Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 29)

0:04 So this morning we'll venture further into the shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state as the platform for the third of the four close applications of mindfulness, the application of mindfulness to the mind. And so again to come back to TL's question or comment yesterday pertaining to the difference between this practice of settling the mind in its natural state or simply observing the mind as a shamatha method, The distinction between that and Vipassanā. For many of the teachers in this modern Vipassanā movement, they would say the first one is Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 0:04 Highlight the passage at 0:04

0:41 And I wouldn't gubble with that. I mean, in terms of the practice of simply observing whatever is arising and passing in the space of the mind, might that yield insights that are very valuable? The answer is yes. Call it shamatha, call it Vipassanā. Very, very worthwhile. Is there anything more to Vipassanā than simply observing the rising, passing of mental events? Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

1:03 Specifically Vipassanā with respect to the mind. The answer is definitely yes, and that's what's missing if one confines one's understanding of Vipassanā to bear attention. So let's take once again the example of Galileo looking through his newfangled contraption telescope. And some things like when he directed it to the moon, what an obvious target. Report an error in the passage at 1:03 Highlight the passage at 1:03

1:23 And when he did so, it must have been immediate or almost immediate. When he observed the moon through his telescope, even... A pair of binoculars nowadays, eight power binoculars, that was his first telescope, but it was a monocular. You see the craters. How can you avoid it? You don't need to investigate and analyze, research, you just kind of look at it and say, whoa, those must be craters. Or the young Dalai Lama, just to give a nice anecdote. Report an error in the passage at 1:23 Highlight the passage at 1:23

1:49 The young Dalai Lama, when he was a boy, he inherited, this is the advantage of being a tuku, you get to inherit your parents' stuff, but also your predecessor's stuff. And so the 14th Dalai Lama inherited, The possessions of the 13th Dalai Lama. This is a good reason to become a tuku. Report an error in the passage at 1:49 Highlight the passage at 1:49

2:08 Get a double whammy there. But in any case, he inherited a telescope that was given to his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. And as a boy, he was gazing up at the moon through a telescope. And he noticed something. He was the first Tibetan astronomer. Report an error in the passage at 2:08 Highlight the passage at 2:08

2:28 And that is, he noticed that these craters on the moon, That as he observed them at some length, he noticed that they cast shadows. No Tibetan had ever seen that before. And Indian lore from Buddhism, who knows really where it came from, I don't, states that the moon is self-illuminating. Like the sun is self-illuminating, the moon gives off white light. It's like a big white light bulb up there. And so he went to his tutor. Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

3:01 And pardon me if this is just a tangent, but I think it's really very charming. And he went to his tutor and said, you know, our old texts going back to India, they say that the moon is self-illuminating, but I've been looking at the telescope and there are shadows cast by the craters, which means the old texts are wrong. Report an error in the passage at 3:01 Highlight the passage at 3:01

3:23 And they believed this for like 1,500 years or something. And the tutor said, cool. Report an error in the passage at 3:23 Highlight the passage at 3:23

3:33 Didn't actually communicate him, didn't send him to house arrest or anything like that. Okay, good. That part of the text was wrong. So this whole notion of the Dalai Lama, he'd show us empirical evidence and we'll just toss out our old beliefs. It didn't start with him. His teacher said, oh good, that's quite clear. If there's shadows on the moon, it's not self-illuminating. But the point being that through the telescope, some things are really quite obvious. Report an error in the passage at 3:33 Highlight the passage at 3:33

3:56 It doesn't need any deep investigation. Likewise, when Galileo, I mean back to him, turned his telescope to the sun and saw sunspots, it doesn't take much investigation. But as I pointed out looking at Venus to see the phases of Venus, that's a bit closer and certainly as I mentioned yesterday, the moons of Jupiter. You really have to ask questions there. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:16 And then you see, okay, there are moons and not background stars. So in a similar fashion, as we simply observe the domain of mental experience and then whatever thoughts, images and so forth arise in that domain, we observe them coming and going, coming and going. With no further analysis, investigation, research, there are going to be some Low-hanging fruit, so to speak. Low-hanging fruit. And that is we can just pluck insights out of that through that simple, discerning, close, sustained attendance or attending to the space of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 4:16 Highlight the passage at 4:16

4:51 And insights can certainly be gleaned and they can be very helpful and transformative. And that's simply shamatha. So do insights arise from shamatha practice? They certainly can. And this is, as TL pointed out, this practice being right on the cusp of shamatha and vipassanā. Even with nothing further, no further inquiry, research, investigation, insights can be gleaned. So it's all good. It's all good. And then we can ask, well, but now to bring the Vipassanā practice to its fullness, how might you augment that? Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:21 What type of insights might you glean that may not be so readily accessible if you're just simply gazing with non-judgmental awareness moment by moment? Report an error in the passage at 5:21 Highlight the passage at 5:21

