← B. Alan Wallace

Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 38)

B. Alan Wallace · 2013 · 1 h 15 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 2:23

    And it's the metaphor of the bashful maiden. And it comes from classical India. And it pertains exactly to this practice where we are with a great deal of interest, focus. We're seeking to attend to whatever thoughts, images, memories and so forth that come to mind. But it can often happen. So this is a thousand years old because it's been happening for a thousand years. People keep on replicating this experience. And that is that as we seek to attend to the thoughts and images and so forth, the sheer fact of our attention being given there,

  • 5:26

    And when it does go well, I'll give you another one because these are nice metaphors, the classic teachings. And I'm not rambling this time, this is actually spot on. Another very nice metaphor is the metaphor of the navigator and the raven. These are nice to remember and they are easy to remember. In olden times, when the Indian... Seafarers would head out into the deep blue sea. Of course, they didn't have charts of the stars and so forth and so on. They pretty much had to wing it. And when they were far out to sea and there's no land in sight, they didn't really know where they were and they didn't know where the nearest land was.

  • 11:34

    I'll first of all say what is not meant is that you don't exist at all, and nothing belongs to you. It doesn't mean that. Never has meant that. The Buddha never implied that. This cell phone. Again, I run Santa Barbara Institute, it belongs to, but for practical purposes, this is my cell phone. Those emotions, they're not somebody else's.

  • 51:33

    We'll look at a classic kind of framework. It's a model. We should never conflate the model with what it's modeling. But in terms of a model, we can speak of three dimensions or tiers, three tiers of the mind. And the first of these is what we're most familiar with. And it's the coarse mind, the psyche, that arises very specifically, independence upon very specific brain functions. It's what psychologists study. And if that's all there is to the human mind,

  • 57:08

    even say well-educated. No Tibetan who's kind of just savvy of what happens in their culture. None of them doubt it. It's just so common. Any more than you and I doubt. We hear so many reports, so many people have seen them or used them, that to doubt the existence of laser would be kind of like living under a rock, didn't you hear? And they feel the same way about precognition. And so when you have these really advanced yogis, really highly accomplished ones, whose coarse mind dissolves into substrate consciousness and they break through the substrate consciousness into rikpa and they dwell there.

0:03 Any questions or comments? Yes, please. Report an error

0:23 I missed that sentence. An emotion came up and? Of startlement? Excitement. Okay, yeah. Report an error

0:48 Okay, I got it, yes. With a distinct impression that saying, oh, I'm excited, I can do The instant that registered, it was immediately replaced with a Report an error

0:57 clown-like person waving a flag and shouting a jaw. A clown-like person? A clown-like person waving a flag. A clown-like person. Clown-like. Clown-like person. Gotcha. Okay, good. They seem to be related, but the emotion is gone, but now... Report an error

1:17 Right, right. The instant I saw that, I'm now back into the blank. Yeah. Report an error

1:28 It went screwing. Nothing happened. So I guess it was suppressing things. Report an error

1:39 I Report an error

1:54 tried to observe my mind and it was a no-show. It's Report an error

2:01 kind of like having a performance and here starring the mind. Starring the mind. Hello, mind. Not necessarily suppressing. But I'll give you one of the classic metaphors. It's at least a thousand years old and it's a bit charming. A bit old-fashioned, but it's charming. But it's okay to be old-fashioned if it's a thousand years old, right? Report an error

2:23 And it's the metaphor of the bashful maiden. And it comes from classical India. And it pertains exactly to this practice where we are with a great deal of interest, focus. We're seeking to attend to whatever thoughts, images, memories and so forth that come to mind. But it can often happen. So this is a thousand years old because it's been happening for a thousand years. People keep on replicating this experience. And that is that as we seek to attend to the thoughts and images and so forth, the sheer fact of our attention being given there, Often seems to make them vanish. And the metaphor is that of a bashful maiden. And so in the metaphor there's like the town square and there's a lovely young woman, very bashful, crossing the square. Report an error

3:12 But then on the edge of the square is a young player or a playboy, remember from our age? A playboy, they call them players now, that's what I've been told. But a playboy and he's really ogling her. You know, kind of stripping her with his eyes, eyes going like that. And as soon as she feels his eyes upon her, that he's gazing at her so intently and with lust, she being the bashful maiden, she immediately disappears. Report an error

3:39 She just skirts off. So it's a nice little image of she being so bashful, she just vanishes. And so you're the player. And your thoughts, images and so forth are the bashful maidens. And so one can see that this has been going on for a thousand years, that's quite a few generations. And so my interpretation of this is that when we bring to the practice such an intensity of interest, you know, really kind of boring in, looking very intently like that, the sheer power of our attention can make the thoughts disperse. Report an error

4:17 Another analogy of my own is like having the sun over your shoulder and with a big magnifying glass trying to examine very carefully snowflakes. And as soon as they come into focus, then of course they melt. And so it's very common for that to happen. This doesn't imply then suppression. It just means that by the sheer power of the intention, sometimes it just kind of dissolves that which one is attending to. Report an error

4:41 So if one would like to have a bit more screen time, of thoughts, images and so forth, have more to work with, then the response as with the player, the very sharp, very smart player or ladies man, would be giving a casual glance out of the sight of the, you know, I'm really bad at it, I'm out of practice. Report an error

5:02 But it would be a very soft, you know, almost like casual, a soft gaze, kind of really soft like that. And then, and quite literally, if you bring much of a softer, a lighter attentiveness to it, not blurry, not dazed, not vague, but just really soft. Then you'll probably find that the memories and so on withstand it better and they linger longer. But it's an interesting experience. Report an error

5:26 And when it does go well, I'll give you another one because these are nice metaphors, the classic teachings. And I'm not rambling this time, this is actually spot on. Another very nice metaphor is the metaphor of the navigator and the raven. These are nice to remember and they are easy to remember. In olden times, when the Indian... Report an error

5:46 Seafarers would head out into the deep blue sea. Of course, they didn't have charts of the stars and so forth and so on. They pretty much had to wing it. And when they were far out to sea and there's no land in sight, they didn't really know where they were and they didn't know where the nearest land was. Report an error

6:02 But supplies would get low and they might know within two days we have to get some water, otherwise we're in trouble. So the navigators, knowing what was up, The precarious situation they could be in. What they would do is they would cage ravens, get a couple of ravens, cage them, bring them on board. And then when they were far up to sea, getting low on supplies, needed to know where the nearest land was, south, east, west, north, which direction to go to get to the nearest landfall and be able to get more water and so forth. Report an error

6:33 What they would do then would be to release the raven, let it go up. And they did so with a great confidence that what the raven wanted was just what they wanted. Because the raven not having webbed feet, if it landed in the ocean, it's going to die, and the raven knows that perfectly well. So what the raven would do, I think this is actually literally true, they would do this. Report an error

6:54 What the raven would do is not, it wouldn't throw the dice and say, well, what the heck, let's try east, and just fly off east. Because, you know, what are the chances? And so the raven, being quite a smart bird, the raven would go in spirals directly up above the boat, and just go higher and higher and higher. And then... Report an error

7:12 When the raven gets, what, half a mile, a mile up, as soon as the raven spots land, of course, then it's all like an arrow, because it wants to get to land. And so the navigator then, having, as soon as he's released the raven, would, how do you say, without wavering, without distraction, would track the route of the raven, waiting for it to take off in any direction, and then he's going to go in the same direction. Report an error

