Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 31)

0:01 So it's Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:07 good to know that we have six domains of experience and not just five, and then one that reacts to all the other five. And so that's how we can open the eye of mental perception and then also refine that mode of perception. Report an error in the passage at 0:07 Highlight the passage at 0:07

0:23 Among our six types of perception, I understand there is some malleability, some trainability in terms of eyesight, in terms of hearing. Friends of mine who really know about the area tell me that Even if your eyes get a bit fuzzy, like mine are, 63-year-old eyes, they do certain eye exercises to really regain your good vision. And perhaps the same is true for hearing. Report an error in the passage at 0:23 Highlight the passage at 0:23

0:45 There's some malleability there for smell and taste, tactile, not quite so sure, maybe. But among the six modes of perception, one that I think is the hands-down winner in terms of malleability, plasticity, trainability, refinability, I think there's really no comparison. Report an error in the passage at 0:45 Highlight the passage at 0:45

1:03 Mental perception. It can be refined and extended, I would say, pretty much without limit, which is quite extraordinary, especially the fact that it's overlooked entirely in modern psychology, at least to a large extent in academic psychology. But the point here being that mental perception may be very atrophied, especially if we're never even taught that it exists and never given any training through all of our education to hone that skill, to utilize it, then quite naturally, like a muscle, of course it's going to atrophy, it won't use it. Report an error in the passage at 1:03 Highlight the passage at 1:03

1:34 But through exactly such meditative training as this or mental training, then we can become more vividly aware, more continuously aware, discerningly aware of the type of impulses, thoughts, images arising in the space of the mind and can really hone that ability to extraordinary degrees. It's called samādhi and it's called mindfulness, it's called vipassanā. But now there's something rather delicate about this particular practice. We are opening up metaphorically a Pandora's box. Report an error in the passage at 1:34 Highlight the passage at 1:34

2:06 of all types of impulses, memories, and so on, they're bound to come up anyway in other shamatha practices, but here it's almost like we're inviting them in for a very specific reason, and that is, in mindfulness of breathing, if thoughts, memories, and so forth come up, we release them, whatever they are, happy, sad, The practice there is to single-pointedly focus on the meditative object. If it's the sensations of the breathing of the nostrils, you focus there. Report an error in the passage at 2:06 Highlight the passage at 2:06

2:35 What else comes up, it's kind of like, I'm busy, not now, and you release it immediately. And that's true for many, many other shamatha methods, is that you simply stay the course, focus on your meditative object and whatever else comes up, release it. Report an error in the passage at 2:35 Highlight the passage at 2:35

2:50 Well, in this practice, we're not focusing on a particular object, like a particular thought, image, memory and so forth. We're focusing on a domain, right? A whole field, a space of experience, of course, the mental one. And that's where the single-pointedness comes in. That we are single-pointedly and with as much continuity of focus, clarity of focus, seeking to attend to a domain. Report an error in the passage at 2:50 Highlight the passage at 2:50

3:15 But again, the subtlety here is that while we are seeking to concentrate on that domain, the ideal is to not deliberately modify, to edit out or to perpetuate any of the events that arise within that domain. Well, that can sound a bit scary. Number one, when we observe the mind without censorship, With no editing, with no preference. And you do that, especially if you start doing that for many hours a day. Then you may want to put on your seatbelt because all kinds of things come up. Report an error in the passage at 3:15 Highlight the passage at 3:15

3:49 And you don't know what's going to come up, but what you can expect is expect the unexpected. Because memories may come up. For people of my age, memories that were 40, 50 years old can come up. That you really hadn't thought about, had no particular reason to think about. Not a repressed memory. Just a memory that faded out because it wasn't particularly significant. And then it comes up, looms large, hello. And you see the details of the memory and you may have a very strong conviction. Report an error in the passage at 3:49 Highlight the passage at 3:49