5:31 And this is where the richness of Vipassanā comes in, and it's exactly in accordance with the Buddhist teachings. I'm not adding anything here at all. But as one attends to the mind, observing the mind as the mind. Again, the mind as the mind. It's not a trivial statement. Because so often we're not observing the mind as the mind. Like in a non-lucid dream, we're not observing the dream as a dream. We're observing it as something that it's not. And then getting into a lot of trouble and making ourselves vulnerable to suffering. Report an error in the passage at 5:31 Highlight the passage at 5:31

5:57 And likewise, we often don't observe mental events as mental events. We observe them as being the real thing. We completely conflate our thoughts about somebody with that somebody, our emotions about something as being qualities of the object we're attending to and so forth. So the inability or the limited capacity for observing our own minds, for being aware of the impulses, the emotions and desires and thoughts that arise. Report an error in the passage at 5:57 Highlight the passage at 5:57

6:26 According to one friend of mine who's a neuropsychiatrist named David Galen from the University of California, San Francisco, he wrote a paper years ago. Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

6:35 Making a claim, which I think is utterly true, he said if you're going to be, how do you say, impaired, cognitively impaired, to be either on the one hand blind or deaf, or you're going to be metacognitively impaired, you're simply not aware of what's going on in your mind. In terms of your overall psychological well-being and health, it's much more detrimental to be metacognitively impaired than blind or deaf, because we all know. Report an error in the passage at 6:35 Highlight the passage at 6:35

7:06 Blind or deaf people can live very, very rich, meaningful, productive, happy lives. Why not, right? But if you're metacognitively impaired, that's going to be a really major, major challenge. Because the only way you'll be knowing about what's happening in your mind is when it blurts out your mouth or manifests in your behavior. And that's a little bit too little too late. Report an error in the passage at 7:06 Highlight the passage at 7:06

7:26 Gets us into a lot of regrettable episodes. So, coming back to the question then, what can be gleaned? Well, let's just follow what the Buddha had to say. And he says, in each of these four applications of mindfulness, he says, and then one attends closely, carefully contemplates and considers the factors of origination. Report an error in the passage at 7:26 Highlight the passage at 7:26

7:45 Well, that's going to be more than bear attention. When you see a thought, an impulse, a desire, an emotion arising, you're not simply getting a whole bunch of snapshots. Oh, that's a desire, that's a desire, that's a desire. You're looking, what were the causal factors that gave rise to the desire? What triggered it? What was the background in terms of things going on in the mind? Report an error in the passage at 7:45 Highlight the passage at 7:45

8:03 What were the triggers in terms of the environment? What were the factors of origination? And then how it's present? Is it I or is it mine? That might take a bit of investigation. Nominally, of course it is, but nominally, so what? And then factors of disillusion, not so evident just by bear attention. Report an error in the passage at 8:03 Highlight the passage at 8:03

8:23 What are the factors that lead to the disillusion, the disappearance of desires, of emotions, thoughts and so forth and so on? So that's where we come into the richness of the practice. And this is the Buddha's refrain, his common instruction for all four. Part of the richness of the practice often gets overlooked in the simplification of it. Report an error in the passage at 8:23 Highlight the passage at 8:23

8:43 And then this other factor, which almost universally gets overlooked, is quite remarkable because it's incredibly rich. And in relationship to Chris's comment yesterday, it's the segue, it's the bridge to really bring this very cognitive activity. Insight, knowledge, understanding to have this bridge over to empathy, loving kindness, compassion, caring, affection, a sense of heartfelt connection with those around us. Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:13 And so this is where we come to just to briefly review the close application of mindfulness to feelings. I touched on it, touched on it just a little bit more. But we attend to feelings, pleasure, pain and indifference internally. We get to know them, get a good database. What's it like from the first time? Report an error in the passage at 9:13 Highlight the passage at 9:13