7:37 Quite smart, eh? And so, but unfortunately in the parable, they're all out of luck because the raven goes higher and higher and higher until it can't go any higher and just doesn't see land anywhere. And then the raven having no choice unless it wants to commit suicide, and it doesn't, then the raven spirals right back and then lands to its great chagrin on the boat. Report an error

8:01 And so in a similar fashion, it said, when you have really a soft touch, really a light touch, and you see the raven of some... A chain of thought, some string of thought or line of thought coming up. You watch it very gently, but unwaveringly, so your mind doesn't wander off. And sometimes it will string around. Report an error

8:18 It's not just a flick here or there, but sometimes it may be a whole line of thought that you're not identifying with, not perpetuating, but it has its own momentum. And that thought will weave around for a while, and then the thought having no place else to go, it will dissolve right back into the space of the mind from which it arose. Report an error

8:35 And so as the navigator watches the raven, but without intervention, without trying to influence it in any way, and watches it going up and then watches it come down, likewise the experienced meditator, with this very soft touch, watches the, from the very inception, watches the thoughts flow out, weave around, wander around, and then dissolve right back into the space of the mind. Report an error

8:59 So that's a nice metaphor. Okay? Good. Thank you, God. Anything else coming up? Yes, please. Report an error

9:16 Quite. Report an error

9:20 Oh, I'm glad. Good, good. Report an error

9:37 Quite. Report an error

9:41 I'm very glad, yeah. I'm delighted. I'm delighted, very good, and I'm also delighted that as a nun you didn't want to be an accessory to a bank robber. Report an error

9:56 Yes, we'll go here first, please. Report an error

10:07 my feeling. It's my feeling or my in the Buddhist teachings around there's no my or I. I'm just wondering if you could help clarify that a little bit more because I'm trying to work out how to How to integrate that concept in living in a world where like I have a bank account, I go to work, if the money doesn't get put into my bank account, I can't buy food to eat. Report an error

10:33 I'm hungry and it seems that there is an I there. And I know that's probably simplistic. No, it's a very good question. Very well articulated as well. And I didn't cover that one. No, it's a very... Report an error

10:47 I think I covered, as much as I will, the theme of impermanence. I really gave that some time. And then today, looking at what really are the true sources and what are not for happiness, even mundane happiness. Even all those pleasures are not even the true source of mundane happiness or hedonic. They wear out. And after a while, they can be quite painful. If somebody just kept on force-feeding you dessert, your favorite dessert, and just kind of kept on stuffing it in, after a while, you'd be screaming for help. Report an error

11:15 But what I didn't cover in any detail, That was the third theme, the third of these three marks of existence, and that is not self, not I or mine. And so I'll address this now, and I think we will have more time tomorrow, because it deserves fairly detail, because it's so easy to misunderstand. I'll first of all say what is not meant is that you don't exist at all, and nothing belongs to you. It doesn't mean that. Never has meant that. Report an error

11:43 The Buddha never implied that. This cell phone. Again, I run Santa Barbara Institute, it belongs to, but for practical purposes, this is my cell phone. Those emotions, they're not somebody else's. They're not somebody else's. You have a unique perspective on them. And your thoughts, of course, and your personal history. I mean, it's not anybody else's. Report an error

12:04 And to say nobody has that personal history, it sounds kind of weird and frankly it is silly. So as if one was listening carefully this afternoon, I was not saying there's no material world. I said, for example, that the wall is made of molecules, and it is. I don't doubt that. The question is, how do those molecules exist? Report an error

12:25 Do they exist independently, inherently, absolutely real and objective, or do they exist relationally? And of course, you've guessed, in the Buddhist view, they don't exist absolutely out there. And the brain cells inside our heads don't exist absolutely in there and certainly no emotions, thoughts and so forth, somehow like some mysterious mystical vapor, they don't emerge from brain cells. Report an error

12:47 Now that's superstition, you know, because that doesn't happen at all. But brain cells certainly do influence our mental states. We all know that. Put enough alcohol in there and you start acting silly. Or brain damage and then you, you know, one mental function after another doesn't work or it malfunctions. So all of this is known and it's been known for a long time. Report an error

13:06 That is, it's not some breakthrough of modern science that the brain is somehow related to the mind. You know, people have been getting bitten in the head or had brain damage for a very long time and all you have to do is kind of keep your eyes open and you say, oh, you know, have a big bonk on your head and you don't think so clearly, break your arm and you think perfectly clearly. Report an error

13:23 Or have, you know, or something in the gut, the leg, the kneecap and so forth. So one doesn't need to be very bright to see that there's something up in the head here, damage that sufficiently you may not see, hear, think clearly, remember and so on. But that doesn't mean that one is emerging from the other, because it's just sloppy logic. And so the issue of I, me, mine, it's just as we're not refuting that there are brain cells inside the head and they have strong influences on mental states, as mental states influence brain cells, that there is a material world that doesn't vanish, it doesn't go poof when we close our eyes. Report an error

13:58 So there's no silliness here. It's not a refutation of whether there's matter in the world. It is a critical evaluation of the nature of existence of matter and whether it's absolutely objective or whether it's relational. In the Buddhist view it's relational. So likewise when we speak of emotions, for example, are they mine or thoughts, are they mine? Well, of course, sure they are. Report an error

14:20 Just like this hand is mine. Or the blood inside my body is mine. It doesn't belong to anybody else. And moreover, I can sell it or I can give it away. Blood bank and so forth, and nobody will send me to prison. So conventionally speaking, yes, just as this cell phone is mine. But then we can ask, okay, but now what exactly does that mean? Report an error

14:41 Why? In what manner do we say these emotions, these memories, personal history and so forth, in what manner are they mine? We're not questioning whether yes or no, we're saying yes it is. That's how everybody speaks. And it's meaningful speech to say, My feeling is, or I'm feeling this emotion, or I'm thinking this, these are my, here are my thoughts, let me share my thoughts with you. That's not gibberish, that's perfectly good English. Report an error

15:05 But maybe tomorrow we'll then look into, what exactly do we mean by that? What is to be refuted, and what is simply common sense and we don't refute? And why don't we hold off on that one until tomorrow, so I don't give a 30 minute talk right now. But no, you've articulated the question well, and just again in short, In Buddhism, do people exist? The answer is yes. Do you exist? Yes. Does this guy exist? Yes. We're not going to question that. The question is, how do you exist? Report an error

15:33 And then the challenge is that we don't exist in the fashion or in the manner that we commonly assume, which is reified, absolutized, substantialized. That's what's being challenged. So, to be continued. I think there was another one right here, please. Yeah, go ahead. Report an error

16:04 Yeah, all of tomorrow. Report an error

16:09 We've had one day for the mind, right? Now I mentioned that we'll have two days for the mind, and so I'll give you a sneak preview, okay? The trailer for the movie tomorrow. And that is within, this is Theravāda terminology, Theravāda Buddhism. Theravāda terminology, which I find very helpful, is that today we are looking at the events, the activities, the kinetic energy of the mind. And that includes thoughts, images, memories, fantasies, the kind of things that appear to you, like that. Report an error

16:35 But then also, if I'm clowning around and looking like a goofball, and you kind of think, wow, he looks silly, then you're feeling, oh, this guy looks silly, or why is he doing those antics? Those are subjective impressions. They don't appear to you. I'm clowning around. That appears to you. But your feelings, you find it funny, you don't find it funny, you think it's stupid, whatever. Report an error