4:16 This is not fantasy. For whatever reason that I don't, and I don't understand what it is, I'm remembering something that took place a long time ago. And in many cases it has no particular emotional charge to it. It may. It may. You may unearth some traumas. Then you have to deal with that. But a lot of the other stuff that occurs, it just... Report an error in the passage at 4:16 Highlight the passage at 4:16

4:34 It just comes up and you don't know why that one of the million memories that I've had, millions over the last decades, why that one? So memories come up, fantasy come up, all kinds of things come up. Some of them are very benevolent, some of them just neutral, weird. And other ones can be quite afflictive or unwholesome. So when I say this is a delicate matter, how do we bolster our courage? Report an error in the passage at 4:34 Highlight the passage at 4:34

5:01 To be willing to observe the mind uncensored, without any editing, without preference. And what about those occasions when it's not only something troubling that comes up, like an unhappy memory or a trauma, but something really toxic comes up. Some malevolence, jealousy, whatever it may be. And shouldn't we be showing them the door? Not here, thank you very much. Report an error in the passage at 5:01 Highlight the passage at 5:01

5:30 Be a bouncer. Kick them out. I don't know quite where you kick them to, though, back into the unconscious. And this practice is one where there's no bouncer. That is, there's no one you do not deliberately, in doing this practice, do not deliberately reject, chuck out, dismiss, or try to obscure or repress anything that comes to mind. Report an error in the passage at 5:30 Highlight the passage at 5:30

5:53 But then one might quite rightly, quite reasonably ask, but doesn't this mean that you're just going to be... Experiencing again and again really toxic states of awareness, which then kind of you're just wallowing in toxicity and poison. Maybe getting some really negative karma in the process, you know, from a Buddhist perspective. Report an error in the passage at 5:53 Highlight the passage at 5:53

6:11 And why is that a good Dharma practice? So a bit of nuance here is needed. Because this is a very time-tested practice, at least around for a millennium, at least. And it's been practiced by great adepts. And so I think I am confident they didn't maintain this tradition for a thousand years. While it was still actually doing a lot of damage and being very toxic. There's a way to, how do you say, to detoxify. To detoxify, whatever comes up. Report an error in the passage at 6:11 Highlight the passage at 6:11

6:41 Here's an analogy. And that is, I understand there's some laboratory, at least one in the United States, where they're keeping a live smallpox virus. Report an error in the passage at 6:41 Highlight the passage at 6:41

6:51 Incredibly, I don't know how many millions of people have died from that particular kind of virus, but it's a lot. And there are scientists, I think probably with good reason. We say, we want to keep this alive. Maybe we could kill the last virus. Maybe we could do that. But we don't want to. This may be scientifically useful to keep it there. Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:13 We may want it for research at some time. I would say, okay, they know best. I don't really know. I'm not in a position to draw a well-informed judgment if we could completely eradicate smallpox from the globe or keep it in one vial. But what we're all agreed upon, no debate, All right, if you're going to keep it alive, then make sure it doesn't get out. Because a smallpox virus in a vial, well-sealed, extremely well-contained, one can say is not toxic, it's not poisonous. Report an error in the passage at 7:13 Highlight the passage at 7:13

7:50 I'm speaking relatively, nor is cyanide poisonous when it's inside a sealed vial, or arsenic, etc. They're not poisonous because they're not poisoning the vial. That's the only thing they're in touch with, and they're not poisoning the vial. And they're not poisoning anything else. So if you're not poisoning anything, then why not say it's not poisonous? Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

8:12 Now, if anybody breaks that vial, then of course now relative to those creatures or what have you that are infected by it, well now we know it's extremely toxic, very harmful. But not just sitting there in a vial, and that's because it's isolated. Now maybe you think I'm mincing words, but I think this is an important point. It's potentially extremely toxic. Report an error in the passage at 8:12 Highlight the passage at 8:12

