Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 19)

0:12 Are there any questions or observations, insights or points of clarification? Anything at all? Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 0:12 Highlight the passage at 0:12

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0:59 More Report an error in the passage at 0:59 Highlight the passage at 0:59

1:17 practice. But it comes more from relaxing rather than trying harder. And it's not so much really a matter of suppressing the overlay of concepts, but rather loosening up all the way around and being able to be very selective, like a brain surgeon that goes in and just wants to take out something or maybe... Report an error in the passage at 1:17 Highlight the passage at 1:17

1:38 Fix some very tiny aneurysm in the brain so it's very almost like microsurgery, so precise and try not to disturb anything around it. You're coming in there with a very kind of a finesse of awareness and simply trying to select just the sounds and linger with that. Now images, if it's a sound of an automobile, very likely an image of an automobile is going to come to mind. And that's not a bad thing, I mean in terms of just day-to-day living. Report an error in the passage at 1:38 Highlight the passage at 1:38

2:05 This is how we navigate around the world, you know, that we associate and we associate automatically and precognitively with this sound, with this image, with this tactile sensation and above all, this sound with this object that's making the sound and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 2:05 Highlight the passage at 2:05

2:21 There's nothing wrong with making sense of the world and kind of patching it together, connecting the dots, so to speak, with conceptualization. The only problem is... In conflating that which is projected with that which is presented. And so for that, frankly, more shamatha is really helpful. Because there it is, it's just getting that whole engine to calm down, the engine of the obsessive, compulsive flow of ideas, concepts, images and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 2:21 Highlight the passage at 2:21

2:53 Just getting the whole thing to let off steam and settle down, quiet down, and have literally some peace and quiet. And insofar as, You've cultivated that quality of awareness, a real stillness, an inner stillness, where you can see an image come up and then fade back into the space of the mind. There's a platform from which then you can attend to sensory, so visual images, sounds and so forth, and have a much better chance of being able to distinguish between the two. Report an error in the passage at 2:53 Highlight the passage at 2:53

3:24 Because you've really found a place to remain in a still point and not be just perpetually caught up and carried away. By thoughts, memories, associations, language and all of that. So, it's difficult, yeah. You've had, I'll guess, maybe 30, well, I'll just be 35 years, let's say, of habituation, whatever it is, you know, not my business, but whatever it is, a few decades of habituation the other way. Report an error in the passage at 3:24 Highlight the passage at 3:24

3:50 And now you've had maybe an hour of habituation in a new way. So that's a lot of weight here, not a whole lot of weight there. So that doesn't mean you have to practice for 35 years before it balances out. But it does mean it will take some time to turn the tide. And primarily this is a point that is so easily overlooked in our rush-rush world which rushes right into meditation and Dharma practice. Report an error in the passage at 3:50 Highlight the passage at 3:50

4:15 So many people wanting to find the shortcut, the fast way, the easy way. And thereby just jumping right over shamatha and going to Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana, Vipassanā and so forth. And I understand it. I mean, why not? Except for if the... The mind that we're bringing to these practices is still largely dysfunctional. Then how will our practice of these very marvelous, advanced, deep practices be anything other than dysfunctional? Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:45 So there's an aphorism in the Tibetan tradition that says there are many profound practices but not many profound practitioners. And it's what we're bringing to it. So it's the same old thing, that what we're getting from outside are the practices. So a teacher will say, here's Dzogchen, here's Mahmudra, here's... Report an error in the passage at 4:45 Highlight the passage at 4:45

5:04 All these really fantastic practices. And they're coming to us. We receive them. He says, oh, I'm so fortunate I received this oral transmission and this empowerment for such and such a practice. It's really, really deep. It's very cool. But then what are we bringing to the practice? And if it's a mind that's not even trained in shamatha, to my mind it's kind of like having a grubby, unwashed, cockroach-ridden bowl and then going to a gourmet restaurant and say, please give me your best grub. Report an error in the passage at 5:04 Highlight the passage at 5:04

5:31 And the chef, he kind of, and maybe even pay for it. But the chef looks into your bowl and he said, are you kidding? I'm not going to pour my food into that. Clean up your own act first, then I'll consider giving you some of my food. So, there's a bit more work to be done. Report an error in the passage at 5:31 Highlight the passage at 5:31

5:51 Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 5:51 Highlight the passage at 5:51

6:09 It differs from breath to breath, from person to person. Some people find the out-breath much more difficult to detect, and other people find the in-breath more difficult. It just varies. And you may also find it varies also, just as your breathing just goes through these different cycles. And if we're not messing with it, As I think with the conversation with Angelina, if we're not messing with it, obstructing it, if we're really allowing this whole body-mind complex to be able to sort itself out, to allow the respiration to settle in its own rhythm without trinkering with it, controlling it, overriding it, then what we'll find is not something kind of linear, as for example the breath is getting subtler and subtler and subtler, but rather that the breath will go different cycles. Report an error in the passage at 6:09 Highlight the passage at 6:09

6:54 Hanging in there, just witnessing it, allowing it, letting it be. Then sometimes you may have a whole series of quite deep breaths coming through. And then you may have some shallow ones coming through. And you may have very long out-breaths, lingering, lingering, and then some pause after the out-breath. And then a little in-breath come in. And then that will shift. And this is all good. Report an error in the passage at 6:54 Highlight the passage at 6:54

7:14 Because what's happening here is the body is just balancing itself out. And as pretty much all the Asian traditions know, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, India, both Hindu and Buddhist, what they all know, and it's not confined just to Asia, is that the breath, which is, you know, we're all familiar with the breath, that it's very closely correlated with the prāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 7:14 Highlight the passage at 7:14

7:36 And that term crops up in multiple languages, really all over the world. The two are not the same, but they're strongly related. This is why by regulating the breath, you can regulate the prāṇa. And that's what's done in pranayama or qigong and so forth. And so by just allowing the breath to sort itself out and then over time in its own fashion, what will occur gradually is the amplitude of the breath will start to become more sinusoidal, just kind of like nice smooth curve like that. Report an error in the passage at 7:36 Highlight the passage at 7:36

8:07 And then that sinusoidal nice rhythmic even breathing will then gradually become a damped wave. And that is your amplitude of the wave, the volume of the breath, that will subside. And then it just goes smoother and smoother, subtler and subtler, less and less air coming in and out. And that's how you soothe the composite of your body. But in this practice, we don't try to jump all the stages in between and say, OK, I'll just breathe subtly, I'll just do that right now. Report an error in the passage at 8:07 Highlight the passage at 8:07

8:39 Or I'll breathe deeply and rhythmically, because I think that's what's supposed to happen, and override the system. because know prominent Pranayama has its own integrity, so I'm not criticizing at all. In the hands of a master, it's very, very powerful. But then you have to trust the master, whoever he or she is, and the tradition, that they really know what's going on, and that that form of pranayama is really good for you, because there are multiple forms of pranayama. Report an error in the passage at 8:39 Highlight the passage at 8:39

9:03 So there's a lot of trust involved. And that trust is well placed, it can work out very well. But here the trust is really not placed outside, not in me, not in the Buddhist tradition and so forth. It's kind of just coming back. To your own body-mind system and saying, alright, do I have enough reason to trust this body-mind that if I stand back and just let that whole respiration cycle work itself out, that it will turn out in the end and it will turn out well. Report an error in the passage at 9:03 Highlight the passage at 9:03