16:54 The subjective impulses, they're also arising in the space of the mind, and those are also javana. So we have the more objective arising one and the more subjectively arising impulses and they all fit into the category of activities of the mind and we seek to attend to the whole range of them in the practice that we did today. Report an error

17:14 I'll add one footnote here that I didn't get to and it's significant and that is when we're observing like the thought, Mary had a little lamb and we're getting syllable by syllable, what I would suggest is That we're mentally hearing it, right? Mary had. We're hearing the facsimile of sound. Mary had. And what I would suggest as a hypothesis is that the appearance of that sound in the mind, or those words in the mind, and our awareness of them, the two, simultaneous. Report an error

17:44 Number one, of course, there's no sound waves in the mind, so there's no lag time there. But I would say it's simultaneous. Now, visualize a lamb, Mary's lamb. And what I would suggest is that image of a lamb that comes to mind and your awareness of the lamb. Simultaneous. Again, there's no photons, so why would there be any lifetime? How could one come before the other? How could you have an image before you're aware of it? Report an error

18:06 Then it wouldn't be an image. So it seems kind of logically and empirically that when we have these appearances arising to us, like a visual image, like an auditory image in the mind, that those are occurring in real time, simultaneous with the awareness of them. And one more... The context in which this occurs is in dreams. So in a dream state, let's make it lucid, just kind of like so we're kind of aware of what's happening within the dream. Report an error

18:34 As you see visual appearances within the dream, which of course there are mental appearances, your awareness of them and their appearance simultaneous. You hear somebody speak, the sound that you're hearing in the dream and your awareness of it, simultaneous. But that also goes for smells, taste and tackle, sensation. The sensation and your awareness of it, all simultaneous. That's what I would suggest. Report an error

18:54 Kind of common sense. So, real time, in terms of all the objective appearances. But now, according to William James and according to the Buddhist tradition, and I expect but I don't know for sure, modern cognitive psychology, but I have a strong intuition it's true and I think they would agree, that when we have these subjective impulses, and I'll give three, emotions about something, like... Report an error

19:21 Gee, I'm so glad I found my cell phone. I was looking for it. Oh, I found it. Gosh, that's great. I found my cell phone. Maybe I lost it, right? And oh, there's my cell phone. So there's some elation. Elation why? I found it. There it is. And what's feeding that elation, that pleasure, so it's an emotion. Report an error

19:42 It's a feeling also. What's arousing it is, oh, there's my cell phone. And what's arousing? Oh, that's myself. Oh, I'm so glad. There it is. And it still works. Oh, fantastic. That's great. Good. Boy, that's great. And so I'm feeding that sense of elation by attending to it and saying, I really did find it. I'd lost it for some time. But now, with elation, this is again a mode of appearance, a mode of apprehension. Report an error

20:10 With elation, I'm attending to the cell phone that I found. And so, But then when I direct my attention away from the cell phone, which continues to catalyze that ongoing flow of elation, of happiness, satisfaction, when I direct my attention away from the cell phone and to the elation itself, which I can do, why not? Report an error

20:31 When I'm directing my awareness to the elation, my awareness of the elation is retrospective. That is, the elation of which I am aware is the one that just went by. Maybe a tenth of a second, something on that order of magnitude, 100 milliseconds, 50 milliseconds, something quite brief, but it's retrospective. Report an error

20:53 William James proposed that, Buddhism says that, I suspect cognitive psychology would as well. And moreover, if I'm holding it in my hand and then suddenly I'm taking my attention away from the cell phone and directing it to the elation, that may have a major interrupting influence on the elation itself. Report an error

21:12 Because the elation was about finding the cell phone, but I'm no longer attending to the cell phone. So in the moment that I break the continuity of attention of the cell phone that's arousing or catalyzing the pleasure, and attend to the pleasure, the pleasure may come to a screeching halt. Report an error

21:29 And it's retrospective. Well, likewise, if I desire something, and so then I'm focusing, so a glass of water. Boy, gosh, I'm thirsty. I hope I can have that. Oh, it looks so clean and crystal clear. I'd really love that water. I really want it. It's coming to my lips soon. Like that. So I can feed that desire. I'm giving a silly example, but it's good enough. As long as I'm looking at it, I say, whoa, it looks so good. Report an error

21:55 It's just yummy. And so the desire is arising, arising, and I'm feeding it by looking at the water and how much I like it. But then as soon as I turn my attention away from the water and observe the desire, it's like the bashful maiden. Report an error

22:10 Because I'm no longer feeding the desire, now I'm looking at the desire. And it's kind of like, Like mist, gone. Or even the intention, I think I am going to drink it, I am going to drink it and then I'm looking at the attention and then I'm not intending anymore because I just look at the intention instead of there's the water and I'm going to drink it. Report an error

22:30 So for these subjective impulses, I know there's not an answer to your question but I think it's kind of an important footnote, is that as we're aware of these subjective impulses, there are three sets, desire, intention and emotion about something. Report an error

22:45 The hypothesis, It's retrospective, very short-term memory, retrospective, and the sheer here in terms of observer participancy, observer participancy, it's a term from quantum mechanics, but the fact that the observer is participating in the act and influencing that which one is observing, here's a really blatant case of that. Report an error

23:11 Here's the real bashful maiden, and in fact as soon as you're aware of the emotion, the desire, intention, that's bound to have a major impact. On the desire, intention or emotion, especially if the desire, intention or emotion has a clear referent. I'm happy about that. I want that. I intend to do that. I intend to drink that water. So when it's clearly bound up with a referent, even Report an error

23:42 if, what is this, Ada? Report an error

23:47 Yeah, Report an error

24:00 sure. As long as the emotion, desire or intention has a referent, And it's feeding off of that. That is, as I maintain an ongoing flow of attention to that referent, and that's arousing an emotion, desire and intention, as soon as I take my mind off and go orthogonally onto the subjective impulse, I've broken the flow. Report an error

24:22 And almost certainly that's going to interrupt the flow of any of those three subjective impulses. Now, this gets very interesting from a clinical perspective. That is, if I'm depressed about something, I'm depressed that my dog got run over by a car. And whenever I think of my poor dog, I get really unhappy. But I'm actually interested in my depression or my sadness. Report an error

24:49 As soon as I direct my attention to the sadness and no longer attending it to that which made me sad, that's bound to have some impact. You may find it evaporates and then comes back as soon as your attention goes right back to the dog again. And so this is an interesting thing in terms of emotions. And that is the sheer focused attention upon them. Report an error

25:10 And if we can focus upon them with flow, with a real ongoing attention to the emotion, then we may find that really breaks up the pattern. Now of course there are emotions that don't have any clear referent. And that is, how do you feel? I just feel generally cruddy. Why? I don't know. I just feel ill at ease. Or, I just feel really happy today. What are you happy about? Report an error

25:30 I don't know, but I just feel really cheerful. It doesn't have a referent. It's just kind of like, there it is. So that would be interesting in terms of Shira being an affective contemplative scientist. Observing this from the first hand, is it the same if you have an emotion of depression, anxiety, surprise, happiness, wide array, and it has no clear reference, and they don't always have reference. Report an error

25:57 When you observe them, does that have a different impact than when you observe an emotion that clearly does have a reference, that you're feeling about something? Or in response to something. So that's a footnote for today. And then in terms of the inversion of consciousness right in upon itself, that one we'll save till tomorrow. Report an error

26:14 That's a big juicy one. That's going to take us all day. So today was for Javana, the activities of the mind. And the moral of that story is that some of our observations of the activity of the mind are taking place in real time as we attend to the more objective appearances within the conduct of the mind. Report an error