8:34 But it's not intrinsically toxic, it's just a chemical or a virus or what have you. And likewise though, and this is where the analogy really plays out, if you simply observe without grasping an eruption of anger, resentment, craving, what have you, and there you are utterly at ease, your awareness still, unflickering, simply observing this eruption occurring in the space of the mind, like a burst, and you're not drawn into it, You're not recoiling from it either. You're simply attending to it without grasping and observing the factors of origination, observing how it manifests and how it dissolves. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

9:18 It's not toxic. It's not toxic because it didn't toxify you. You simply observed it. Now what's the definition of mental affliction? Something that disrupts the equilibrium, the balance of the mind. But you just observed that mental affliction, whatever it was. You observed it without the grasping, without the identification. Report an error in the passage at 9:18 Highlight the passage at 9:18

9:42 And as you know for yourself, as you observed it, you see that your mind, your awareness, did not become troubled, disrupted, thrown into balance, cognitive bias, and so forth and so on. It didn't do that. You simply observed it coming, playing itself out and dissolving. In which case, it wasn't poisonous to the space. Report an error in the passage at 9:42 Highlight the passage at 9:42

10:02 It didn't leave some kind of a bad smell behind. It's not poisonous to itself. I mean, it is already what it is. It didn't poison you, it didn't poison anybody else, so then why do we call it poisonous? It's not poisonous, it did not afflict, therefore it's not a mental affliction. As soon as you identify with it, as soon as you grasp onto it, then you get infected. Report an error in the passage at 10:02 Highlight the passage at 10:02

10:21 And then your mind gets disrupted. And now you're reliving a mental affliction. Or if you had a traumatic experience and you identify with the memory, then you're reliving that traumatic experience and neuroscientists say that... Neurophysiologically, in terms of the correlates, the impact on the brain, it's as if you're having that experience twice, when you relive the trauma and identifying with it. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:43 Now the brain has been doubly patterned, and psychologically I've heard, again by psychologists I've read, they say, well it's really as if, psychologically speaking, in terms of your own experience, once you are reliving that trauma, identifying with it, being immersed in it like as if in a non-lucid dream, is now you've been traumatized twice. Report an error in the passage at 10:43 Highlight the passage at 10:43

11:03 But the second time with no help from anybody else. It was an inside job. And of course that can keep on repeating and repeating. You can be massively traumatized. Once by the external people and then a hundred times internally. And the damage is 101 times, but you're responsible for most of it. Or at least most of it you let happen. And so here is a practice to detoxify memories, mental afflictions and whatever comes up. Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:28 Again, I cannot overemphasize this, not by dissociation, not by withdrawal, not by blinking, not by shielding or anesthetizing, but simply by releasing all grasping and simply being aware. And that means you must know, you must immediately experience the stillness of your own awareness. See, that it's not recoiling in fright or aversion. Report an error in the passage at 11:28 Highlight the passage at 11:28

11:48 It's not being sucked into out of sheer compulsion or obsessiveness or desire. It's simply illuminating whatever is coming up. And then really one of the wondrous qualities of the body-mind, and now specifically the mind, manifests in this context. I've mentioned that before, there's a strong analogy here, that in practicing that mindfulness of breathing, with that nuance that I discussed, of really letting it play itself out, not regulating, don't interfere, don't mess with it, just let it be. Report an error in the passage at 11:48 Highlight the passage at 11:48

12:20 And again, however the permutations of the respiration may flow out, long, short, regular, irregular, Let it sort itself out, and then lo and behold, over the course of time, you may very well find that your body or body-mind system is healing and balancing itself by way of the respiration. And that is, in terms of the nervous system, the prāṇa system, by way of respiration is balancing itself out and you're healing, even from chronic disorders. Like this woman that was in the retreat in Phuket, just ended a couple of weeks ago. Report an error in the passage at 12:20 Highlight the passage at 12:20

12:52 Chronic back pain, really severe, really caught her attention. Two weeks it was getting better, eight weeks it was 90 % gone. I'm not doing anything. Don't blame me. I'm not responsible. I mean, I taught the methods. That's pretty easy. And she didn't do anything. She didn't get there with her little ingenious fix-it kit and do something to it. She was just breathing and letting her respiration flow. Report an error in the passage at 12:52 Highlight the passage at 12:52