9:30 First-person perspective, because that's the richest understanding of what feelings are. You actually know what they are, and not just the behavioral manifestations and the neurocorrelates, which are pretty slim pickings. All you know about is the brain. You don't really know anything about feelings at all. You know about neurons. Big deal. What does that tell you about feelings? Nothing. You have to rely upon first-person report, and that's somebody reporting from that one first-person experience. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:52 And so one attends to feelings internally, really sees how they arise, how they manifest. Factors of origination, factors of dissolution, how they catalyze, how they are themselves effects of causes and how they in turn are causes of subsequent effects and consequences. So one gets a very rich field of experience there, experience, insight, understanding and then one turns one's attention outwards. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:21 Obviously unless you're clairvoyant you can't see other people's feelings, pleasure, pain and indifference. But my sense, and it's my hypothesis, I don't know whether this is true or not, but we all know there's such a thing as inference. We can infer, and we often do infer, causes on the basis of effects. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:39 So when you see smoke rising from yonder hill, to give a classic example from Buddhist logic and epistemology, you see smoke rising from yonder hill, then you draw a very strong inference, there must be a fire over yonder. You don't see it. But you know that smoke is created only by combustion. That clearly is smoke, therefore there must be combustion, even though I can't see it. So it's very cognitive and very, very useful, and we use it very frequently, inferring causes from the effects. Report an error in the passage at 10:39 Highlight the passage at 10:39

11:11 And one could interpret our understanding, our awareness of other people's feelings, pleasure, pain and indifference, in the same way. And that is, I can't observe your feelings, your first-person experience of happiness, of sorrow. I can't do that. Clairvoyant people, okay, not me. What can I observe? Well, when we're attending closely to others, we're drinking them in, giving them our full attention. Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:41 We pick up a lot, especially in conversation. Of course, they can talk about their experience. But it's not only talk, it could be pretending. It's facial expression, it's body language, it's tone of voice. It's a lot of nuance there. And maybe all of that... Gives rise to simply something of the cognitive act of inferring the causal feelings the person has experienced based upon the resultant facial expression, body language, tone of voice, speech and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 11:41 Highlight the passage at 11:41

12:15 It could be that cognitive, kind of that dry. My sense is, and I'll have my own intuition for this, so it could be totally wrong. Maybe psychologists will come to a firm conclusion on this point. But my sense is there's something more immediate. In sensing another person's feelings, their physical pain or joy, mental pain or joy, my senses, and just, I'm no expert, so you can judge by your own experience. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:43 But when we're engaging with other people, and we are giving them our full attention, and you sense how they're feeling, does it strike you as a really cognitive act of, I just inferred this on the basis of that? Or is there something more immediate? Just bangs, smack dab. Got it. And my sense is it's much more intuitive, it's much more immediate. I'm making inferences throughout the course of the day quite well, but I have a sense that's kind of located up here in the head, so to speak. Report an error in the passage at 12:43 Highlight the passage at 12:43

13:15 It's a cognitive act, probably frontal cortex work. But when sensing how another person's feeling, again, this is just maybe it's touchy-feely, but I have a sense it's located more here. That it's not just coming by way of logic and inference and language and so forth and reasoning, but it's something much more immediate. That's my sense of it. Report an error in the passage at 13:15 Highlight the passage at 13:15

13:33 So, I could be wrong, I could be right, I don't know. But either way, once we have a very clear, very intimate understanding of our own feelings, and then noting our own behavior, that is, when I'm feeling a certain way, what's the tone of my voice? How quickly am I speaking? What am I saying? Can I feel my facial expressions, even though I can't really see them? How about my body language and bodily activities? So, this is part of introspection. Report an error in the passage at 13:33 Highlight the passage at 13:33

14:01 That you're monitoring not only your mind, but also your voice, your speech. As well as your body, that's your introspection, right? All three, body, speech and mind, reflexively. So we get a good solid pool of experience there, of insight, internally. And then we turn our attention, so Report an error in the passage at 14:01 Highlight the passage at 14:01

14:25 we attend to feelings externally, intuitively, maybe inferentially, maybe something more direct than that. But we really can get a very good sense. Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:36 Especially when you've lived with somebody, like my wife and I have been married 24 years now. She can kind of walk into the room and have a pretty good sense of what she's feeling. And I think she feels the same, she picks it up from me too. We're not being psychic, we just know each other very well. Small mannerisms, tone of voice, facial expression. There's nothing new, right? Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

14:53 It's very common. But also among people that we don't know, or of course animals as well. They're sentient beings. So some of them are a dead giveaway, dogs wagging their tail. I think I got that one figured out. Although an article just came out, you can see it, you'll probably even Google it will come out. Now scientists are getting into how dogs are actually communicating with the type of wags they give to their tails. Report an error in the passage at 14:53 Highlight the passage at 14:53

15:16 So it seems like they're communicating amongst the other and not just telling us how happy they are. In any case, with other sentient beings, there is observing feelings externally. And then ever so important, this is where the richness of the practice comes in, which far transcends bare attention, which still plays a role, but it's so much richer than that. Report an error in the passage at 15:16 Highlight the passage at 15:16