9:30 But I just have to trust what's going to happen naturally. And if you don't have any respiratory ailment, there's that disease where people stop breathing and what is it called? Sleep? Apnea, sleep apnea. If you have a clear respiratory disorder, that may not work out so well. So then you may need a breather, a breathing device while you're sleeping. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:54 So that's a medical issue. I have no knowledge of that, no expertise, whatever. That's separate. But for those who do not have respiratory illnesses, then we can, I would suggest, trust the body to sort itself out and that just means let it be and let it flow of its own accord. And then see how it turns out. Report an error in the passage at 9:54 Highlight the passage at 9:54

10:34 I... Again, simply scanning through the body is widely regarded as Vipassanā, just as it's simply maintaining bare attention of anything. In this popularized version, it's often considered Vipassanā. But that really diverges from the first 2,500 years of Buddhism. So I think you're asking, well, okay, how about the more classical meaning, the meaning that was good for 2,500 years? And what, again, just a basic distinction between Samad and Vipassanā? Report an error in the passage at 10:34 Highlight the passage at 10:34

11:04 The shamatha entails simply placing the attention upon a meditative object and remaining there with stability and clarity. And so whether it's a candle, a flower, a thought, mental events, a mentally generated image, all kinds of different topics can come to mind. But if that's all you're doing, you're simply placing your attention upon it and seeking to sustain your attention selectively with stability and clarity, then whatever you may be attending to, that's shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 11:04 Highlight the passage at 11:04

11:34 As soon as there's an element of inquiry, you're posing a question too. And you don't have to be talking about it, but you are observing with inquiry, in a mode of inquiry. And sometimes in, let's say, the syllogisms of Nagarjuna, you know, syllogism for investigating the nature of emptiness, the ontological status of phenomena, your Vipassanā practice may be really guided by some reasoning, posing questions and investigating. Report an error in the passage at 11:34 Highlight the passage at 11:34

12:03 So it can be relatively conceptually elaborate. That's a possibility. It's still Vipassanā. But it may be very, very staccato. And this practice is staccato. In Mahamudra practice, when you're probing in the very nature of the mind, it's Vipassanā. It's very staccato. That is not much conceptual elaboration. Report an error in the passage at 12:03 Highlight the passage at 12:03

12:22 More just kind of like throwing a dart of guiding your attention with a thought, with a question, and then penetrating very carefully. And so in this practice, now to answer your question, when you're scanning through, if you're simply observing tactile sensations, then I just don't see any reason to call that Vipassanā, it doesn't fill any of the criteria. Report an error in the passage at 12:22 Highlight the passage at 12:22

12:40 Although insights might arise, but insights can arise in a lot of practices that aren't Vipassanā. But what would make this practice, turn it over to the Vipassanā side, is as you're attending, if you're specifically examining, You know Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

12:58 The emergence, for example, of the earth element within this scan, earth, water, fire, air, examining how they emerge, how they're present, how they dissolve as you're scanning through. Then you can look at the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, you don't have to take my word for it, you say, oh yeah, but the Buddha taught that, it's right there in the Sutta, and that Sutta is all about Vipassanā. You say, well, okay, that must be a good fit. Report an error in the passage at 12:58 Highlight the passage at 12:58

13:19 He said, examine the four elements, examine how they emerge, how they dissolve. Okay, well, that's clearly examining with a mode of inquiry. That's Vipassanā, right? If you're examining as you're attending to them, with a real mode of inquiry, without conceptual elaboration, as you're scanning through, if you're doing so with a question, is anything here static? Report an error in the passage at 13:19 Highlight the passage at 13:19

13:41 Is anything lingering, durable, unchanging? That's Vipassanā. If you're examining any of the three marks of existence, is it permanent or impermanent? Changing or unchanging? Is it a veritable source of well-being, or is it not? Is it by its own nature, I or mine, or is it not? It's Vipassanā. That's Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

14:09 Yes, Tia. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:15 Now Report an error in the passage at 14:15 Highlight the passage at 14:15

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15:11 the commentary? That's a root text? Yes? The commentary is? Sure, they are very similar in method. We're referring now to the Asanga approach of really maintaining the awareness of the entire body, and within that, special interest in and focus on the movement of prāṇa, right? But the broader context But as I mentioned earlier, the practice of mindfulness of breathing, it's already in the first four stages that shamatha, because it's displacement, but as soon as you move beyond that, then you're noting these jhāna factors coming up. Report an error in the passage at 15:11 Highlight the passage at 15:11

15:49 You presumably achieve shamatha, and as soon as you have, you have at least, you know, well, you'll have... All five of the jnana factors in the first jnana. And so then the practice as it ventures into Vipassanā is there's the breathing going on in the background, but you're really focusing primarily on the emergence of these jnana factors, of sense of well-being, of bliss and so forth and so on, and examining how do they arise, how are they present, examining permanent, impermanent and so forth, and especially anattā and natta, are they really I or mine or are they not? Report an error in the passage at 15:49 Highlight the passage at 15:49

16:20 But likewise here when we're just maintaining this kind of global awareness or letting your attention rove a bit within the field like a horse roaming about within a corral in a pasture, a fenced pasture, very much very similar to that. If a horse jumps the fence, okay, then you're mind wandering. But as long as it's contained within the pasture and it's doing so mindfully, discerningly and so forth, you say, okay, then you're fine. Report an error in the passage at 16:20 Highlight the passage at 16:20

16:44 You don't need any restraint here. There's no problem. And it's just what you said. As you're attending to these sensations arising within the field, then you can simply attend to them just as a mental stabilization or attention stabilization practice, which then is flat out shamatha. But as soon as you start taking an interest in how is it that they arise, how are they present, not simply that they're present, how are they present, stable or unstable, fleeting or unfleeting, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 16:44 Highlight the passage at 16:44

17:16 Then that's when you just slip right over the line into Vipassanā territory. Okay? And then, as I mentioned before, this wonderful thing is that when you slip in at the Vipassanā and it does start to really yield insights, which may actually start to, in a very dramatic and radical way, shift your very view of reality. Report an error in the passage at 17:16 Highlight the passage at 17:16

17:34 Because some people, for example, if they have a near-death experience, maybe a critical illness, they think they're going to die and then they don't. Or often happens with injury. They have a really serious injury. And they're almost dead. Maybe even they die and they're brought back. So a near-death experience or even a post-death experience and they're brought back. It's very commonplace, very, very common for people to have such an experience. Report an error in the passage at 17:34 Highlight the passage at 17:34

17:55 And then when they come back, their whole worldview is shifted. Their earlier priorities have now just slipped way into the back seat. Because they've gotten so close to death, they've been able to look back on life from that cusp of life and death. And seeing from that perspective... All of this stuff that used to be really important now is insignificant and all of that that I thought was insignificant now is really very significant. And that's not Buddhism or Christianity or anything else. Report an error in the passage at 17:55 Highlight the passage at 17:55

18:22 It's just kind of getting real and seeing, aha, I see this life has bookends. A long time ago I was conceived, but I've already seen the end game. Now that I see the whole thing, this is how it's going to play out. I almost died when I was, I think you probably know the story, but very briefly, I was 23. I was having hepatitis for the third time. Report an error in the passage at 18:22 Highlight the passage at 18:22

18:40 I was malnourished. And I was down to about 136 pounds. And my urine was the color of Coca-Cola. And so it looked pretty grim. And I really felt I was dying. And it was very, very close. Very, very close. And then there was an intervention. I received some really good Tibetan medicine. In one day, it was like kind of falling downstairs. Report an error in the passage at 18:40 Highlight the passage at 18:40