26:30 But when we turn the attention to the more subjective impulses, The hypothesis is these are retrospective, that is, they just happened, and moreover the impact on that which we're attending to is bound to be more flagrant than simply observing a mental image which may continue on as we're attending to it. Report an error

26:52 So, that's for javana, mental activities, and then tomorrow using the Theravāda terminology we'll look into what's called the bhavaṅga. Or what in the Tibetan tradition, especially the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, is called the Alai Vishnama, or substrate consciousness, also known as subtle continuum of mental consciousness. Report an error

27:12 But in the Theravāda tradition called Bhavaṅga, and that literally means grounded becoming, ground of becoming. And that is this baseline, sheer flow of luminous awareness. And inverting awareness in upon that gets very interesting. So we'll have basically all day tomorrow for that. I felt it so important. And in terms of really exploring the nature of mind and consciousness, that's really going right down to ground zero, right down to the nucleus. Report an error

27:41 So there's a lot of insights to be gleaned there. So that's for tomorrow. Saving the best till last. Yes, please, go ahead. And remind me of a neighbor. Junie, thank you. Report an error

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28:33 Got yourself a lot of candy karma there. huh? Should I If I said that, I probably misspoke. I tried to speak precisely, but I don't always succeed. In terms of accumulating karma, now it's Buddha talk within the Buddha Dhamma. In terms of accumulating karma, that really happens primarily when there's volition. Often karma is actually equated with volition or strongly associated with volition. Report an error

29:02 That is some kind of an intention or will, a decision to do something. And of course that can take place, a volition can take place as purely a mental act without ever manifesting in speech or in behavior. And we find this in the law as well. Conspiracy to commit a crime. Conspiracy to commit murder or something like that. Report an error

29:26 They never got to it. They were, you know, the conspirators, the terrorists or whatever, they were caught when they still had their bombs, they weren't able to blow up anything. But they were certainly intending to, they were planning to the next day. And then the police force come in and catch him red-handed and then they say, but we didn't do anything. Yeah, you're right. But yes, you did do something. Report an error

29:47 You were intending to blow up this building and here's all the evidence for it and we see your plans and we were listening to your cell phones and you were intending to do so off to jail with you. They said, we didn't hurt anybody. I know, but you were intending to. So even the law says, right? Even the law says, you were intending to, you were preparing to and even if you never got to it, you still go to jail. Report an error

30:08 You just have maybe a shorter sentence than if you'd actually blown up people. So as with the law, so with karmic law, so with Dharma. And that is, if we intend to do something, even if we don't have the opportunity to carry it out, we've already accumulated karma. If we just intend to do something and talk about doing it and plan to do it, that's karma. And then if we do it physically and carry it through to its fruition, then we get the complete karma. Report an error

30:34 So for karma there is recognition of the... Object that we want to engage with. There's a clear recognition of the act we want to perform. There's recognition, there's intention, got to be intention. There's the enactment for it to be full karma, complete karma. And then finally there's culmination. That is if you wanted to, let's say I have a nice example. I'd like to give you a cell phone. This is hypothetical now, be careful. Report an error

31:00 I have two cell phones. This is my old cell phone. You don't have a cell phone. I think I'd like to give it to you. You'd probably appreciate it. Yes, I think I will. I'm going to do it here. You say thanks a million and you accept it. Okay, that was hypothetical, right? So everything took place. It's my cell phone. I can give it. You would like it. I intend to give it. I do give it. You receive it. You say thanks. That's completion, right? But even the thought, even the intention, Jenny doesn't have a cell phone. Report an error

31:27 I think I'd like, yeah, I want to give it to her, but I'll make it a surprise. I won't tell anybody. That's already an intention and that's already karma. Good karma. Report an error

31:38 But simply having an emotion, that's not karma, just having an emotion, even having just anger come up. It's not karma, because there's no intention. There's no intention. But then one can ask, okay, it's not karma, but if you get really angry, like, oh, that makes me so angry. I don't intend to do anything at all, that just really makes me really angry. It's not karma, as far as I know, it's not karma. But does that influence your mind? Yes, it does. Report an error

32:09 It does. Does it influence your brain, your nervous system, your digestive tract and so forth? Yes it does. Does it have causal efficacy? You betcha it does. Much worse than having a really happy or benevolent thought and so forth. So my understanding is simply getting upset or just feeling jealous, just feeling jealous, not karma, but it still does detriment. Report an error

32:28 As soon as it clicks into volition, some plan, some intention to do something, then that's karma. Report an error

32:42 Well if you grasp on and let it be, then you've bought a season ticket for saṃsāra. That is long term. I'm going to stick in here for the long term. Because that's just how karma perpetuates itself. And so your question is very, very good and there is an answer to it. Report an error

33:01 And it's relaxing more deeply. That really is the primary antidote. My training over the last 23 years has been largely in Dzogchen. And there's just an enormous emphasis there and there's really wise emphasis on taking really seriously. The theme of loosen up, loosen up. And even Tibetans were emphasizing this in the 19th century nomad country. Hey, loosen up, you know. Report an error

33:27 And so if that was important for them, enough said. Now having said, but frankly that's the one I find most helpful. Most helpful. And then find whole strategies for loosening up. How about the infirmary? Hey, relax, chill, breathe out, melt, enjoy, just, oh, come on. And then, okay, mindful to breathing for a while, breathe out, breathe out, relax, relax. And then, loving kindness. You know, loving kindness is sweet. Report an error

33:56 It's mellowing, it's soft, it's not rigid, hard, driven, aggressive. And so, anything that's going to come in from multiple angles, it can be also faith and devotion. That really can, a sense of surrender, not surrendering to some other power, you know, something radically outside. But anything that softens, so this is why generally in Tibetan Buddhism, there's such a strong emphasis across the schools, all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Report an error

34:21 When you're sitting down to meditate, if you're a traditional Buddhist, then start with refuge, taking refuge, Buddha, Dhamma, Saṅgha. That really sets you at ease. Oh, I take refuge, I place my trust, my confidence here. Ah. And then develop bodhicitta. And now for the sake of all sentient beings, may I achieve enlightenment. Ah. And now practice Guru Yoga. Report an error

34:43 Bring to mind your deepest object of devotion, your Lama, the Buddha, Manjushri, Tsongkhapa, whoever it may be, but really stirs the heart, whoever it is. Maybe Tara, that really stirs the heart, moves the heart in real genuine reverence, and then calling for blessings. And then imagine, let's say Tara, imagine Tara just blissfully coming to the crown of your head, and then blissfully dissolving into your body, speech and mind, so that her body, speech and mind become indivisible from her own. Report an error

35:15 And now practice settling the mind. Be a lot sweeter. A lot more relaxed. Because you're imagining. We all know what's going on. There's no self-delusion here. But we're imagining. Now I'm going to be observing my mind from Tara's perspective. Because I'm imagining. I know full what I'm doing. I'm going to imagine that my mind is indivisible from hers. And I'm going to imagine that I'm observing my thoughts from her perspective. Report an error

35:43 And that's going to be really mellow. Because she's totally free of anxiety. Totally free of grasping, craving, hostility. I'm going to imagine looking at my own thoughts from her perspective. Report an error

35:57 How sweet it is. Okay? Anything that works. Anything that works. I mean, with the cognitive side, the devotional side, the loving-kindness side. And this is, now we're talking once again about balanced diet. That's why just Shantideva is not balanced. I think of Shantideva kind of like brown rice. Report an error