15:36 And that is observing feelings internally and externally. And that's once again, it's the system's awareness. And that is as we're engaging with an individual, a group of individuals, animals, people, what have you, we're observing what we're bringing to the system. It's kind of a dry term, but you know what I mean by it. What we're bringing to the relationship, to the interrelationship, the dynamic, what we're bringing to it, we're aware of that because we're tending to feelings internally. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

16:06 We've already got something of the taste of feelings externally. And now we're seeing the dynamic, how that person's influencing my feelings, my feelings are influencing that person's feelings. You say, whoa, we're really interconnected here. That's just reality. We're just deeply interconnected. That being the case, there's the left hand of wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 16:06 Highlight the passage at 16:06

16:27 That being the case, since my feelings are so obviously intertwined with and arising in mutual interdependence upon the feelings, Attitudes, behavior and so forth of others. How can I possibly be focusing totally on my well-being? When my well-being, my happiness doesn't even exist in isolation. There's some separate entity that occasionally collides with the separate entities of other people. That doesn't even exist at all. So why should I strive for something that doesn't exist? Report an error in the passage at 16:27 Highlight the passage at 16:27

17:02 That is my well-being as an autonomous, separate, independent entity or phenomenon. It's crazy. And so really when we kind of get it, this profound and ongoing inescapable interdependence between self and others, then the only rational response to that perfectly obvious insight is altruism. What else would you do? Since your own well-being is intertwined with those of the others, how can you not care for others when their well-being is intertwined with yours and yours with them? Report an error in the passage at 17:02 Highlight the passage at 17:02

17:34 And so that was kind of a summary. Of attending to feelings internally, externally, internally and externally. And then we go into this, well that's quite simple, pleasure, pain and difference. It's raw, basic, simple, primal and enormously important. And now as we move to the third of these four applications of mindfulness, we turn to the whole zoo, not just three species, but the whole zoo of all other types of mental phenomena, processes, states of consciousness and so forth and seek to understand them. Report an error in the passage at 17:34 Highlight the passage at 17:34

18:06 First of all, again to use the Galileo analogy, setting up your telescope, making sure that it's firmly mounted, so that when you want to focus on something, you can do so in a sustained fashion. It's not wobbling and so forth and so on. And moreover, the lenses are well polished and clean and well focused. Okay, we got our stability, we got our clarity, and now we know that whatever I want to focus on, I can do so in a sustained fashion. Report an error in the passage at 18:06 Highlight the passage at 18:06

18:35 Good, you've just accomplished shamatha. And now that you've done that, now that you can focus on the galaxy, the planet, the asteroid, whatever you want to look at, then you can start posing questions and getting some really robust, replicable answers. And that's where the Vipassanā comes in. So our baseline here, our telescope, our shamatha practice is settling the mind in its natural state. Report an error in the passage at 18:35 Highlight the passage at 18:35

18:59 And it really, again, is a response to this... Fundamental reason that the Buddha highlighted why we are existentially vulnerable to suffering. And I'll reiterate that, and that is because we are closely grasping onto and identifying with, most closely, most intimately, my body and my mind. And because of that reification of them as being inherently, absolutely real, and then grasping onto the inherently, absolutely real phenomena of my body and my mind as grasping onto them as I, Or at least as truly and intrinsically mine, well then I'm just ready to suffer. And definitely as long as that persists, I will suffer. Report an error in the passage at 18:59 Highlight the passage at 18:59

19:44 And of course it doesn't stop with one's skin, because if somebody damages my cell phone, that hurts. Damage somebody else's cell phone, what a pity, you should practice pronunciation. Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

19:57 Other people suffering that, quite easy, it's not my cell phone, thank goodness. Mine's okay, okay, carry on. So it's just exactly where the parameters of identification are. How big is that amoeba swallowing the world around us? Is this my retreat center? No, I'm just here for a few days. Okay, then it's okay. But if it's my retreat center, if I had one back in Santa Barbara, ooh, my retreat center. And so it can go for one's family, one's homeland, anything. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:27 People with the same name. Don't you dare insult somebody named Wallace. Doesn't matter whether, you know, somebody living on another continent I've never heard of, most likely it is. No, no, no. Don't insult the Wallace's, you know. We stick together. Absurdity upon absurdity. But wherever the tentacles of grasping to I, me, mine go, that's exactly how far our vulnerability to suffering goes. Quite interesting. Report an error in the passage at 20:27 Highlight the passage at 20:27