19:03 I'm dying. And then it was going upstairs. It was like a V. Got that medicine and then it started getting better. But what really lingered, it was really impactful. When I was going upstairs, I said, okay, I'm not going to die now. What really lingered in my mind, and now it's 40 years later, is that the doctor, it was the doctor I lived with, Dr. Report an error in the passage at 19:03 Highlight the passage at 19:03

19:23 Isha Dundon, that he hadn't saved my life. Most people would say, oh, thank you, you saved Alan's life, that's very nice, good. Didn't want him to die at 23. But my sense, he hadn't saved my life. He postponed my death. Because save my life means, oh good, now I won't die. He gave me a freebie, I have a free pass. I was going to die, but now I won't. Report an error in the passage at 19:23 Highlight the passage at 19:23

19:43 But no, no, he postponed it. But of course I had no idea how long he postponed it for. It's just that I'll see you again and you'll knock on my door. I'm not going to knock on yours. I don't want to terminate my life, but you will be terminating it sooner or later. I have no idea when, but I kind of know what to expect. And that did shift things. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

20:08 That's the idea. That we have these revolutions. I like the word. The scientific revolution, the first one with Galileo, when people really got it for thousands of years, Really considering that our planet here was the center of the entire universe and the stars are decorations and the planets, the sun and moon all go around us and God is out there and we're in the center. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:29 We're kind of like God really cares about human beings more than anybody else because we're right here. I don't quite know what that would feel like because we were born where that was ancient history. But in a lifetime, to believe that and then to shift over to the notion that, okay, we're just a planet, we're going around the sun. Report an error in the passage at 20:29 Highlight the passage at 20:29

20:46 And we're no longer in the center, let alone shifting up to about 1920s and finding that we're not even the only galaxy. Until 1920s, we were the only galaxy we knew about. Milky Way was it. In the 1920s, they discovered four or five. A man named Hubble discovered four or five other galaxies with like a hundred billion or a trillion stars. Report an error in the passage at 20:46 Highlight the passage at 20:46

21:05 So now suddenly we're even displaced. Not only not the central planet, we're not the central solar system, and then we're not even the central galaxy. And that's less than 100 years ago. And now we're just one of a cluster of galaxies. Like, gosh, it looks like there's five of them. And now they say about 100 billion. Report an error in the passage at 21:05 Highlight the passage at 21:05

21:26 So that's a revolution. It was a pretty big impact from the beginning. But then as it plays out, you say, whoa, we're not quite so important in the big scheme of things as you thought we were. Darwin, a big revolution. Quantum mechanics, a big revolution. And Buddhist practice is designed. To bring about multiple revolutions in one single mind continuum. That when a revolution takes place, if you really understood the impact of Galileo's, his theory, and especially his discoveries, and likewise the same thing for Darwin, if you've understood it, you fathom the significance of what they discovered, then you can simply no longer view reality in the same way as you did before. Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

22:09 It's a one-way door, it's not a revolving door. You can't change your mind later and come back. And likewise, when one has had a very deep and transformative realization of impermanence, or what are the true sources of happiness and what are not, or non-self versus self, having a revolution there, let alone a revolution of realizing the emptiness of inherent nature of all phenomena, once one has gained some really deep insight in there, there's no going back. Report an error in the passage at 22:09 Highlight the passage at 22:09

22:39 It doesn't just shift your belief system. It shifts your very sense of identity and the way you view reality as a whole. And the Buddha Dharma is simply designed to bring you through one revolution after another after another until you finally wake up. And so that's what Vipassanā is designed to do. And shamat is designed to make those revolutions irreversible. That the insight is so fused with the stability and clarity of the attention that it just burns right through. Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

23:08 It just penetrates. Right through layers and layers and layers of habitual thinking, assumptions and so forth, until the contrary leaves assumptions and so forth. They just vanish. Because they just can't stand it. They can't withstand the onslaught of this searing and durable insight into reality. And your whole axis has shifted. Report an error in the passage at 23:08 Highlight the passage at 23:08

23:34 So the very term renunciation, you probably know the Tibetan term Ngenjung, insight into emptiness, excuse me, insight into impermanence. That, if it's coupled with some vision of the possibility of liberation and not simply everything is falling apart, Report an error in the passage at 23:34 Highlight the passage at 23:34

23:54 deep insight into impermanence can be the trigger that catalyzes this aspiration, this motivation that we rather poorly translate as renunciation. But the Tibetan is Ngen Jung, or the fully unpacking of it is Korwa Le Nge Par Jungwa. That is, there is a definite, a certain emergence. Emergence from saṃsāra. That is, one sees, if you're looking to saṃsāra for security, for happiness and fulfillment and all of that, you're looking in the wrong place because it's never ever going to happen. Report an error in the passage at 23:54 Highlight the passage at 23:54

24:29 We've had plenty of time in past lives where it happened. It hasn't worked out yet. But then having that conviction, it's never going to work out. It doesn't matter how lucky you are. It's never going to work out. It's a radical, 100 % disillusionment with And then this total reorientation, like a 180 degree turnabout. Report an error in the passage at 24:29 Highlight the passage at 24:29

24:47 Instead of looking to saṃsāra, well, fame and all those kind of goodies, for one's happiness and for security and all of that, just a turning about, like a ship that just kind of changed course, 180 degrees. And that's the Nye Parajumwa, that definite emergence from saṃsāra to liberation. It's moving away from, but it's got to have a place to move towards. Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

25:11 And if all you have is a moving way from, then you wind up being a French existentialist. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:18 Profoundly disillusioned, you know, but not knowing where the hell to go from there. And so all they do is keep a stiff upper lip and don't blow your brains out. You know, that's a macho existentialist. Well, look how tough I am. You see, I'm not committing suicide. You want to join me? So that's the renunciation. That's a revolution. Report an error in the passage at 25:18 Highlight the passage at 25:18

25:39 That's a revolution. Where all your values, everything shifts. And the bald head and the robes are really meant to be. symbol of somebody who's done that. that's why in the Tibetan tradition everybody bows they see that. not all monks and nuns are renunciates and not all renunciates are monks nuns. But those robes are very precious because of the symbolic value. Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

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27:02 Dismissive only in the sense that to say one word doesn't have a whole lot of explanatory power. And that was one word, neuroplasticity. Must it be neuroplasticity? I mean, the fact that this girl, I think she's probably an adolescent by now, has only half a brain and yet she's still operating quite normally. Report an error in the passage at 27:02 Highlight the passage at 27:02

27:21 Is it something other than neuroplasticity? No, I don't think it's God or angels or karma or something like that. No, if we look for a biological explanation, and we should, because after all that's a biological defect, then neuroplasticity is the place to look for sure. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:38 But again, to say a word isn't very explanatory. It just tells you, okay, in broad strokes, it must be in that domain that we call neuroplasticity. If the other study, and it was documented, it was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but a person whose brain cavity is 90 % filled with fluid and is still functioning with average intelligence, okay, you'll still have to say neuroplasticity. Report an error in the passage at 27:38 Highlight the passage at 27:38

28:05 But at some point one might wonder, well, Is that a very satisfying explanation to keep on saying the same word as if that word gets heavier and heavier and heavier? Because I wrote about this in my book, Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic. Report an error in the passage at 28:05 Highlight the passage at 28:05

28:21 The first one is very clearly documented. I mean, it's beyond dispute. The second one, there's a lot of evidence there, but it hasn't been replicated and there it is. But it's published. You can see the citation. You can see the source of this person who studied all these people with the water in the brain. But then I go a step further. Report an error in the passage at 28:21 Highlight the passage at 28:21