13:16 And lo and behold, that was her report. And if that were the isolated one, I'd say, well, isn't that a curiosity? Move right on. But it's actually not very isolated at all. A lot of people. I've experienced really some remarkable balancing of the body that occurs not because they're clever or the technique is so ingenious, but because nobody's being clever and the technique isn't particularly ingenious at all. Report an error in the passage at 13:16 Highlight the passage at 13:16

13:37 It's just letting it be and letting the body do what it can do when we get out of the way. So quite clearly this is the case. I have no doubt about it. I've experienced it myself. But it's not only to the nervous system and the body, the pranic system, it's also with the mind. Something is easily overlooked, especially because it has no market value. You can't sell it. You can't cash in on it. And that is the mind's capacity to heal itself. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

14:04 And it's not the old cliche, time heals all wounds, because it doesn't. We all know that. One can be traumatized and remain traumatized for a whole lifetime by a single episode, let alone by protracted trauma. So just say, well, just give it some time. Well, maybe, maybe not. But if you keep on reliving it, Time doesn't heal anything at all, you're just perpetuating the problem by identifying with the problem. Whereas if one can bring this quality awareness, get out of the way, stop identifying, stop grasping onto, stop being delusional with respect to the memories, the impulses, the emotions, and let them be with full cognizance, with full awareness, Report an error in the passage at 14:04 Highlight the passage at 14:04

14:46 then you may actually watch your mind heal. And it's said of these mental afflictions that when we... Observe them in that manner, as if you're a chemist looking at smallpox virus while it's inside the vial and you're simply examining it. Maybe even look through a microscope, but it's totally isolated. Report an error in the passage at 14:46 Highlight the passage at 14:46

15:04 And you're looking at it with great interest. Is it still alive? What are its qualities, chemical compositions? What's it doing? What's it doing? You may look with intense interest, great interest. But you're not getting infected. You're observing it without identifying with it, without taking it in. Report an error in the passage at 15:04 Highlight the passage at 15:04

15:23 This is the key to this practice being ethical and not simply reliving and exacerbating one's mental afflictions. And that you're not identifying with them and therefore you're not being poisoned by them. And in fact, to the contrary, you're allowing them to unravel themselves. So they term in Tibetan Rang Dhol. You're allowing them to self-release. Report an error in the passage at 15:23 Highlight the passage at 15:23

15:46 Self-release. It's as if they have the antibodies built in. And with all of our identification, grasping onto our aversion, craving, hostility, anxiety and so forth, that's what keeps them alive. That's what prevents them from releasing and dissolving back into the space of the mind. And it's that very grasping with all the craving, hostility, anxiety and so forth that allows them to infect us. And they can do tremendous damage. Report an error in the passage at 15:46 Highlight the passage at 15:46

16:11 And so, by not doing an awful lot, but then also not falling asleep. Because sleep doesn't heal all wounds either. You wake up and you can be just as toxic as you were before you fell asleep. No psychological problems are really solved simply by falling asleep and then waking up again. You simply have a bit more energy to deal with the problems and maybe exacerbate them all over again. And so this is a great discovery to see the power of your own mind. Report an error in the passage at 16:11 Highlight the passage at 16:11

16:44 It's not really highlighting the power of Buddhism, let alone a Buddhist teacher or a technique. Because the technique you see is really simple. There's nothing really ingenious or clever or high sophisticated or high tech about it. Simply observing the mind in this way that we've now been introduced to. Report an error in the passage at 16:44 Highlight the passage at 16:44

17:01 And then watching your mind heal. Now the question, I'll just respond to an unasked question, but it's a very good one. And that is, is this sufficient? Whatever kind of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, anger, rage, other psychological problems you have, is this a panacea? Report an error in the passage at 17:01 Highlight the passage at 17:01