20:51 And so, instead of simply mindlessly, semi-consciously, or even unconsciously, identifying with mental processes as I and mine, Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:03 Here's the antidote. Wake up and attend to them. Observe them. Get to know them. Understand them. See the factors of origination, disillusion. See how they manifest. Are they permanent, impermanent? Are they true sources of happiness or not? Are they by their very nature, eye and mind, or not? Examine them closely. Report an error in the passage at 21:03 Highlight the passage at 21:03

21:22 And you can start there with acetylene the mind, being able to observe them continuously and clearly, without junk and all the projections upon them. And then we begin to investigate them. And in so doing, we're developing an enormously important skill in terms of simply our mental well-being, our happiness, harmonious relationship with other people and flourishing in the world. Report an error in the passage at 21:22 Highlight the passage at 21:22

21:46 And it's a point, once again, that's been identified in modern psychology as well as Buddhism. And it's coming back to the spark and the flame. That wonderful little, it captures so much in those two images. And that is, it's not only feelings that it's really good to take. Take note of, be aware of before those feelings erupt into behavior. But of course our desires, our intentions, anger, our jealousy, our pride, our arrogance, but also noting other impulses, compassion, empathy, kindness, generosity. Report an error in the passage at 21:46 Highlight the passage at 21:46

22:15 There's all kinds of things coming up. And knowing that there are occasions when we can totally relax. I think it's really important at this point. There are occasions when we can totally relax. We can just have that confidence of totally relaxing. And just kind of figure, kind of sitting in the back seat of the car and whatever comes out the mouth is just kind of like, listen to it and smile. Just spontaneous. Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:39 You know? There are occasions like that. I experience it quite frequently and I'm sure all of you have. Where you know the quality of your mind. You know your mind is wholesome. It's virtuous. It's fine. It's not particularly afflicted right now. So whatever comes out the mouth, even if it's a bit goofy, a bit silly, maybe you'll embarrass yourself a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

22:57 No problem. It will not be harmful. That's the really important point. It won't be harmful. Maybe people will think you're silly. Okay, I can live with that. Maybe they'll think you're stupid. Oh, that's okay too. But if you're not harming anybody, well, that's the important part. And so then you can just speak spontaneously, lightly. All kinds of unexpected things can come up. Report an error in the passage at 22:57 Highlight the passage at 22:57

23:17 You listen in and say, oh, cool, that was funny. And then there are other occasions when you see that the mind is afflicted. So now we come back to what does that mean? That came up last night in some elaborate detail. But you see a distortion, a bias, a tightness, a clamping down. Something is toxic going on in the mind. Something is disturbed the balance and equilibrium of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 23:17 Highlight the passage at 23:17

23:39 That's a really good time to quarantine ourselves. Or if we have to speak, and often we do, if we're out there in the world, we're engaged, people are expecting responses, then you can't just say, I'm sorry, I'm going to follow Shantideva's advice. My mind is afflicted, I'm going to be like a piece of wood. But I'll get back to you as soon as it's over. Report an error in the passage at 23:39 Highlight the passage at 23:39

23:59 It'd be really nice if everybody understood it. Oh good, you're practicing Shantideva. We'll give you a pass, you know. Or a friend of mine, Mark Greenstein. Greenstein? Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:10 Something like that. Wonderful man at Pennsylvania State University. Greenstein doesn't quite ring it. Mark Greenberg. Mark Greenberg, that's it. Mark Greenberg. Done wonderful work with social emotional learning for children. Wonderful work for children 5 through 11. I've heard him speak. We know each other. Very nice man. Very good man. Report an error in the passage at 24:10 Highlight the passage at 24:10

24:06 Green... Green... Greenstein... Greenstein? Report an error in the passage at 24:06 Highlight the passage at 24:06

24:28 Also a quite devout Hindu practitioner, he and his wife both. Very sincere. And so he teaches children about this whole kind of thing. And when the children in the classroom, when they're feeling bad, they're feeling bad. And so we would say, well, maybe they're feeling bad because they're unhappy. Maybe they're feeling bad because their minds are really disrupted and upset. He has them go do a mudrā. I think it's kind of like this. Report an error in the passage at 24:28 Highlight the passage at 24:28

24:48 It's a turtle. And when they do that, it means, everybody leave me alone. I'm recovering here. Let me recover and I'll get back to you. And kids in the classroom with the teacher's approval, they can just go, wouldn't that be cool? In the business world, if people are around the boardroom tables, that would be so cool. Report an error in the passage at 24:48 Highlight the passage at 24:48