28:39 In the book, there's a whole chapter devoted to this. And this is a study, this was a circumstance, took place, the pseudonym for the woman was Pam Reynolds, I don't know if that name rings a bell, it's a pseudonym, they kept the woman's identity private. But this was about early 1990s, and it took place in a neuroscientific institute, a neurological institute, and the woman had a brain aneurysm that was deep inside the brain, and it was going to kill her, it was just like a ticking time bomb. Report an error in the passage at 28:39 Highlight the passage at 28:39

29:05 But it's very deep inside the brain. And she needed surgery. They needed to go in there and repair their aneurysm. Otherwise, she's going to die at any time. But in this particular case, and it's very well documented, and I gave all the sources in my book, if they went in by conventional surgery to get that deep into the brain with their knives, they would do so much damage that if she survived, she'd be severely brain damaged when they had their successful operation. Report an error in the passage at 29:05 Highlight the passage at 29:05

29:31 So that wasn't an option. And so what they did was they... They did a special technique that was developed by a neurologist in Arizona at this particular Neurological Institute. It was famous. That's why she went there. It was a last resort. And what they did was, I'll try to remember the details, but all the details are very specific and I was very careful to get them right in the book. Report an error in the passage at 29:31 Highlight the passage at 29:31

29:53 But what they did was they cooled her, the sequence, well they first anesthetized her. Major, major, full anesthesia. Out for the count. And the surgery, I think it took about seven hours from start to finish, like 24 people involved. It was a major, major, major deal. They knocked her out completely with very heavy-duty, full anesthesia. They had her eyes taped shut for just medical reasons. Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:25 They put plugs in her ears for medical reasons. And so she was blocked off there, blocked off there, and the earplugs were actually creating some sound for some reason. I don't know why, but again, it was a medical procedure. Then they stopped her heart, medically stopped her heart, because what they had to do was stop the blood flowing into her brain, because that's what would do all the damage. Report an error in the passage at 30:25 Highlight the passage at 30:25

30:47 And then they cooled her down to about, what was it, I think about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, so maybe what, 12, 15 degrees centigrade. They cooled her really down, and they basically drained the blood from her brain. Because the problem was if they went in with a knife and the vessels, the capillaries were full of blood, they'd burst. And that's where all the damage would be. They had to get like spaghetti. They had to get the veins inside the brain to be limp. Report an error in the passage at 30:47 Highlight the passage at 30:47

31:13 And they get limp only by being empty. So they had to basically drain the brain of blood. And when you had all these limp capillaries, then they could open her up, get in there and just kind of push all the stuff aside, get in there deep inside the brain, fix the aneurysm, come out. And then sew her up again, and then warm her up, and then start her heart again. Because all that time the heart stopped, and of course the lungs have stopped. So they killed her. Report an error in the passage at 31:13 Highlight the passage at 31:13

31:39 In effect, they killed her. And she was dead for some time, but because she was so cold, then there was no brain damage during those hours. That she had no heart, no EEG, no brain activity at all, no nothing. She was really dead. For a couple of hours on end. Report an error in the passage at 31:39 Highlight the passage at 31:39

31:58 And while she was dead, She had an out-of-body, well, what happened was the next day, of course, it was a successful surgery. The next day she's in the recovery room, her family's there, the nurse there. She comes out of it and she starts talking to her family and says, I've got something really weird to tell you. That while I was having the surgery, I had this sense of coming out the top of my head, like my spirit, my awareness, and I was looking down from above to the operating room. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:29 I saw my body. I heard them talking. I heard the nurse say after they'd opened me up, this is going to be difficult because her veins are very tender. She made some comment of that sort. I saw them bring out the drill to drill into her head. And she was a musician with perfect pitch. And when they brought out the drill, she recognized it, she described it. I saw exactly what it was like. They turned it on and I recognized that it was... Report an error in the passage at 32:29 Highlight the passage at 32:29

32:59 She gave exactly the pitch, because she was pitch perfect. And she watched this whole procedure at length, and then when this out-of-body experience came to an end, then she had this very unpleasant sense. She had other kind of visions that can't be corroborated by anybody, because it was her own personal thing, beings of light and all of that. But when it came to an end, she had this very unpleasant feeling. Report an error in the passage at 32:59 Highlight the passage at 32:59

33:24 That she had to come back. She really didn't want to. She wanted to go after those beings of light. But she was told, no, there's more to be done here. So she had this sucking sensation as if she was sucked into a really cold place and she didn't really want to go back. And then, of course, she was brought back to life and so forth. So she described this and her family thought, well, what a really weird fantasy. Report an error in the passage at 33:24 Highlight the passage at 33:24

33:47 I mean, that's pretty cool, but of course you were hallucinating. But the nurse in the room wasn't laughing because everything she said was correct. About what she was ostensibly witnessing in the operating room. What she was witnessing in some ethereal realm, who can know whether it's valid or not. But she was making with her eyes taped shut and her ears blocked. Report an error in the passage at 33:47 Highlight the passage at 33:47

34:05 She was hearing people speak and recounted what they said. She heard the pitch. She got the pitch right. She described the drill and the drill bits. She got that right. Everything she said was right. And then they called in the doctors and this was all corroborated. And the chief physician. Direct quote. Because this is shown on the National Geographic channel. So not the sci-fi channel or one of the spooky channels. National Geographic is pretty responsible. Report an error in the passage at 34:05 Highlight the passage at 34:05

34:30 And they cover this closely. They interviewed the chief physician. And he rather blandly said, she knew of things she had no business knowing. And it's quite strange. And then he kind of moved right on. Report an error in the passage at 34:30 Highlight the passage at 34:30

34:47 So now do we say neuroplasticity again? When the brain was completely shut down. And another remarkable thing she said about this was that she was interviewed about maybe 10, 15 years after the surgery. She's dead now. But several years back, she was interviewed for this National Geographic documentary. And she said her memories of that out-of-body experience are now as vivid as they were the day after because they were so intensely radiant, clear, hyper-vigilant. Report an error in the passage at 34:47 Highlight the passage at 34:47

35:21 Hyper clear that they made a very big impact on her when she woke up. It was so incredibly clear memory and the vividness, the startling clarity of that out-of-body experience remained with her to that day. She said, I remember it like it was yesterday. And so when the materialists come in and try to explain it, it just strikes me as lame. Oh yeah, we can explain it this way and that way, but it's all ad hoc and it doesn't really explain anything. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:48 As far as I can tell, it's just their way of protecting their dogma, which they just... It's like fundamentalist Christians saying, oh God planted those dinosaur bones 7,000 years just to trick the archaeologists or whatever. So we have half brain, 10 % of a brain, no brain, with a smooth gradient of still having normal operation because she was there intelligent, understanding human language, seeing colors, Report an error in the passage at 35:48 Highlight the passage at 35:48

36:14 hearing sounds, but when her ears are blocked, her brain is dead and her eyes are closed. And she's seeing as if she's seeing with the eyes, hearing as if with the ears, and understanding language as if her brain is working perfectly, except for it wasn't working at all. And then we can take it one step further, which I do, and that is research, 40 years of research, open-minded, rigorous, as sophisticated as they can. Ian Stevenson and his team, now he's passed away, but his protege Jim Tucker, who I met, I know him. Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:43 Very smart guy, he's a psychiatrist, very intelligent. As far as I can tell, absolutely no religious or dogmatic axe to grind. But from 40 years ago or so, the psychiatrist who is the head of the University of Virginia School of Medicine for its psychiatry division, he got interested in children around the world who allegedly were claiming past life recall. Report an error in the passage at 36:43 Highlight the passage at 36:43