36:17 It's just every day. I could really eat brown rice every day. It's just such good, solid. Excellent food. But it's not a solid, it's not a rounded diet. But it kind of goes with a lot of foods and it's good, good food. Every day even is okay. And so every day shamatha, that's good. But of course it's not balanced. So you want some veggies, right? So then you want something for the heart. Okay, vegetables and rice, that's pretty good. Report an error

36:40 A bit of protein would be good. Okay, bring in the lentils, the beans, the nuts, whatever you want. Okay, now that pretty well does it. You got some veggies, got some nice carbohydrates, got some protein there. Okay, balanced diet. So shamatha, that's your brown rice, and then you've got your cultivation of the heart, let's say vegetables, and then you've got your wisdom practice, that's the lentils. Report an error

37:04 Everything straight now? Okay. Dhamma Nutrition 101. And then, of course, when all of those three get in your tummy, oh, then they all interact really well, you know, because the lentils and the rice make a complete protein. But only when you get them in combination. So likewise, each of these accentuates. I'm really squeezing this one, you can tell. But I'm almost finished. Report an error

37:32 But they all start interacting with each other and supplementing and kind of a synergy among all three. So each one feeds the other, nurtures and balances the other. So it's a good square meal. Report an error

37:49 That's tantra, but we don't talk about that. Report an error

37:56 That'll cost you. Tantra, that is going to cost you. Oh yeah. Clear? Jolly good. Oh yeah, anything else coming up? We'll start with you and then we'll go to you. Please, go ahead. Report an error

38:24 Oh, right, right. Yes, I'm glad. Then it worked. Yeah, yeah. No, it's quite true when you're eating a meal and you've chosen each of the, because like in Phuket we have a good variety to choose from, right? Report an error

38:43 That of course you're going to choose. People normally, number one, you want to choose something healthy, but within the healthy bandwidth, you want to choose something that's tasty. That's all idea. Healthy but now tasty. And so we derive the pleasure from the food when we're really focusing on it. You know, like, oh, here it comes. Report an error

39:00 Oh, that was good. And so just like the earlier account that reflects it, that retrospective, as long as I'm attending to the food, oh, that does taste good. That does taste good. Then the pleasure keeps on coming because we're focusing on that which is catalyzing the pleasure. But as soon as we turn the attention away from the food and turn it to the pleasure, then it's gone. Report an error

39:21 Yeah, it's quite interesting, isn't it? Yeah, it's quite interesting. In the Buddha Dharma it said that in a single instant, Buddha's psychology and epistemology, it said in a single instant, it's called a single instant of cognition, a pulse of cognition, we can actually only pick up one sensory domain at a time. Report an error

39:44 So in a single instant, we're really talking milliseconds here, not many of them. so we'll be We can be attending to the gustatory taste and then experiencing that in a pleasurable fashion, which means we say it tastes good because I'm experiencing pleasure as I taste it. But in that instant, that little sequence of milliseconds, in that instant we're not picking up sound, we're not picking up thought and so forth. Report an error

40:15 But then you get in one second, how many milliseconds do you have? So in one second... Your little monkey of attention is jumping all over the place and it gives the semblance of picking up hearing things and seeing things and tasting things all at the same time. Because within one second you are. Within a half second you are. But within 20 milliseconds, Buddhist view is probably not getting one, but it's jumping around so quickly that we have the sense of blending. Report an error

40:40 But if you have some samādhi and you direct your attention away from the food to the mental, then you're not picking up the taste. so Report an error

40:52 And you probably won't pick up the pleasure either because the pleasure was in response to the taste. So it's a very good monastic practice because the monks, you know, and nuns are not supposed to be attached to food. Does that work? Yeah, good. But make sure you do that, that you didn't spend much for your meal. Report an error

41:14 Good. Anything else? I'm sure it's not. Yes, please. Go ahead. Report an error

41:38 The sun? The sun? Yes. Report an error

41:56 Yeah. Report an error

42:23 So much like watching a movie where you... Report an error

42:40 it's a, so it's, It's very Report an error

42:54 true. It's good to remember the kind of little motto, the kind of the soundbite or slogan that synopsis to the quality of mindfulness when we're engaging in this practice of today, settling the mind in its natural state. And it is just to remind everyone, it's sustaining the flow of mindfulness without distraction and without grasping. It's easier in Tibetan, but it is just that, without distraction, without grasping. Report an error

43:18 When it comes to distraction, it's more binary. It's a bit binary. And that is, as I'm attending to you, I'm either distracted or I'm not. But you can tell. I mean, as soon as my eyes wander, you know I'm not on you any longer. Right? So when we're distracted, it's kind of like, yes or no. Whereas when it comes to grasping, that's not yes or no. Report an error

43:38 That's a gradient. It's a very smooth gradient. And so if we take it out to the really coarse end, way out there, you know, really coarse, you can cut it with a butter knife. This is the grasping of identification, of craving, of clinging, really feeling mine. There's the mudrā again. That's really coarse. And so we're trying to release that. Report an error

43:55 But then we say, well, is that the only way? If I'm free of that, am I free of grasping? And then you say, no, there's this more subtle grasping, and this more subtle, and this more subtle. And so it's a very smooth gradient. And even after you've achieved shamatha, so that's pretty far down the road, you know, there's a lot of practice to lead to that. Report an error

44:14 So then when you're resting in the substrate consciousness, your senses have imploded, the mind is quiet, you can say, well, is there grasping now? I mean, what am I going to grasp at? Because there's no appearance, it's just a bridgement of acuity. And the answer is, yeah, there's grasping. There's grasping there. I mean, pretty much everybody experiences. And what you're grasping at, that is clinging to, preferring, is the bliss and the luminosity and the non-conceptuality. Report an error

44:40 You really want them. You don't want them to fade away. I want it. And so even there, there's grasping. And so this is a long gradient of just going to subtle and subtle and subtle levels of grasping. And if one is going to break through, that's the term, tekchut, which means to break through or to cut through that kind of that basement, or you call it a ceiling, whatever you like, but break through that level of just resting in the substrate consciousness. Report an error

45:09 If you're going to break through that to this deeper dimension, which is the primordial consciousness. The real key to that is you need to release even the grasping, which means release even the preference for luminosity versus non-luminosity, bliss versus non-bliss, non-conceptuality versus conceptuality. Report an error

45:30 So that's very subtle, very subtle. So that's a gradient. So the grasping is not something we can just simply decide not to do anymore. You know, give me the trick, what's the gimmick, I want to stop doing that. No can do. It's something that gradually we release. Report an error

45:51 Yes, please. It's Report an error

· · ·

46:39 a very interesting one. As a preface, it was about a year ago, maybe it was two, but not a long time ago. There were some psychologists up in New England someplace, New England or New York, but up in that part of the northeastern part of the United States. And he did a very rigorous study, very methodical, very precise, very good data analysis. By all reckoning, he did a flawless job. Report an error

47:04 And he needed to do that. Because the conclusion he came up with, with a certain set of questionnaires and so forth, is that statistically speaking, the subjects that he was engaging with studying were showing precognition. Report an error

47:20 And it wasn't anything occult, mystical or anything, but it was that there was a very clear statistical, how to say, bias or indication that they had some predilection that something was about to happen. And way beyond random, they were getting it right. And he crunched his data. I mean, you could publish like that. You better be really careful, otherwise you just ruin your reputation. Report an error