25:18 Start a new company just so you can have that implemented as one of the policies of the company. If ever your mind gets distorted and disrupted, just go turtle. The world will be a happier place. So thank you, Mark Greenberg, for that. He's just a wonderful man doing wonderful work for children. But that's it. To be able to recognize when the heart is open, the mind is clear, and just let it flow out and be happy with everybody else. Report an error in the passage at 25:18 Highlight the passage at 25:18

25:43 Because what's coming out is spontaneous. It's lovely to be spontaneous. It's so free, so relaxing. But it's also terribly detrimental when we're spontaneous when the mind is afflicted. Because then all the toxic waste comes out. And then we have all these one regrettable episode after another. So in terms of just a six-day retreat, this is something we can expect. This is something that's quite feasible. And that is, after just spending just six days together, that we can begin to hone our skills of developing, potential we already have, some people more gifted, some less, but developing the skill of metacognitive awareness so we can simply be aware of, aha, I see right now my mind is relatively afflicted. Report an error in the passage at 25:43 Highlight the passage at 25:43

26:24 I can see that. And we see what we're not saying is, oh, I see right now I'm a terrible person. Shame on me, I wish I were dead. No, it's just right now I see my mind as afflicted. It's going to pass. But while it's afflicted, it would probably be best for me to keep that to myself and not mentally sneeze on other people because this kind of stuff tends to be contagious. Report an error in the passage at 26:24 Highlight the passage at 26:24

26:44 And so that is something very realistic that we can anticipate, that we can cultivate and see the benefits today and see the benefits the day after this retreat is over and a month from now and a year from now continue to cultivate it. It's kind of mental hygiene, psychological hygiene. When you have a cold, you cover your mouth when you sneeze. But when you're in very, very good health, then you can breathe freely. Report an error in the passage at 26:44 Highlight the passage at 26:44

27:08 And so there's an immediate benefit. Very, very practical. Has no ideology whatsoever attached to it. Religious, not religious, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:18 But I'll end on this note. I know I went on quite a long time, but I think we're going into very, very important ground here. I don't think we've ever left important ground, but this whole four or five days we've been together. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:29 And that is to look at the term itself, settling the mind in its natural state. That's the name of the shamatha practice that we'll start with. And we'll have just today, what I'm planning to do is today and tomorrow, really focus on two dimensions or aspects of the close application of mindfulness to the mind. Report an error in the passage at 27:29 Highlight the passage at 27:29

27:47 So today, it would be one day, it's what, Monday, it must be javana. And javana are the activities of the mind, the kinetic energy of the mind. The dynamism, the comings and goings. So just that. We'll become very familiar with that, at least relatively, over the course of the day. And then tomorrow we'll look into what's called the bhavaṅga in Pāli, or the ground of becoming. Report an error in the passage at 27:47 Highlight the passage at 27:47

28:11 We'll leave that till tomorrow. But today we'll really be attending to the psyche, the activities of the psyche, the kind of things that psychologists study. And so this statement, settling the mind in its natural state, is one of the words for this practice, shamatha practice. Another is focusing, a shamatha focused on the mind, quite obvious. Another one is taking appearances and awareness as the path. Report an error in the passage at 28:11 Highlight the passage at 28:11

28:36 It's another classic label for this method. But as we saw from yesterday, it's actually quite a simple practice. It means simply maintaining a moment-to-moment ongoing flow of awareness, discerning, intelligent, but non-reactive to whatever is coming up in the space of the mind. It's not open awareness. Report an error in the passage at 28:36 Highlight the passage at 28:36

28:56 It's not choiceless awareness. It's shamatha. And shamatha is always selective. If it's open, it's not shamatha. It's open, it might be very helpful, but it's not shamatha. Shamatha is always selective. It's focusing on this and therefore not on that. And so in this practice we are selectively focusing on the domain of mental experience, selecting out, that is not deliberately attending to, the five-century fields, and deliberately focusing on the mental field. Report an error in the passage at 28:56 Highlight the passage at 28:56

29:24 And then whatever arises within that domain and stabilizing that. So the stability that we are acquiring here is not getting the mind to calm down, but rather stabilizing your awareness that illuminates the mind. Your awareness is still, even while the mind is in motion, thoughts, images, memories and so forth, desires, emotions, coming, going, coming, coming. But in the midst of that kind of Grand Central Station in America, a very busy train station, In the midst of the very busy neighborhood of your mind, the flame of your awareness, the candle of your awareness, you try to remain still and unflickering, clearly illuminating whatever is coming up, but not caught up and carried away by, not withdrawing from or lurching into, simply being totally present, so therefore it's not dissociation, it's not a withdrawal from, nor is it grasping, lurching into and identifying with, it's a simple presence. Report an error in the passage at 29:24 Highlight the passage at 29:24