37:05 He said, let's check it out. I know it's anathena, I know the materialists will hate it, and they'll think I'm crazy even to look at it. But hey, I'm a scientist. That means you be open-minded. So they did it for 40 years. And he published a number of books. Jim Tucker has published a couple of books by now. Report an error in the passage at 37:05 Highlight the passage at 37:05

37:20 And I just have to say it's very balanced. I just see no religion in it at all. But with a lot of scanning and throwing out anything where the child could possibly know what they're talking about from some other source. Television, hearsay, anything. They throw it out. They say, never mind. Never mind. There could be some other explanation. Report an error in the passage at 37:20 Highlight the passage at 37:20

37:40 But children recounting not only in detail experiences from their past lives, but what's equally interesting to my mind is in quite a number of cases, which they document very carefully, children who are giving detailed accounts of their memories after they were dead and before they were reborn. And this with no knowledge of the bardo. The scientists, I think, hadn't studied it. They're just looking at the evidence. But giving very detailed what was it like in that bardo. You're a ghost. Report an error in the passage at 37:40 Highlight the passage at 37:40

38:07 What was on your mind? What were you doing? What happened? Where did you go? And a lot of detailed accounts there. And they found that children, not all of the children with alleged past life recall, had very clear memories of this Bardo period after death prior to birth. Those who did tended to have more accurate and detailed memories of the preceding life. There was a corollary there. So this is why when people say neuroplasticity, as if that's the full explanation and there's nothing more to it. Report an error in the passage at 38:07 Highlight the passage at 38:07

38:38 That's what you saw me being a bit dismissive. Number one, one word doesn't explain much at all. But moreover, if one can ask, at one point, do you say, I no longer believe this, or this is impossible. The girl with half a brain, people with a tenth of a brain, a woman who's brain dead, or children who have already died, got a new birth, and are remembering past life and the bardo after that life. Report an error in the passage at 38:38 Highlight the passage at 38:38

39:00 So there is something of a smooth continuum there. And I open this up not, oh, now you see Buddhism, I'm proving Buddhism. It's not proving Buddhism, but it's looking at evidence with an open mind and saying, shouldn't we take a careful look at this? And at some point we see something fraudulent or it's poor science, then highlight that. Let's call attention to that and tell people either stop this science because it's really terrible science, or even better yet, how can you make it better if your methodology is poor? Report an error in the passage at 39:00 Highlight the passage at 39:00

39:26 How can you make it better? And what I find very disappointing in the mind sciences, is that these are ignored. This 40 years of research, just ignored. The whole scientific community, even a dear friend of mine, who I deeply respect, he wrote a paper recently and said, well, of course, the Buddhist hypothesis of reincarnation cannot be scientifically studied. Report an error in the passage at 39:26 Highlight the passage at 39:26

39:48 And I wrote right back to him and said, my dear friend, hey, come on, either criticize this research or refute it, but don't pretend as if they never even said it. That's not fair. That's not scientific. I will not look there because that doesn't accord with my beliefs. That's what religious fundamentalists do. That's what not we expect of scientists. So, a bit dismissive when I say neuroplasticity because, okay, unpack that. Report an error in the passage at 39:48 Highlight the passage at 39:48

40:13 How have you explained something we didn't know? And one word doesn't do that. Or also, I've heard this so many times, it kind of rubs me the wrong way. And that is, well, how is it... That the brain, we'll take the materialistic view, how is it that the brain, all these hundred billion neurons and the glial cells, whatever they do, the dendrites, the synapses and so forth, how is it this complex configuration of matter and energy, that's all it is, but very complex configuration, how is it that they generate, which is the belief by the materialist, that these generate emotions and perceptions and love and creativity and so forth? Report an error in the passage at 40:13 Highlight the passage at 40:13

40:52 And the answer that I keep on hearing? Well, you know, sufficient complexity. And that's pseudoscience. If it's sufficiently complex, then all these things emerge from it. Well, that looks like an explanation and it explains nothing whatsoever. It's just sound. And to simply say neuroplasticity, that's actually sound too. Report an error in the passage at 40:52 Highlight the passage at 40:52

41:19 And if you can flesh that out to show how did actually this happen, okay, that's explanatory. But just to use a word, sufficiently complex or neuroplasticity, I have a scientific training, that leaves me cold. That's not a scientific explanation of anything at all. Report an error in the passage at 41:19 Highlight the passage at 41:19

41:36 If scientists can simply be good scientists, maintain the objectivity, be willing to look at anomalous evidence and either show how it's false or examine how it might be true, that's good science. But to look at anomalous evidence, recognize how anomalous it is, recognize that if it's true, that my fundamental assumptions are wrong, therefore I won't look at it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 41:36 Highlight the passage at 41:36

42:02 That's where one has stepped off the scientific drain into sheer dogmatism. It's a shame when scientists does that, because they have been very good for 400 years. And then they're... Report an error in the passage at 42:02 Highlight the passage at 42:02

42:19 Yes, please. Say again. Elaine. Elaine, yes. Report an error in the passage at 42:19 Highlight the passage at 42:19

42:34 Quiet. I Report an error in the passage at 42:34 Highlight the passage at 42:34

42:40 couldn't hear the last part. Report an error in the passage at 42:40 Highlight the passage at 42:40

42:45 I still couldn't quite... My hearing is not very good, not terribly bad, but not very good either, especially when there's traffic. I'm wondering what thoughts you had about how this might be caused to be a beloved community. Report an error in the passage at 42:45 Highlight the passage at 42:45

42:58 And again, how we explain this in reference to other communities? Report an error in the passage at 42:58 Highlight the passage at 42:58

43:11 Right. Well, first of all, I don't want to idealize Tibetan community or the monastic tradition as a whole. There was a great deal of corruption in Tibet. It was no utopia. Utopias don't exist by definition. And there are many gradations of monks and nuns. had bad experiences. You had bad PTSD. Report an error in the passage at 43:11 Highlight the passage at 43:11

43:29 And within the Tibetan community, of course, even if one out of five men were monks, that means most of the men were not monks, most of the women were not nuns. And so there was so much suffering in the genocide that took place in Tibet that there's no question whatsoever that many Tibetans have, and probably still do, because there's still refugees trickling out if they can avoid getting shocked when they try to escape from the motherland. Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:55 The people, Tibetans, are still suffering from PTSD. So it's not a community that is immune to PTSD by any means. And it's been studied by multiple researchers going to Dharamsala and other refugee camps. And so that just has to be made clear. We don't want to idealize or exaggerate. Oh, Tibetans are free of it. The monk himself, Panangasso, he said he still had dreams of 35 years. Report an error in the passage at 43:55 Highlight the passage at 43:55

44:23 And so nightmares. So if that's an indication of PTSD, or one can just say it's an indication of having a memory. For 35 years, his memories were pretty awful. But in terms of his whole demeanor, I did spend a good deal of time with him. He gave no indication of, not a psychologist, but he really seemed very grounded, compassionate, highly motivated, idealistic, and tremendous courage. Report an error in the passage at 44:23 Highlight the passage at 44:23

44:48 And for young Tanampachi, he's just in a class up there among the great yogis. They're just, they're something very special. Report an error in the passage at 44:48 Highlight the passage at 44:48