17:19 Will this do it for everything? No matter what problem you have, just kind of sit down there and watch it unravel and disappear into the luminous, pure space of your awareness. In principle, yeah. In principle, in principle, if you could really do the practice all the way through, relentlessly. Without ever getting caught up and carried away by the affliction, the memory and so forth. In principle, yeah, the answer is yes, it would. Of course, that's in principle. In practice, extremely difficult in many cases, especially if there's serious trauma, serious mental afflictions of one sort or another. Report an error in the passage at 17:19 Highlight the passage at 17:19

17:55 Now, in Tibet, for 1,200 years of Buddhism there, I don't know that a psychotherapist ever visited Tibet prior to the Chinese. I don't know how many there are now. I kind of doubt there's very, very few. I don't imagine that the Chinese government is sending battalions of psychotherapists to the Tibetans to help them heal what the Chinese themselves have done to them. That would be a nice thought, but I really doubt it. Report an error in the passage at 17:55 Highlight the passage at 17:55

18:17 But I don't frankly know how many psychotherapists there are in Tibet right now. I think it's a safe bet there are very few, if any. But prior to the invasion, prior to the genocide, it's very safe to say there was not one single psychotherapist or clinical psychologist in all of Tibet. Report an error in the passage at 18:17 Highlight the passage at 18:17

18:36 Having lived with many Tibetans who grew up in that culture, and then having lived in a refugee community of exactly those people who grew up in Tibet, I would say they were some of the psychologically, I know I think they were the psychologically healthiest people I've ever met. In terms of resilience to trauma, their warm-heartedness, their balance, their kindness and so forth and so on, I think that little village I lived in would get very high marks, despite the fact. Report an error in the passage at 18:36 Highlight the passage at 18:36

19:03 Not all of them, but almost every single one of them had been through some pretty major trauma and having to flee from the homeland only several years earlier. So am I implying in any way this discount psychotherapy? Not at all, not even a shred of that. It is to say though, here's a fact to my mind, because I witnessed it, is that they had something else going for them. Report an error in the passage at 19:03 Highlight the passage at 19:03

19:24 They didn't have the benefits of the science of psychotherapy, clinical psychology, psychiatry. They didn't have the benefits. of psychopharmaceutical drugs, which certainly can be very helpful on many occasions. They didn't have any of those benefits, right? They did have a relatively stable economy, stable environment, stable society. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:43 They had a very, very thriving spiritual community, again with one monastery for every thousand people. And they had lots and lots of spiritual friends, including people's own families. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

19:53 And throw a stone in any direction, you really shouldn't throw stones at monks, but throw a stone in any direction, probably bounce off a monk pretty soon. There are just so many of them, monks, nuns, people who are really truly devoted to their spiritual practice. So for Tibetans living in Tibet, let's say a hundred years ago, who are devoting themselves to this practice, well they're not going to think, if I run into some real bumpy road here, some really deep stuff that's coming up and I'm having a hard time handling the memories, the emotions, the desires and so forth, they're not going to think, oh let's find the psychotherapist, because they didn't know what the word meant. Report an error in the passage at 19:53 Highlight the passage at 19:53

20:27 They had no such word. What they will be thinking is, I think I'd really like to speak with a spiritual friend. Maybe it would be my father or mother, maybe it would be a brother, maybe it would be a monk, my brother who's a monk, or my uncle, or my Lama, or some other monk, or nun. They would have plenty to choose from. And for 1,200 years they seemed to do very well. Because if they consulted with a person who'd done a lot of meditation, was compassionate, had a lot of experience, Then it really looked like it worked. They got the advice, the counseling they needed to move through those rough spots where they could so easily get caught up and absorbed in some type of an emotional upheaval and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 20:27 Highlight the passage at 20:27

21:11 So that's how they did it. That's how they did it. They didn't have the benefits of modern clinical psychology and so on, but they certainly had a very rich tradition of Buddhism there with many spiritual friends and it served them well. Report an error in the passage at 21:11 Highlight the passage at 21:11