30:22 And so it's called settling the mind in its natural state. This final note then to explicate what that means. The mind in its natural state, in contrast to what? Not mind so much in its unnatural state, because it's quite natural to get natural in the sense of being habitual, very familiar, to get angry, to get selfish, to get sad, to be happy and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 30:22 Highlight the passage at 30:22

30:46 Those are all very natural. But that's not what the term here means. Natural in contrast to configured. Configured. And so just like you have, maybe they still have configured disks, I'm not quite sure, but remember the old days, configured disks and unconfigured disks? Way back, remember when Apple configured, when the PC configured, remember that? Report an error in the passage at 30:46 Highlight the passage at 30:46

31:08 So the mind is normally configured. It's configured by our thoughts, our emotions, our language, sensory input, our reactions, and so forth, heavily. And then our gender, and our language, and our ethnicity. It's configured by many, many factors. Which makes our minds unique to each of us. Each one has our own unique mind. It's configured by many, many unique factors coming together. Report an error in the passage at 31:08 Highlight the passage at 31:08

31:32 So that's all well and good. That's your psyche. And it's said to be like a crystallized mind. That is, it's now a woman's mind, not a man's. It's an American mind, not a Brazilian. And old man's mind, not a young man's mind. And so forth and so on. Human mind, not human mind. Non-human mind. So it's configured in many ways. It's kind of crystallized. And like a snowflake, every person's mind is totally unique. That's a pretty safe statement, even though I can't verify it. Report an error in the passage at 31:32 Highlight the passage at 31:32

32:02 And the practice of settling the mind in its natural state is as if we let that snowflake, that incredibly complex three-dimensional snowflake of our minds, the crystallized version, melt. Melt. And we melt by not putting a Bunsen burner under it or trying to do something to it to make it melt. But it's simply sustaining that quality of awareness, single-pointedly, attending, open, relaxed, non-reactive, non-grasping. Report an error in the passage at 32:02 Highlight the passage at 32:02

32:32 And then like a snow globe that's been shaken up and has all the snow, little so-called snowflakes flurrying about, without doing anything at all, not trying to shake it down or anything like that, just setting it down. We all know what happens. All those little snowflakes come and settle on the bottom sooner or later. And in their own way, they won't just, they don't, you've all seen it, they don't just go, ooh. Report an error in the passage at 32:32 Highlight the passage at 32:32

32:53 No, they go, in their own way, in their own time. They all eventually come to settle, and then you look through that glass ball and it's completely transparent and clear. Report an error in the passage at 32:53 Highlight the passage at 32:53

33:06 So in a similar fashion, it's a pretty close analogy, as we simply settle the mind, sustain that flow of awareness. Now here it has to be sustained. You can't just do up and down, up and down and expect the mind will settle. It has to be in a sustained fashion. So think of the Hubble telescope, that one million second exposure. Report an error in the passage at 33:06 Highlight the passage at 33:06

33:26 Well, okay. A million seconds, 5,000 hours, whatever. Get it to settle. And what happens there without trying to suppress thoughts, without trying to make them subside, simply by sustaining that quality of awareness, gradually, even though there are these periodic eruptions or upheavals of emotions, suppressed trauma, memories, desires, a Pandora's box keep on belching forth one thing after another. Report an error in the passage at 33:26 Highlight the passage at 33:26

33:53 It doesn't go on indefinitely and it's not homogenous. That is over time, over time, the eruptions gradually subside. The sheer volume of thoughts, memories, emotions and so forth gradually subsides, settles down, settles down, settles down. Report an error in the passage at 33:53 Highlight the passage at 33:53

34:11 And the unique configurations of your mind with your personal history, emotions and so forth settles down, settles down. As you go quite deep or quite far along this journey, then gradually, even though while you're maintaining great clarity and in fact increasing clarity, of your awareness. Over time, as you're focusing single-pointedly on the space of the mind, your physical senses will start to implode. Report an error in the passage at 34:11 Highlight the passage at 34:11

34:38 Even when your eyes are open, the visual field will start fading out. Go monochrome, goes lavender for many people. Fades out. Eyes are open, you're not seeing anything. But that's good, you're not looking. You want to open your eyes again and look, you have your eyesight back. But likewise, sounds start to fade out. And if you listen to them, of course, they fade right back in again. Report an error in the passage at 34:38 Highlight the passage at 34:38