44:57 But now let's broaden it a little bit. So this is my first person experience. I went to Dharamsala, McLeodganj, a little Tibetan community, up above the Indian town of Dharamsala. McLeodganj was mostly Tibetan. They were all refugees. Nobody lived there before the exodus in 1959. And so I moved right in there. Report an error in the passage at 44:57 Highlight the passage at 44:57

45:19 It was dead poor. There was one toilet for the whole village and it stunk so badly nobody went there. And so hygiene was poor, food was poor. Poverty was the norm, but not abject poverty. Nobody had bloated bellies or anything like that. It was just, people were poor. So I moved right in there, moved into the home of the personal position of the Dalai Lama. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:42 And as I settled in, and the weeks and months went by, I'm learning Tibetan, learning more about the culture. I did find that here's now a good sampling. There was one man I knew was a general in the Tibetan harmony. And there were others who were nomads and others who were farmers and then monks and merchants and so forth. So I'm living in a village. And for the first year and a half I was a layperson, so I'm meeting a lot of different kinds of people. Report an error in the passage at 45:42 Highlight the passage at 45:42

46:05 So good sampling. I'm not an anthropologist, so again, no scientific training whatsoever. I'm hanging out in this community. But I knew then that this was the most contented, warm and cheerful community I'd ever lived in. And I lived in Switzerland, lived in Scotland, a bit of Israel, a lot of America, traveled widely, my family traveled. Report an error in the passage at 46:05 Highlight the passage at 46:05

46:25 So I had been around a bit, but it was just perfectly obvious to me that this was, again, cheerful, balanced, warm-hearted, kind, serene, serenity there, was common. It wasn't everybody, but that was the norm. And then there were a few people, there was one woman who's, I think she lost her husband and she was mentally imbalanced. Report an error in the passage at 46:25 Highlight the passage at 46:25

46:55 There was, pardon the term, but that's what he was, the village idiot. He was mentally really impaired, but he could do simple things. He could carry water and so forth, the village took care of him. He had no mental institutions, nothing like that. Another one was a young medical student, somehow just became totally stressed out, and he just flipped and became kind of happy. I don't know the term, I'm not a psychologist at all, but he was clearly mentally imbalanced, kind of disengaged. Report an error in the passage at 46:55 Highlight the passage at 46:55

47:25 Kind of euphoric, maybe it was bipolar, I think maybe bipolar, because he'd be really euphoric and laughing and then he'd be sad and so forth. But the village took care of him. They knew he was mentally imbalanced. So not everybody was sane, not everybody was the norm, but there were a few people like that. And then we had the yogis and the Dalai Lama and his tutors and the Rinpoche's and the yogis up in the mountain. Report an error in the passage at 47:25 Highlight the passage at 47:25

47:46 We had rather top-heavy of these exceptional beings. But the norm was the one that really caught me. PTSD in that village, I think, was very, very rare. And then, if so, again, I don't think any anthropological studies were done at that time. They were pretty fresh out of Tibet, because I went there in 71, most of them left in 59, 60, 61, so they'd been there for 10 years or so. Report an error in the passage at 47:46 Highlight the passage at 47:46

48:11 Most of the villagers were not meditators. They never even dream of meditating. But, say, okay, what did they have that, let's say, other refugee communities around the world? And, of course, they differ widely. They're so diverse, different backgrounds and so forth. But what was distinctive about this one? Because I think if I traveled around refugee communities around the world, I don't think I would keep on saying, wow, those are the most cheerful, warm-hearted, serene people I've ever met. Report an error in the passage at 48:11 Highlight the passage at 48:11

48:36 Oh, another one. I guess we should all be refugees because they're the happiest people around. I don't think so. There was something exceptional there. And so, then what was it? And I don't think there's a simple answer. So whatever I say will be incomplete, but it may not be entirely off base. And that is all of these Tibetans, they're all Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 48:36 Highlight the passage at 48:36

48:55 I don't think there are any exceptions. They had tremendous reverence and faith in His Holiness, who was a guiding light of compassion, always saying we must not hate the Chinese, hold no vengeance, no resentment. It was our karma unfolding, our karma ripening, so just release it and now let's attend to the present, but without lingering in the past or holding grudge, resentment, hatred and wanting to retaliate. Report an error in the passage at 48:55 Highlight the passage at 48:55

49:18 That will only harm us. So that's the only voice they're getting from top. From the Dalai Lama, His tutors, other fine Lamas, the yogis and so forth, they're all saying the same thing. There's no place here for lingering in the past, being angry, hateful, resentful and so forth. It's simply our karma manifesting. But there's nothing to be guilty about. Because it wasn't like we were such evil people in Tibet that we had it coming. Now the karma is in past lives, who knows what it was. Report an error in the passage at 49:18 Highlight the passage at 49:18

49:42 But it's just a maturation. So God didn't do it to us, Buddha didn't do it to us. It's not that we're such evil people that we had it coming. Just in the past, there were seeds that came to ripening. What can we do? Well, we deal with it. We transform it. And we start afresh. And that's all the word. Report an error in the passage at 49:42 Highlight the passage at 49:42

49:58 That's homogenous from all the kind of Lama loudspeakers. It's all coming with that one message. And moreover, they're not just talking the talk. But they really are embodying to a very large extent. They're not all as spectacular as the Dalai Lama, but they're pretty impressive. And to varying degrees, really, they're all really doing their very best to embody what they're teaching. Report an error in the passage at 49:58 Highlight the passage at 49:58

50:16 You never hear a word. About retaliation, hatred, all that kind of thing. There's never a word. Does this occur in the minds of some of the Tibetans? No question about it. But they're getting no encouragement from the top down and it's the top that they really revere. The Lamas, the monks, the yogis, the tukus and all of that. And so really virtually with no exceptions, they all have very deep faith, they have refuge in the Buddhadama and Saṅgha, very deep belief in karma and saying, okay, it's karma maturing, what can we do? Report an error in the passage at 50:16 Highlight the passage at 50:16

50:44 Well, let's not replicate that kind of karma. Let's purify whatever negative karma we have now. Let's create a better future for ourselves and not replicate the past. And so their belief in karma, their refuge in Buddhadama and Saṅgha, their faith and devotion to their lamas, the kind of guidance they're getting from the lamas, that group energy that they're really all there together, great sense of kinship, great sense of supporting each other in being foreign people, strange people in a strange land. They really were. Because India is very different from Tibet. Report an error in the passage at 50:44 Highlight the passage at 50:44

51:16 Language, culture, food, religion, everything's different. So it was very, very alien. But they clustered together and they quickly learned Hindi. They learned how to engage with a broader society. And it was while I was there, I think, in the 1970s, Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. And by this time, Tibetans, a lot of them kind of got their feet on the ground. They found a way to make a living. Indira Gandhi herself gave the Tibetans an economic niche. Report an error in the passage at 51:16 Highlight the passage at 51:16

51:46 She said, all right, you people have nothing, you need to make a living, we don't want you to starve, we want to take care of you. We're going to give you a niche, and that is we're going to give you a real in to the sweater industry. And that is we're going to give the opportunity to buy sweaters really cheap, just ordinary sweaters, made in India. We're going to give you opportunity to buy them really cheap, probably just at basic cost. Report an error in the passage at 51:46 Highlight the passage at 51:46

52:09 You buy these, buy 50 kilos of sweaters, and then you can head out in India during the winter months. And you can go to Calcutta and Bombay and Delhi and Madras and so forth and sell sweaters. We'll give you a niche. You know, go for it. And so what you found every winter, the fall, these Tibetans would be buying up their 50, whatever they could carry, 50 kilos of sweaters. And then they hit on a migratory route around the major cities. Report an error in the passage at 52:09 Highlight the passage at 52:09