47:46 And he did. He was extremely careful. And then he actually got it published. A lot of publishers say, we don't like the conclusion. We don't go, how rigorous your study was. Your conclusion is impossible, so go stuff it. And a lot would do that. But he found a scientific peer-reviewed journal to publish it. Report an error

48:03 And it created quite a furor. A lot of people getting very upset, other ones perplexed, other ones getting really haughty and, you know, bah humbug kind of thing. But there it is, it stands. They were never able to repudiate it. You can Google it, probably it will show up. So I thought that was interesting, that he did get it published, he got a lot of condemnation for it. Report an error

48:26 But they couldn't fault his method. And that's something quite recent, and it was just straight science. So that's kind of a preface. Now we go to Buddhism. In Buddhism, I'll give an example from what I was told by Gyan Lam Rimba, and he was a yogi that lived for about, oh, I think all told about 35 years in solitude. Report an error

48:45 And I knew him back in, I first met him back in 1980, when I went up for my first longish retreat in the mountains above Dharamsala. There was a little, very loose-knit community of long-term yogis. One hut became empty, so I was able to move in. And he was my nearest neighbor, and I met with him once a week, so he would counsel me in my meditation. Report an error

49:04 And he was the one that told me that for the yogis who had been living up there, some of them for 10, 20, 30 years, and really meditating, as you can imagine, a lot, he said a common place for them would be that they would have a dream pertaining to the next day, and in the dream, somebody whom they knew from the village, They dreamed would come up and visit them and probably bring a little offering. It happens once in a while, but unpredictable. There's no telephone, there's no communication. Report an error

49:38 It's about an hour and a half hike above McLeod Gunge. That's where I stayed. You just don't send any messages. There's no way to do it. You either walk up or you don't. That's the only way messages get up. And so if somebody's coming, you'll have no way of knowing it unless they come up methodically. And they don't. They came up to my little cottage. Report an error

49:56 They didn't even know me, but they knew I was a meditator. And sometimes lay people I didn't even know would come and leave a little package of biscuits or a one-rupee note, something like that, just, thank you for meditating, and then head back to the mountain. I never knew who that was. But these were the old-time yogis, because I was only there for five months, my visa ran out. But what he told me was that they'd have these dreams, and it happened repeatedly, that they'd have a dream, ah, Denzin's going to come up tomorrow, in the dream. Report an error

50:29 And then, lo and behold, that tensing came up the next day. If it happens once or twice, it's a chance, whatever. But no, it didn't happen once or twice. It was a lot. And it happened very predictably that when these seasoned yogis, whose minds are very distilled, had a dream that somebody was going to visit the next day, they would. And that turned out to be actually, they found out that's actually very common among yogis, having this predilection of something happening the next day and having it appear in the dream preceding or some premonition the preceding day. Report an error

50:59 So that would be, and there's a big database behind that. There was one scientific paper, big anomaly, people scratched their heads and said, go figure, and then they move right on. Because they just don't know what to do with it. There's just no way that's possible in their materialistic paradigm. So what do they do? Stop asking the question. Whereas this happens so many times in Buddhism. Report an error

51:20 And these are not by great clairvoyant yogis. These are by pretty ordinary yogis, but they got quite distilled. And then finding this taking place. So now finally get to the answer. Report an error

51:33 We'll look at a classic kind of framework. It's a model. We should never conflate the model with what it's modeling. But in terms of a model, we can speak of three dimensions or tiers, three tiers of the mind. And the first of these is what we're most familiar with. And it's the coarse mind, the psyche, that arises very specifically, independence upon very specific brain functions. Report an error

51:56 It's what psychologists study. And if that's all there is to the human mind, Then this precognition should never happen. Because there's just no way to make it intelligible. Really. Not in terms of quantum mechanics or anything else. It doesn't make any sense. You'd have to say, I don't know, but that shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. I can't explain it, therefore it doesn't happen. And we move right on. Can it be explained there? Report an error

52:19 Okay, but is that the only dimension? Well, okay, not in Buddhism. No, we have the substrate consciousness into which the coarse mind dissolves every time you fall deep asleep. When you die, when you go comatose, you faint, or you achieve shamatha. Report an error

52:35 But that substrate consciousness has no access to the future. Not anything in the future, not even five milliseconds ahead, has no access to it. So that doesn't help. That didn't help us at all. So now what? And you say, well, now what is there's another dimension of consciousness, and that's called pristine awareness, it's called primordial consciousness. Report an error

52:58 This is a dimension of our own consciousness here and now. It's not something we achieve later. It's already there. It's the ultimate ground consciousness. It is Buddha nature. It's the innate mind of clear light. It goes by many different names. And that's all within Buddhism. And this dimension of consciousness is non-local, not located here or there, but permeates all of space. Report an error

53:20 And it's atemporal. That is, it's not located in Monday. Or any particular time, it's not located specifically in a particular period of time, but it pervades all of time. So it's one of those kind of things. So it's transcendent. And one cannot really encapsulate it with concepts, but one can talk about it, giving some intimation of at least what it's not, like it's atemporal and non-local, trans-conceptual. Report an error

53:49 It can be realized, of course, but not conceptually. so... Report an error

53:57 All three dimensions of awareness are always present. Report an error

54:03 But as long as we're caught up in one bandwidth with a lot of grasping, usually not a lot of grasping, these are my thoughts, these are my emotions, oh, how dare you say that to me, and all that kind of business. As long as we're kind of locked into, totally enmeshed in like a fly in a spider web, totally enmeshed and entangled in the activities of the course mind, that's all that will be real for us. Report an error

54:24 But the substrate consciousness is there all alone. It's just not obscure because we're caught up in this dimension. But as the substrate consciousness is always there, pristine awareness is also there at all times, right now, whether you're happy, sad, angry, benevolent, whatever it is. Report an error

54:42 And so it happens for various reasons, some of them the most mysterious. The most mysterious just have to say karma, which has about as much explanatory power as just saying, oh, neuroplasticity. How did it happen? She only has one hemisphere, and yet all the activities of the other hemisphere, for example, I can't remember which one, but let's say it was her right hemisphere that was there, but the left hemisphere was just water or fluid. Report an error

55:09 She can still think analytically, she's got good language skills and all of that, and you say, well, wait a minute, I thought that was the left hemisphere's job, and she doesn't have a left hemisphere. Well, okay, in principle, it's true, it's neuroplasticity, but how on earth did that happen? And then they don't know. Report an error

55:23 Because they can't cut into the brain. She's alive. You'll kill her. So you say, well, it must be neuroplasticity because we don't know what else it could be. And that's a good ballpark. That's the kind of thing it must be. But we don't really know what we're talking about because we can't replicate that. And so the Buddhist word for neuroplasticity is karma. Report an error

55:43 That is, how could it be? How could it be? Any Report an error

55:52 more questions? I have the answer already, but go ahead. And so, karma. It doesn't explain much, but it's a ballpark. It's the right ballpark. That there are just mysterious causes and conditions from the past that enable, now I'll give a metaphor, like rays of light, rays of awareness, rays of knowledge, to come from this ground and beam right through, like a shaft of light beaming through a hole in the clouds. Report an error

56:19 A shaft of light of knowing coming from an atemporal, non-local dimension of consciousness, beaming right through the substrate consciousness and flashing. In the course mind, where we're conscious, and providing us with information about something that hasn't happened yet but will. Report an error