34:58 But you're not listening, you're really focusing on the space of the mind. So it's like you're a civil engineer trying to take a river that's flowing out into many, many tributaries, out into a delta, and you're taking all the water of that river and putting it in one channel, which means all the land on the side dries up. Report an error in the passage at 34:58 Highlight the passage at 34:58

35:18 So similarly, we're a civil engineer of awareness, the flow of awareness, and focusing it single-pointedly on the domain of the mind. Which means the awareness that would usually dribble out through the visual, auditory and tactile is being channeled single-pointedly to mind, which means there's none left for the visual, auditory and tactile, which means they go blank. Report an error in the passage at 35:18 Highlight the passage at 35:18

35:43 The senses withdraw, like the little horns of a snail. They're withdrawn into purely mental awareness. Your physical senses shut down while you are there completely lucid, luminous, clear, bright and awake. But you're now, you don't even sense your own body. And then in the course of that also, the sheer contents of the mind subsides, subsides, subsides. Report an error in the passage at 35:43 Highlight the passage at 35:43

36:06 And again, don't expect this to happen overnight, but this is an experiment that's been run thousands of times. So I've got a great big database behind me. Until eventually, all of your awareness is now channeled into the mental domain, but that mental domain has now gone silent. Report an error in the passage at 36:06 Highlight the passage at 36:06

36:24 And all you're aware of is the sheer vacuity. of the space of your mind, brightly illuminated by your awareness. But that awareness, the luminosity of awareness, is illuminating a vacuum. So it's quite anomalous. You're wide awake but seeing pretty much nothing or a vacuity. And so your coarse mind is now settled into something called the substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 36:24 Highlight the passage at 36:24

36:48 Or it's also called the subtle continuum of mental consciousness. And that continuum is not human. It certainly has no gender or ethnicity or language. Or personal history. It's clear, it's luminous, it's bright, it's cognizant, but it's simple. And while it's resting in that state, all that you're explicitly aware of is that vacuity. Report an error in the passage at 36:48 Highlight the passage at 36:48

37:12 Or you can invert your awareness in upon itself and then you become vividly aware of the sheer luminosity of your own awareness illuminating empty space. And now you've settled your mind in this natural state. So natural here means uncontrived, unconfigured. Report an error in the passage at 37:12 Highlight the passage at 37:12

37:29 No longer configured as human being, non-human being and so forth. So if we do an analogy with cells, as we all know, brain cells, blood cells, bone marrow cells, and then there are stem cells, which haven't yet become differentiated, they haven't yet become configured as a liver cell, heart cell and so forth, they're ready to become anything depending on context. Report an error in the passage at 37:29 Highlight the passage at 37:29

37:52 And that's exactly what this consciousness is, this substrate consciousness, this stem consciousness. Right now it's really not configured as anything, but it can become configured as anything depending on the context in which it manifests, crystallizes. So if you simply go into Samādhi and then you come out of Samādhi, it's going to crystallize once again as a human consciousness with your memories and all of that and so forth. Whereas it's exactly that continuum of consciousness that carries on from one life to the next. Report an error in the passage at 37:52 Highlight the passage at 37:52

38:30 And so if your next embodiment is, let's say you're a woman in this lifetime and a man the next time, then it's the stem consciousness that carries on, but has now just been conceived in a body that's going to become male, in which case as that stem consciousness becomes configured, it's going to get configured as a male, a male mind, a male mind, a human mind, and very possibly somebody with a different ethnic background, and so on. Or maybe it will be some different species altogether, maybe it will be a deva. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

39:00 Who knows? But it will become configured by context, propelled by karma. And then there's your new embodiment, whatever that may be. But the current that links one incarnation to the next is this subtle continuum of mental consciousness. And although I just gave a bunch of theory, this is a theory that's actually been tested, I think it's easy to say tens of thousands of times. Report an error in the passage at 39:00 Highlight the passage at 39:00

39:25 And it does lend itself to empirical confirmation. Or, in principle, it could be repudiated. So that's what makes the notion of a contemplative observatory one of the many reasons why that strikes me as being so not only beneficial but enormously meaningful to spark a true revolution in the mind sciences. Report an error in the passage at 39:25 Highlight the passage at 39:25

39:46 Because if the people living there, engaging in contemplative research there, the scientists who come to collaborate, if they're all coming in with an eager aspiration to know what is true, And they do so with an open mind, then some very major discoveries may be made that could revolutionize our modern contemporary notion of what it is to be human and what the mind is. Report an error in the passage at 39:46 Highlight the passage at 39:46

40:11 So that's settling the mind. It's been on for a long time. Let's jump into practice now. Please find a comfortable position. Report an error in the passage at 40:11 Highlight the passage at 40:11