21:26 Now, happily, We can avail ourselves of both. That is, there are many fine, wise and compassionate, well-trained psychotherapists who may help us through exactly such problems when they are erupting up in our meditative practice. And so to consider the possibility, if you find it kind of difficult to maintain that quality of awareness without distraction and grasping because it's sucking you in like a vortex, then why not? Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

21:51 Absolutely. If you know a wise, experienced, compassionate psychotherapist, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist. Why not? They may very well be helpful. It would be all the better if they had some meditative experience. So they don't tell you, oh, you should stop meditating. That's obviously harmful. Report an error in the passage at 21:51 Highlight the passage at 21:51

22:07 But that's not very good advice because they don't know what's going on. They don't know that sound meditation can catalyze the eruption of very troublesome, very disturbing memories and so forth. And that's a good thing. The notion is a very silly notion, but it's rather common. That is, if you meditate, you should feel really peaceful. Report an error in the passage at 22:07 Highlight the passage at 22:07

22:29 And the more you meditate, you should continue more and more peaceful and centered and clear and calm. And you should smile all the time. And then you're a really good meditator. Whenever you meditate, it just feels so good. I think they're referring to Valium. Because that's not meditation. Not meditation I know. Meditation over the course of time, of course, is designed to heal, to balance, to soothe and calm. And it does do that on many occasions, but it also catalyzes whatever's there. Report an error in the passage at 22:29 Highlight the passage at 22:29

23:02 And it shouldn't aggravate it. You shouldn't be introducing fresh toxins in. But the toxins that are already there are bound to come up. And then the wise meditator learns how to deal with them with the help of spiritual friends, psychotherapists, or a combination of the two. And that's what we have now in this modern world, the possibility of consulting with really good spiritual friends, compassionate people who know us well. A spouse could be a good choice. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:26 My wife is my closest spiritual friend in terms of sheer proximity. Of course, I have lamas that I consult. And then, I know many people have a lot of experience and wisdom in psychology. So we can avail ourselves of both. So, final point in this one, then we'll take our break. But is this ethical? What about this, though? I mean, you just said it toxic, but if you're seeing some really anger erupt in the mind, some malevolence, some resentment, some hate, hatred. Report an error in the passage at 23:26 Highlight the passage at 23:26

23:59 This is a tough word. You see, it's my hatred coming up. You really despise such and such a person or community of people. Isn't that negative? Isn't that harmful? Isn't that negative karma? And I'll give an analogy, I've often given, I'll give it again. And that is if you're sitting, let's say you're sitting in a car while your spouse is getting some groceries, just in a little corner grocery, and you're right across from the bank and you see some robbers come out, you know, with masks and a big bag that says dollar sign on it. Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:33 They come running out of the bank with a shotgun over the shoulder. And you see them hop into the getaway car and drive off. Have you, in witnessing that, have you done something illegal or immoral in witnessing bank robbery in progress? And nobody in his mind would say, oh yes, we're going to prosecute you. Report an error in the passage at 24:33 Highlight the passage at 24:33

24:56 Because you did something bad. You witnessed it. It had no part in it whatsoever. And if you hit 911 and call up the police and say they headed this way and set the car, well then good, you're a good citizen. You've contributed to, you know, peace of the community. So no fault. No foul, no fault. You witnessed it. You didn't participate in it. Maybe even did something to help, you know, stop the crime. Report an error in the passage at 24:56 Highlight the passage at 24:56

25:17 So there it is. It's like that. Now we'll take the counter example. You see them coming out with great big bags of money, great big dollar signs on it. And they run out, but one of the guys is wounded and he's down. Maybe the guard shoots him and he's shot him in the leg and he's down. And you see they're hopping into the car, but they've got no driver. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:37 But they have big bags of money. And you're behind the driving wheel, steering wheel. And you hop out of the car and say, can I help? Report an error in the passage at 25:37 Highlight the passage at 25:37