52:36 And all over India, you find these Tibetans selling sweaters. And they made a living. And they're hardworking and they're industrious and they have good business sense. And so it was several years of that and Indira Gandhi, the Indian government, noticed that the basic economic status of the Tibetan refugees was gradually rising up and even surpassing the median in India. Report an error in the passage at 52:36 Highlight the passage at 52:36

53:00 Some Indians were getting a bit upset. Hey, we're helping them, but they're actually doing better than we are now. And then Indira Gandhi said, speaking to her own people, she said, yeah, show me an Indian that works like that. Do you see the work these people are putting in? They've got a work ethic that's amazing. So congratulate them. Don't be envious of them. Well, I don't think you can do that if you're overwhelmed by PTSD. Report an error in the passage at 53:00 Highlight the passage at 53:00

53:21 You're not going to get, I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, but I think that might be difficult. And so that was the situation there. So it's complex, but it's not doing a lot of meditation. That's the yogis, and they're flying high. They're doing fine. But these were the ordinary people. But it's their faith, their belief system. Report an error in the passage at 53:21 Highlight the passage at 53:21

53:38 The support they're getting from the Lama, the support they're getting from each other, all of those entangled together. So I've said all of those words with no professional background in PTSD whatsoever. I'm not a therapist of any kind, but those are my thoughts. Worth a little bit or a lot? I have no idea, but it's the best I can do. Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 53:38 Highlight the passage at 53:38

54:11 Oh, they have much more expertise than I have. Please speak on all ears. Report an error in the passage at 54:11 Highlight the passage at 54:11

54:21 They do not? Report an error in the passage at 54:21 Highlight the passage at 54:21

54:27 Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 54:27 Highlight the passage at 54:27

54:40 They're coming from Nepal. And they come from Nepal, actually. They're Nepalese, yeah. Yes, indeed. Indeed, yes. Report an error in the passage at 54:40 Highlight the passage at 54:40

54:56 Certainly, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 54:56 Highlight the passage at 54:56

55:12 I just want to hear everything you say and the card just went by. Understood. Report an error in the passage at 55:12 Highlight the passage at 55:12

55:35 Yeah, sure. Report an error in the passage at 55:35 Highlight the passage at 55:35

· · · silence, 1 minute

56:13 No question. I Report an error in the passage at 56:13 Highlight the passage at 56:13

56:18 appreciate your professional background, which I lack completely. Thank you. It's really helpful. Very interesting. Report an error in the passage at 56:18 Highlight the passage at 56:18

56:28 Anything else coming up? Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 56:28 Highlight the passage at 56:28

56:34 Right. Report an error in the passage at 56:34 Highlight the passage at 56:34

56:44 Sure. Report an error in the passage at 56:44 Highlight the passage at 56:44

57:04 Trying to remember his name. Say again. We data, like we haven't done research. Report an error in the passage at 57:04 Highlight the passage at 57:04

· · · silence, 2 minutes

57:11 There's another name I'm fishing for. It was a rather famous study. It was maybe 15 years ago. It starts with a B. Quite a famous study, but it was simply showing that there's a neurological activity prior to the conscious experience of making a decision. It's on the tip of my tongue. It's Libet. Yes, Libet. Is it Libet? Libet. Yeah, so it doesn't start with a B. Report an error in the passage at 57:11 Highlight the passage at 57:11

57:37 The B is in the middle. Libet. Benjamin Libet. There's the B. Benjamin. Live it. Yeah, so it doesn't... Yeah, Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 57:37 Highlight the passage at 57:37

57:42 The mind works in mysterious ways. That wasn't what my brain was doing just then. So Benjamin Libet, that was a number of years ago, and then there's a book I've read carefully by Daniel Wigner, and it's called The Illusion of Free Will. And he cites that study, there have been other studies subsequent to that. I was invited to contribute to another volume just recently, and I turned it down, it's too busy, but another volume by primarily neuroscientists trying to refute the notion of free will. Report an error in the passage at 57:42 Highlight the passage at 57:42

58:11 Just setting aside the whole notion of what do you mean by free? Because that has a thousand definitions. It doesn't surprise me at all. And number one, I think I'm doing my best to speak in total honesty. I'd like to simply know it's true. That'll give me much more satisfaction than thinking, oh, Buddhism was 100 % right. Because that's very unlikely. If the Dalai Lama said, show us where we're wrong and we'll learn from that, we'll go with the evidence. Report an error in the passage at 58:11 Highlight the passage at 58:11

58:36 And I'm happy to follow that. So I'd really like to simply know it's true. And where Buddhism gets to be modified, corrected, improved, hallelujah. Buddhism is a kind of science, so is Western science. So what the neuroscientists are very good at, and they spend an awful lot of time doing, is observing the influences on subjective experience by the brain. Report an error in the passage at 58:36 Highlight the passage at 58:36

58:59 Because the brain is what they can actually measure. And the subjective experience is what they can't measure. They can measure perhaps when it takes place. Report an error in the passage at 58:59 Highlight the passage at 58:59

59:09 But they can't measure it itself, and they measure when it takes place by some type of behavior, either talking or behaving or doing something. So they've got brain and behavior, but that's it. You've just run the whole gauntlet, brain and behavior, that's all they can measure, two physical things. And so they are able to measure, and there's a lot of very good science here, showing, okay, there's this neurological or neural activity, and then there's the experience of making a decision, and then the enactment of the decision, and then the Benjamin Limbitt draws the conclusion, Therefore, we're not really making a decision at all, because, as I've understood it, it was ten years ago that I read this, but that you have the sense of making a decision, but by the time you have that subjective experience of making a decision, the neurological mechanisms have already made their decision, so to speak, anthropomorphically, and in which case, this is like a fluff, because the agent here, that which is really doing something, is a neurological activity, and the subjective experience of making a decision and acting upon it, That's just epiphenomenal. It's already a done deal. So you didn't really make a decision at all. You have the illusion of making a decision. And that's Daniel Wagner's central thesis of the illusion of free will. Report an error in the passage at 59:09 Highlight the passage at 59:09

1:00:21 I think he doesn't really mean the illusion of free will. I think he means the illusion of will. Free or not. That we're actually not making any decisions at all. Go ahead. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:21 Highlight the passage at 1:00:21

1:00:34 That's what he just said, yeah. Prove there is the activity... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:34 Highlight the passage at 1:00:34

1:00:41 Yeah, I believe that's what I just said. Yeah, I'm just making sure I really heard correctly. That's my understanding, sure. I mean, that's fair. I don't want to bias anything. That would be a total disservice if I somehow tilted this to make my point. Then that's rubbish. But there it is. So there's neurological activity and it seems like the mechanisms are already activated. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:41 Highlight the passage at 1:00:41

1:01:02 And then the subjective experience, I am now about to make a decision, I decide left versus right. Well, that was already enacted basically, and I'm the puppet on the strings, but the strings are being pulled by the neurons, the neuron activity, and then out comes the activity. So the one interpretation, but there is no unanimity here. Now that's a factual statement. Neuroscientists themselves, with their varying perspectives and so forth, interpret this differently. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:02 Highlight the passage at 1:01:02

1:01:29 There is no homogeneity. Or consensus among the neuroscientific community or among cognitive psychologists. Okay, now the data is in, we all agree, and so put that in a textbook, done deal. It's not happened yet. Maybe it will happen one day, but not now. And so there's the evidence. So again, what the neuroscientists are able to measure is something physical, and that is they can note with tremendous precision exactly when did that neural activity take place. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:29 Highlight the passage at 1:01:29