56:41 So this was happening on a regular basis for these yogis, that they would have these premonitions, these dreams, and then lo and behold that person shows up. It happened seemingly in this study of pretty ordinary people, but having some premonition of what's coming up. And then there are very deeply, realized yogis. And this has happened many, many times. In Tibet, this is such a commonplace, no... Report an error

57:07 I mean, Report an error

57:17 yeah, they're weird and they're spooky and they do really strange things, but who doubts it? I mean, there's so many. even say well-educated. No Tibetan who's kind of just savvy of what happens in their culture. None of them doubt it. It's just so common. Any more than you and I doubt. Report an error

57:28 We hear so many reports, so many people have seen them or used them, that to doubt the existence of laser would be kind of like living under a rock, didn't you hear? And they feel the same way about precognition. And so when you have these really advanced yogis, really highly accomplished ones, whose coarse mind dissolves into substrate consciousness and they break through the substrate consciousness into rikpa and they dwell there. Report an error

57:51 They dwell there. Those type of people, they often have two types of experiences. That you can get in a robust, rigorous and sustained fashion, if and only if you're really dwelling in that dimension of consciousness. I mean many, but I'll just highlight two. One is precognition. They won't just get it now and then, but they'll see a lot, a lot that is going to happen. And that's because they're really viewing reality from that perspective, which is transcending space and time, and therefore they can pick up things that haven't yet happened and are linear, laying out of time. Report an error

58:29 In the fourth time, that's what it's called, the fourth time. Their awareness is dwelling in the fourth time, which transcends past, present, future, but permeates all three. And so for the very, very accomplished yogis, then precognition is quite common. And the Buddha himself, he made many, many prophecies. That's very clear. The Buddha made many prophecies. Report an error

58:47 Padmas and Baba made many prophecies. Many of the others as well. And some of these prophecies are hundreds, hundreds of years in advance. It's very common. And of course, Buddhism does not have a monopoly there. So that's one kind. That's one type of extrasensory perception or paranormal knowing. It's not supernatural because it's natural. Report an error

59:06 It's coming right from the very ground of nature. It's not mystical. I mean, it actually is explicable. That is, it's not unintelligible. It's viewing reality from this perspective where you're seeing across the expanse of time, but you're really not. You're just seeing it from that perspective. And from our perspective, you're seeing something that's across the expanse of time. Report an error

59:27 It's laid out in this linear fashion. But another one is equally mysterious, and that is remote viewing. Remote viewing, where you're seeing right here and now something is 8,000 miles away, and you're seeing it, and what you're seeing is veridical, and it can be confirmed. And this also happens. It's happened many, many times. And Russell Targ, who's a man I don't know well, but I've met him, he spent, I don't know, 20 years studying this, got many, many grants to study it. Report an error

59:54 A physicist and did his research through the Stanford Research Institute, so right near where I used to live. And he said he came in as a skeptic, he was just simply interested. He did a lot of research, well funded by the Defense Department and by the CIA primarily, those two. Did his research and he said his research showed him beyond a shadow of a doubt that remote viewing does take place. Report an error

1:00:17 And he actually studied it, whether accuracy pertained to the inverse square law, that is... Do you have less accuracy if it's far away, rather than seeing something that's merely one mile away? Is your accuracy much lower if it's 8,000 miles away? Do you have no relationship to distance? Whether it's 100 meters away and you can't see it with your eyes, or it's 1,000 meters or 1,000 miles, it makes no difference in terms of sheer accuracy. Report an error

1:00:43 Well, how do you explain that? In terms of psyche? No way, because nothing. Substrate consciousness? No. The subject consciousness is local, and it's within time. So no. It's got to be that deepest dimension. And so for those two in particular, remote viewing, precognition, you really need to call on that third dimension, this deepest dimension, atemporal, non-local. Report an error

1:01:08 And then it's intelligible. It is intelligible. But then we can ask a question we haven't quite posed, but maybe I'll end on this one. And that is, this is starting to get a bit creepy. I mean, not only mysterious and weird and interesting and strange, but maybe a bit creepy. Because if these people can see the future, even if it's tomorrow, are they seeing all the future? Are they kind of like God now, that is omniscient, seeing everything that's ever going to happen? Report an error

1:01:33 In which case, isn't it already predetermined? If they're seeing what's already going to happen, isn't it already predetermined? In which case, then we're not making decisions, in which case we shouldn't be responsible for anything. If it's all laid out already, and I'm just kind of like driftwood floating down the river, well, the river, you know. Report an error

1:01:52 Bumps into a boat. You don't blame the driftwood. You have no choice in the matter. So what's up with this? I mean, if they're precognizing, it doesn't mean that's all happened. If they're not precognizing, okay, then we're actually creating the future now. But which is it? And are we still responsible for our behavior? Is that something still meaningful? Report an error

1:02:12 And so I think that's a pretty good question. You didn't ask it, but it's a good question anyway. And it is implied. You know, all of you do this, that's going to come up. If precognition happens at all, then okay, how far does that go? Report an error

1:02:31 And I'll start with a story that one of my very close teachers told me many years ago, Gishiraptan, 1972. And it was entirely a very different kind of situation. He was telling me his autobiography. I asked him questions, he told me his life story. And we wrote a book called The Life and Teaching of Gishiraptan. Report an error

1:02:52 And he told me that in this, and he was describing old Tibet. It was amazing. He was the generation that was there. He got almost all his education in Tibet. And so you get a glimpse into another world that now doesn't exist anywhere. Report an error

1:03:04 And he said in the monastery that was Sera Monastery, where Lama Eshi was and so forth, that the monks had a heavy outer cloak, wool, that they would wear on the very cold winter days, which they had many. And they would bundle up in these when they'd be outdoors debating right into the wee hours of the morning. Report an error

1:03:22 And they're at 13,000 feet, so what, 4,000 meters or so? And so you can imagine, it gets pretty brisk in midwinter at 2 o 'clock in the morning. So they're bundled up. And he described this outer garment, this outer robe, it's a thick wool. And he said they would make it of two pieces, two pieces of wool. Report an error

1:03:40 It could have been one, but they made it two. And then they'd sew them together. He said, well, why don't you just have one nice piece rather than cutting in two and then sewing it together? He said, no, there's a reason for that. Everything was symbolic. Everything about the monastic robes. The hat and all that, it's all symbolic. And he said, we had the robes, there was a fair amount of detail about the robes, but this part about their being sewn together, he said, this is symbolic of our prayers, that in the future there will come a time when the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni, the fourth Buddha in this cycle of 1,000 Buddhas, when the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni will finally just vanish, nobody will know anything about them, it will be gone, totally gone from our planet. Report an error

1:04:22 And then after some time, then the teachings of the next Buddha, Maitreya, Maitreya will appear, turn the wheel of Dharma and start the Buddha Dharma all over again, from scratch, from zero. And the Buddha Maitreya, appearing with all the major and minor marks of a Buddha, turning the wheel of Dharma, all of that, that will occur only after the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni have completely vanished. Report an error

1:04:44 There's no overlap. That's just the way it goes. And so our prayer here is that Just as these two pieces of cloth are woven right together so they're seamless, our prayer, and they've been praying this for a long time, is that on that day when the Buddha Shakyamuni's teachings vanish, later that day, may seamlessly, may the teachings of Maitreya Buddha appear. Report an error

1:05:10 So there's no time when there's just no teachings of Buddha at all. So it's a nice prayer that the world is not left in darkness in terms of Buddhadharma. But then I'd already had some teachings at the point and I'd heard, that it's a really long time the vanishing of the Buddha Shakyamuni's teachings and coming on Maitreya, a long, long time. And he said, why are you praying for something that won't happen? Report an error