25:47 Just give me a little cut. I'll help. I can drive. And they said, okay, hop in. Okay, as soon as you said, can I help? Then you're an accessory. Now you can go to jail for that, right? Because you're an accessory to the crime. Silly example, but it's quite clear, and that's the most important point. As soon as you're involved in it, identify with it, you participate in it, then you are an accessory, then you are implicated, karmically speaking, now you're accumulating karma. Report an error in the passage at 25:47 Highlight the passage at 25:47

26:10 That is, when you identify with it, you're focusing on the referent. The thought comes, I despise that person, and then you slip into, almost like getting into that person's clothes, you slip into that malicious thought, that contemptuous thought, and you're focusing on that person, and then you've been... Report an error in the passage at 26:10 Highlight the passage at 26:10

26:27 Sucked into it. You've now become toxified. You've crawled into the vial of smallpox. And you're focusing on that person with contempt and hatred. Okay, now you're getting karma. Now your mind is afflicted. And if you have any intention whatsoever to do anything about it, now you're accumulating karma. And so, tough luck. Report an error in the passage at 26:27 Highlight the passage at 26:27

26:45 You blew it. You're no longer practicing meditation. You're having malevolent thoughts with an intention to do harm. That's what we'll say on the karmic citation. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

26:55 And that'll be ten years in the lower realm. It's all a matter of participation, of a grasping identification and all of that. But if you're simply an innocent bystander, a witness, then unlike watching a bank robbery, I mean you didn't influence it one way or another, when you're simply witnessing, maintaining that steady gaze, that attentiveness, discerning, intelligent, non-reactive and free of grasping, you're actually allowing the mind to heal. Report an error in the passage at 26:55 Highlight the passage at 26:55

27:23 And that doesn't happen in the bank robbery. It doesn't influence the smallpox virus. But it does influence the mind, that the mind becomes less and less prone to erupting in such mental afflictions. Report an error in the passage at 27:23 Highlight the passage at 27:23

27:37 Such that finally when your mind settles in its natural state, those, how do you say, overt, those overt mental afflictions associated with this whole realm of experience we call the desire realm, all of those, the craving, the hostility, the envy, the pomposity and so forth and so on, and the activities that go along with them, they're all dormant. Report an error in the passage at 27:37 Highlight the passage at 27:37

27:58 They're all dormant. When your mind is settled in its natural state. And that's very likely one reason why that settling the mind in its natural state is naturally imbued with a sense of bliss. It has three qualities. Bliss, luminosity, it's very bright and clear, and non-conceptuality, it's still, it's quiet. But the surprising one is bliss. Report an error in the passage at 27:58 Highlight the passage at 27:58

28:20 That one you would not see coming unless somebody told you, like I've just told you. But it's not a stimulus-driven bliss because you're not looking at anything or aroused by anything blissful. As I said, you're kind of attending with great clarity to have acuity with all your senses imploded. It's like being deep asleep in deep dreamless sleep and being radiantly aware with a 1,000-watt bulb illuminating the space of your mind as you are sound asleep. Report an error in the passage at 28:20 Highlight the passage at 28:20

28:46 It's called radiantly being lucid in the dreamless state. And that's very comparable to what it's like when you've achieved shamatha. But it's blissful. And that's the really interesting part of it. That's our birthright. That's what we're born with. So we're not only born with all the baggage of conate mental afflictions and habits driven by karma and so forth, but underlying all of that is an innate bliss of the mind when it's settled in equipoise. Report an error in the passage at 28:46 Highlight the passage at 28:46

29:10 And that's what's unveiled through this practice of settling the mind in its natural state. All the commotion dies down, the mind settles, and there it is by nature luminously clear, by nature quiet and serene. And by nature blissful. And that's your birthright. That's yours. Nobody can give it to you, but then nobody can take it away either. It can either remain veiled, as we're attending to other things, or we can unveil it. Report an error in the passage at 29:10 Highlight the passage at 29:10

