an entire rocky, thorny field. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:13 Highlight the passage at 1:42:13

1:42:43 That's like meditation. Meditation, the sitting practice of meditation, allows one to then cut through. through the, um, the, um, The noise and the confusion very directly because you're not trying to solve the problem through more narrative. It's a very powerful, I would say even backdoor approach to undermining the suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:43 Highlight the passage at 1:42:43

1:43:19 So I think the most important thing is to engage in the sitting practice of meditation and to recognize one's nature. So I'll add on that. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:19 Highlight the passage at 1:43:19

1:43:35 So then we were talking about addiction, which I guess is similar to attachment, I think we were saying. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:35 Highlight the passage at 1:43:35

1:43:47 Extreme attachment. Which I think at some point or other we all have kind of extreme, right? Attachment. And then... And I would say reaction too. I think addiction is aggressive towards oneself. So it's a reaction beyond attachment. It's an aggressive act, it's an attached act, and it's an ignorant act. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:47 Highlight the passage at 1:43:47

1:44:05 So it's a reaction. Okay, okay. So then you were saying that one of the, I guess, ways of overcoming would be the meditation to get away from the self-grasping. But could you make the connection then between the self-grasping and the extreme attachment addiction and, I guess, self-aggression? Well, that's sort of the, that's where the, Report an error in the passage at 1:44:05 Highlight the passage at 1:44:05

1:44:37 The idea of the narrative, the storyline. You see, it sounds very innocuous in here when I talk about story, the storyline, but it's extremely powerful. If we really want to get in touch with our stories, they rule our lives. They rule our sense of self, how we experience ourselves. They rule how we experience others. They're the basis of our expectations. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:37 Highlight the passage at 1:44:37

1:45:07 The idea of meditation and cutting the story is the practice of not kind of continually fortifying this concrete sense of ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:07 Highlight the passage at 1:45:07

1:45:29 So it loosens it up. It loosens up that whole kind of concrete way of going about things because you're cutting the story. You're not feeding the story. So it's not getting stronger. What's left is awareness. Because when you cut the story, because we engage in the story because it's what we identify as us. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:29 Highlight the passage at 1:45:29

1:45:50 We're not used to cutting the story. A lot of patients come to me, many people, they've never cut the story. And so the practice of meditation cuts the story. It's a very unique and novel activity. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche talks about the embarrassment of meditating in the beginning part. How it's actually quite embarrassing to begin because you're almost acknowledging that you have it asked backwards and you've had it asked backwards for a long time. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:50 Highlight the passage at 1:45:50

1:46:21 It's quite a humble place to start. It seems though that some people are so obsessed with the story. Because, you know, you do meet people and they'll tell you their story. Yeah, I'm just giving maybe a bad example, but I have known people who are extreme and it seems it's like this story. And, I mean, I've had friends where I've said, you know, you've got to tell a different story because I'm kind of getting bored with that story of yours. Tell the same story all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:21 Highlight the passage at 1:46:21

1:46:54 That's exactly why you do it. Right. So, but you're saying, I mean, it sounds simple. It is simple. Remember that thing I was saying about the spark plug? Yeah, the spark plug is simple. It's a very deep problem. It's simple. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:54 Highlight the passage at 1:46:54

1:47:12 Huh? No, it's just a spark plug. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:12 Highlight the passage at 1:47:12

1:47:20 That's why they do it. Because it's boring is why they do it. The nervous system is used to familiarity. The nervous system is not used to novelty. they re it's it the Report an error in the passage at 1:47:20 Highlight the passage at 1:47:20

1:47:34 So even if you want to make a change that's for the better, logically, your nervous system is not on board. Your nervous system wants you to do what's familiar. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:34 Highlight the passage at 1:47:34

1:47:47 So that's why they engage in this story ad nauseum, because it is familiar. And our nervous system is happy with that. Which is why, again, when we talk about meditation, we're talking about not just a cognitive thinking thing, but our whole being. There might be this experience of discomfort. You know, around not engaging in the story. But again, there's the practice of being with that, of not reacting to that either. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47:47

1:48:18 You know, the whole thing is actually difficult to talk about because physiology and thoughts, they're all mixed together. You know, there are two ways of seeing the same thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:18 Highlight the passage at 1:48:18

1:48:28 I think one of the things that you were saying at the beginning was that the addictive, let's say, personality. The profile. Yeah, the profile. Is that of a person who doesn't have much of an inner core? Yeah. And therefore, I would imagine it'd be very difficult for a person like that to sit and meditate and try to get away from the narrative when there's not that much, maybe... Report an error in the passage at 1:48:28 Highlight the passage at 1:48:28

1:48:56 Oh, there is narrative for them. Yeah, no, there isn't a narrative, but I'm saying once you go past that narrative... Where do you go inside if you've never had that kind of love and security? Yes, because they have Buddha nature, the Buddha nature is there. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:56 Highlight the passage at 1:48:56

1:49:19 There's a sūtra where there's a person who's a mass murderer and he's killed 999 people or something, recognizes Buddha nature and then becomes a Buddha. And could have, I mean, the sutras are, Report an error in the passage at 1:49:19 Highlight the passage at 1:49:19

1:49:32 So that example speaks to regardless of the circumstance, we have Buddha nature and it's a question of recognizing the Buddha nature, the awareness aspect of our mind. Because that part is always there. Like a glass of water, you put debris in the water and you stir the water, it becomes muddy. But if you don't stir the water, the water becomes clear on its own. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:32 Highlight the passage at 1:49:32

1:49:55 You don't have to put detergent in the water. The nature of the water is to be clear. The nature of our mind is to be completely wide open, aware, without reference point, and completely perfect. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:55 Highlight the passage at 1:49:55

1:50:16 Amagaduli? Milrapa is one of them. That's right. I was thinking of the sūtra. Yeah. Alamagaduli. Amagaduli. Amagaduli. Yeah. Yeah. You recognize that one. Yeah. Yeah. So that's again, he had Buddha nature, you know. Any more questions? Report an error in the passage at 1:50:16 Highlight the passage at 1:50:16

1:50:45 Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:45 Highlight the passage at 1:50:45

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1:51:31 gave a weekend teaching on a Saturday on a text, 19th century Report an error in the passage at 1:51:31 Highlight the passage at 1:51:31

1:51:47 the children, I talked about, she talks about the four R's, recognize, relax, is that the one you need? Report an error in the passage at 1:51:47 Highlight the passage at 1:51:47

1:51:56 don't, I didn't mention them, I didn't mention them at all, you know. Not in the pamphlet? Do you have the pamphlet? It's out there, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:51:56 Highlight the passage at 1:51:56

1:52:10 yeah, don't bite the hook. That's an audio CD. You can buy that. It's from Sounds True, I believe. If you just Googled it, Kevin Chodron, don't bite the hook. Don't bite the hook. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:10 Highlight the passage at 1:52:10

1:52:23 It's not a text. It's not a text, no. It's an audio. Which I don't have anymore. I let one of my patients borrow it. Thank you. I wasn't actually... Report an error in the passage at 1:52:23 Highlight the passage at 1:52:23

1:52:32 it. It's out there doing good. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:32 Highlight the passage at 1:52:32

1:52:42 I don't know how to turn it. Yeah, no, just get changed. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:42 Highlight the passage at 1:52:42