1:05:32 My nature is blunt. And he said, I've heard the prophecies it's a really long time period like that, so why don't you pray for something that can happen rather than something that can't? And he said, well, you got that one wrong. The prophecies are that it's a big long interval, but how long that interval will be depends on us now, because we're creating the future. Report an error

1:05:52 And our prayers are designed to narrow the gap. So we'll live by virtue, dedicate merit, pray and so forth and try to decrease it. And so it's as small as possible. And so what that implies then is that there are prophecies about the coming of Buddha Maitreya. And there are prophecies that will be such and such a period. Report an error

1:06:14 But it's not carved in granite yet. And our present activities can influence that. Because although its coming is certain, the time of the coming is not. And that's flexible. Report an error

1:06:24 On the other hand, the Buddha Shakyamuni gave many prophecies, he would point to a certain person and say, you will achieve enlightenment in such and such era, your name will be this, your father will be this, and this is going to happen. There's a lot of prophecies like that when people first developed bodhicitta. Many, many stories in the Mahāyāna teachings. A person develops bodhicitta in the presence of a Buddha, and the Buddha is saying, ah, you've just entered the bodhisattva path? Report an error

1:06:48 Okay, now I've just seen how this turns out. In the future, you will achieve enlightenment as a Buddha by this name. Parents will be this. It will occur at this time. And so congratulations. It's only a matter of time. That's when it's going to happen. And so there are many cases where the prophecy is very specific in terms of time, place, parents and all that kind of business. Report an error

1:07:10 And then other times when it's clearly malleable. And so try to understand that. So far that's not an interpretation. I'm just giving transmission. Here's what the whole Buddha Dhamma says. And it's true in the Theravāda tradition, true, those prophecies are there too, about Buddha Maitreya and so forth. But then try to understand it. Report an error

1:07:31 Try to understand how can we make that it's prophecy, and sometimes cut and dried, and other times flexible, but not homogenous. But the flexible part shows that it's not all carved in granite. It's not already done right down to the minutia. Not that. And there's no school of Buddhism that says that is the case. Report an error

1:07:52 But all schools of Buddhism do say prophecies, accurate prophecies do take place. And so, I like to give a silly example, I like those, and I'm going to give one more. Remember, a lot of people I'm sure saw the movie Thelma and Louise, remember that one? So I hear these two middle-aged southern gals, and you remember they've done something, they killed somebody or somebody, and the cops are after them, and let's say it's Thelma at the driving wheel, and there's Louise in there. Report an error

1:08:20 And they're heading towards a cliff. Remember, big dramatic ending. I mean, this is a spoiler. I'm going to not tell the movie. So this will save you the time of watching the movie. So these two gals, they know the cops are after them. If the cops catch them, they're going to put them in jail for the rest of their lives. They don't dig that at all. And so these two wild, free-spirited gals are heading in their car across the desert, heading towards a great big cliff. Report an error

1:08:42 They're going to drop a thousand feet. Because they just figure, I don't want to go to jail. Let's just have a glorious ending over the cliff. Very nihilistic. And so they're heading along, driving 60 miles an hour. And now here's the scenario. They're about 300 yards away from the cliff edge. And Thelma, at the driving wheel, turns over to Louise and says, Louise, honey, I don't want to die, do you? She says, no, I don't want to die either. Okay, hit the brakes. Report an error

1:09:08 And Thelma comes down on the brakes. Screech, you got 300 yards. And they don't die. It was enough time and they... And then the cops catch him, they go to trial, and live happily ever after in jail. That's a possibility. It wasn't predetermined. They could change their mind. They had made the decision, but then they changed their mind, and they changed their mind in time, which hit the brakes, and they stopped in time. Now, that's scenario one. So they changed the course of the future by changing their attitude, their volition, a different act, hit the brakes. Report an error

1:09:38 But now they're heading along the same two gals, Thelma and Louise, and they're looking at the cops behind them. And they're about, oh, let's say 50 yards away from the cliff. And they're driving 60 miles an hour. And Thelma turns over to Louise and said, Louise, honey, I don't want to die, do you? No, I don't want to die either. Hit the brakes. Well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They can hit the brakes, turn left, turn right, accelerate. Report an error

1:10:02 It doesn't matter. That's already a done deal. They're going to go over the cliff. Right? 50 meters, 60 miles an hour on sand. They're going to go over it. Make it 25 meters if you like. It doesn't matter what they do. That's one of those things you can make a prophecy. In a very short time, Thelma and Louise are going over the cliff. Previously, when they're 300 meters away, you can say that the chances are very good they're going to go over the cliff, unless they do something different. Report an error

1:10:28 And then they did or didn't. And so, in terms of karma, that's the way it is. There's a time at which karma is ripening. Report an error

1:10:40 And when it's already ripening, then it's going to happen. You can be quite specific. It's going to happen. They're 25 meters away from the edge of the cliff. It doesn't matter what they do. They're going to go over. Period. They make it a bit slower, a bit faster, but it's just going to happen within a very predictable time period. Report an error

1:10:59 And so there's a point of karma maturing where all the necessary causes and conditions have already come together. And although there are a lot of variables after that, none of those variables are big enough to put a dent or make this not happen. There are many cases like that. And that's where the prophecies are precise. And then there are other cases where you can just say it's a great likelihood, but things could change. Report an error

1:11:26 And that depends on how we're behaving now. And so in terms of a, so in quantum mechanics, you get that impression as well. If the, you can speak, before you make a measurement, you can speak of a certain probability. That's what it's all about. Shorter wave equation is all probabilistic. Nothing has absolutely happened there yet, prior to the measurement. Report an error

1:11:50 So you can speak of just, this is a range of possibilities, this could happen. And you can make that very precisely. That's what the mathematics is all about. But once you make the measurement, then the wave function collapses. And that is a done deal. And so this is the thing that within this ocean of the future, the realm of possibility, like an ocean. Report an error

1:12:12 Within that ocean, a lot of it is just water and waves. But within that ocean, there are islands. There are islands here and there, and those are certain. And for those particular islands, all the causing conditions necessary for them to occur have already taken place. And no matter what happens after that, that's not going to change. Whereas other ones, it depends on further things happening, and then they will or will not happen. Report an error

1:12:37 And that's open. And one who can see the future from this perspective of transcending time, the fourth time, you see all of it. And you see the possibilities there, the probabilities there, and you say, aha, but there's an island and that's definite, and that's certain, and that's certain. So, we're having our cake and eating it. Report an error

1:12:57 And that is, there is such a thing as precognition. And some things in the future are certain. And some things in the future are probabilities, and those probabilities can be known with certainty. But what you're certain of is simply the probability. Cool, isn't it? Let's dedicate marriage, shall we? Direct your attention to the future. Report an error

1:13:18 And envision the future you would love to see. Report an error

· · ·

1:14:32 Homework for tonight for the light sleepers, people who find it difficult to fall asleep, I would recommend as usual, infirmary, mindfulness of breathing, get a good night's sleep. And for those people who find it very easy to fall asleep, you might go into the supine position and practice settling the mind in its natural state and see how long you can keep the light on, that light of awareness. Report an error

1:14:53 It'll be quite interesting. Good. Have a good night's sleep. See you tomorrow morning. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/FourApplicationsOfMindfulnessRetreat2013. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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