29:38 And the methods for unveiling that natural bliss of your own substrate consciousness are shamatha and shamatha and shamatha. Just shamatha. That's what it's designed to do. And it makes the mind serviceable. So. That's an introduction to settling the mind in its natural state as the platform for closely applying mindfulness to the mind and thereby reaping a very rich harvest of a wide variety of insights, some of which are profoundly transformative and liberating. Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

30:11 And that's what the Vipassanā practice is for. But without the foundation in shamatha, you're going to be a woody woodpecker tapping on your mind. But getting any kind of sustained insight that's going to radically transform, I don't think the prognosis is very good. Having a fleeting insight into anything. If you're addicted to tobacco, and you're really addicted, and you have a fleeting insight into, wow, that can do damage. Report an error in the passage at 30:11 Highlight the passage at 30:11

30:38 Maybe you see a photograph of somebody's lungs who died of lung cancer from smoking. You say, wow, that looks terrible. And then you get over it 10 seconds later. Report an error in the passage at 30:38 Highlight the passage at 30:38

30:48 Because you're thinking, I ran out of my cigarettes, I should buy some more. So you may have a really good insight there for 10 seconds. Boo, that's really dangerous. And then it passes. And you're right back to your addiction. And that goes for alcohol and any other kind of addiction. If you have only a fleeting insight into the detriment of the addiction, you'll continue to have the addiction and not the insight. Report an error in the passage at 30:48 Highlight the passage at 30:48

31:10 Shamatha enables you to have a sustained insight that will get you over the addiction and give rise to some really irreversible transformation and liberation. And that's what the union of Shamatha and Vipassanā is all about. And that really, I think, is, again, as far as I know, that at the time was a unique unprecedented contribution the Buddha all of India and now to the whole world. Report an error in the passage at 31:10 Highlight the passage at 31:10

31:34 That was quite unusual. I think it was unique at that time. Since then, who can say, because India was such a melting pot and so many people were learning from so many other people, the Buddha sharing with the Hindus, the Hindus sharing with the Buddhists and the Jains and so forth and so on, that over the course of time, in that tremendous complexity, the great melting pot of India, I can't say what the truth is now, but it does seem 2,500 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 31:34 Highlight the passage at 31:34

31:58 In what was already a very diverse contemplative milieu, that what the Buddha contributed was many things, but this was one that was unique, as far as I can tell. So I want to say thank you. Very nice contribution. And, of course, if it died in the last generation, you know, you should have been there, one of those kind of cases, just before the Chinese came in, or just before communism wiped out so much of Buddhism and other religions throughout Asia. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:26 If that was the last living generation, People really achieving shamatha and vipassanā, then we could say, well, gosh, I wish I'd been born a bit earlier. Like you should have been there. You missed it by that much. And that could happen. That could happen. I mean, in this generation, if people don't practice seriously shamatha and vipassanā, don't create a conducive environment, don't have sustained practice, then it will be exactly that. Report an error in the passage at 32:26 Highlight the passage at 32:26

32:52 You should have been there. You just came 50 years too late. And it's all a matter of causing conditions. They're coming back to the same old, same old. Create the conducive environment, have a critical mass of practitioners, shared vision, have access to a teacher who's qualified, compassionate and wise. Report an error in the passage at 32:52 Highlight the passage at 32:52

33:09 Then we can keep that candle lit. And then our children will thank us that we were not the generation that killed it. As if it were dead on arrival. They'll thank us for that. They'll say thank you. I'm glad it's still alive. Because once it's dead, it's pretty much dead as a doornail. Once it's dead, it's really hard to revitalize something. It's dead. Not dead yet. So I do think there's a sense of urgency here. But you've heard me say that before. Report an error in the passage at 33:09 Highlight the passage at 33:09

33:37 Let's come back at 10.55 or a minute or two later. Report an error in the passage at 33:37 Highlight the passage at 33:37