1:01:53 That's measurable. And then based on the behavior, They say, okay, now here's when we surmise the person had this subjective experience of making a decision, but how do they know that based upon behavior? And of course the behavior is going to come after you have this subjective experience. You can't have it simultaneously. But what leaves this wide open to my mind, because I'm not persuaded at all that there's no such thing as decision or will, it's going to take a very, very compelling evidence to persuade me that I'm not making any decisions at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:53 Highlight the passage at 1:01:53

1:02:24 But some of them do. Daniel Wiegner does. Libet, I think, did. And there are many neuroscientists there that are jumping under that bandwagon. You're actually not making any decisions at all. It's simply neuromechanisms. And your subjective experience is fluff. It's an epiphenomenon. It's along for the ride. It's actually not doing anything at all. That's one interpretation of Benjamin Libet's discovery. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:24 Highlight the passage at 1:02:24

1:02:44 But to finish my point, I think I'm being a bit too verbose, is what they can't measure is there's a neuromechanism. And then after that, the subjective experience of making a decision. Now, what triggered that neural mechanism? And might that have been a subjective experience? But you can't measure that. The subjective experience is intangible, non-physical. They have no way of measuring that whatsoever. And then to assume, well, since we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:44 Highlight the passage at 1:02:44

1:03:14 Well, but that's just secular fundamentalist thinking and I have no respect for that at all. Not from anybody. If the Buddha said, oh, I can't detect it in meditation, therefore it doesn't exist, throw you out. Rubbish. Dogmatism. The Christian says, it's not true, it's not in the Bible, it's not in the Koran, throw it out, rubbish. And likewise, oh it doesn't exist, we can't measure it. Same attitude, exactly. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:14 Highlight the passage at 1:03:14

1:03:34 And so, is it not possible that there was some subjective impulse that triggered the neurological mechanism, that triggered the subjective impulse, like a dolphin going in and out of the water, mind to matter, matter to mind, mind to matter to mind. And so you have this whole interface. of intangible, non-physical mental impulses, desires, intentions, memories, emotions and so forth that themselves trigger mechanisms in the brain and they catalyze, because we know the brain influences subjective experience, but we equally know that intangibles like faith and belief, trust, confidence, expectation and desire, none of which have any physical properties, have very specific. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:34 Highlight the passage at 1:03:34

1:04:17 Profound and transformative influences on the brain, the nervous system and so forth and so on. Placebo effect. That's indisputable. But you can't measure it scientifically. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much faith did you have? You can't measure it and talk about it and say, okay, 5. So that's where it's a wide open question. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:17 Highlight the passage at 1:04:17

1:04:35 Because in some inexplicable way, and this, in the year 2013, the latest I've heard, and I do keep a close eye on it, nobody in the scientific community has any explanation. Something as intangible and uninformed as faith, belief, I'm sure this is going to help me. How that can possibly trigger the precise mechanisms that bring about what you anticipate will take place. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:35 Highlight the passage at 1:04:35

1:05:02 I'll give one example and then we'll call it a night. There was a study done not long ago on some experimental drug that was designed to enhance the production of endogenous dopamine. Which goes down in the cases of Parkinson's disease. So once again, I'm thin ice, not a medical doctor even remotely, but I try to remember the salient features of the study. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:02 Highlight the passage at 1:05:02

1:05:25 So what is a neurological cause, they're bounding in more than one, of the tremors and so forth in Parkinson's disease? Well one of these is that the brain, in terms of the endogenous, that is the built-in mechanism for producing dopamine, they get retarded. And because of that retardation of the production of endogenous dopamine, that is one of the catalysts or causes giving rise to some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:25 Highlight the passage at 1:05:25

1:05:53 That's my understanding. If I say anything incorrect, please correct me. But that's what I understood. So they're doing an experimental drug with hopes, of course, that it will alleviate. There's also placebo. Well, a person, one of the subjects, took what he thought was a drug that was really going to work, took it, Report an error in the passage at 1:05:53 Highlight the passage at 1:05:53

1:06:15 Because then believing, okay, my symptoms are going to go down, and he probably knows about as much about endogenous dopamine as I do, which is, I think I've said just everything I know about it, endogenous, and it's called dopamine. But they believed it would work. They took the medication, which turned out to have no efficacy whatsoever, and lo and behold, taking it and believing this will help alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's, triggered more creation of endogenous dopamine. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:15 Highlight the passage at 1:06:15

1:06:47 That's not an isolated case. There are many like that. So it's not just taking it and feeling better or having your headache go away. It's triggering the generation of endogenous dopamine. How exactly to go from blind faith and belief to triggering that precise mechanism in the brain that produces that and then a reduction of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:47 Highlight the passage at 1:06:47

1:07:07 Now this is commonplace. I'm not saying it's something that specialists in the area don't know anything about. But I've corresponded with two of the world experts. One is a neuroscientist, the other one is a... An anthropologist, really the human angle of it. And I asked, you know, how do you explain that? And these are both top-notch academics. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:07 Highlight the passage at 1:07:07

1:07:26 And one of them wrote back, they're very kind, because I'm kind of nobody, and they wrote back anyway. And he wrote back and said, you know, I don't have any answer for that question, so I've stopped thinking about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:26 Highlight the passage at 1:07:26

1:07:38 What he said, literally. I've stopped thinking, I don't know where to go with that one, so I've just stopped asking that question. So rather than question materialistic assumptions, They just stop asking the question altogether. Rather than taking the research of Ian Stevenson, Jim Tucker and a whole team of very bright people and as a network of people around the world, well trained, intelligent. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:38 Highlight the passage at 1:07:38

1:07:58 I don't know if there's a single one of them that's religious. I don't think there's a Buddhist among them. They're just scientists trying to be objective and observe. I have not seen once where their research has been given a fair shake. Not in any journal whatsoever. Mostly it's just scientists saying, you can't study that kind of thing. And then ignoring it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:58 Highlight the passage at 1:07:58

1:08:18 Because that does not compute. If that's right, then the whole basis of my understanding of the mind and brain is completely wrong. I don't want to go there. So I guess I'll just pretend that's not there. So that's unfortunate for science. Because what makes science great is its open-mindedness and its willingness, scientists' willingness, to reassess even the most cherished assumptions. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:18 Highlight the passage at 1:08:18

1:08:40 And that's how science makes, as Richard Feynman said, that's how science makes its greatest leaps and bounds ahead. As we look in those areas that seem the most anomalous, the most peculiar, the most unsettling, and then we hone in there, hone in there, and we especially investigate those, because it's precisely, this is Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics, is that especially when we investigate those aspects, that's where we make the greatest progress. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:40 Highlight the passage at 1:08:40

1:09:10 But unfortunately it's exactly those, like parapsychology, out-of-body experiences, alleged reincarnation and so forth. That mainstream psychology and neuroscience won't touch it with a hundred foot pole. Exactly the opposite of that. And if somebody steps out of line and starts asking those questions seriously, you may learn the fresh meaning of excommunication. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:10 Highlight the passage at 1:09:10

1:09:41 Oh, the one that had the visions of heaven? Yeah. He's a neurologist. He's a neurologist. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:41 Highlight the passage at 1:09:41

1:09:49 Well, he's one of more my generation. And so, yeah, he wrote a whole book. I think they're actually turning into a movie. Yeah, but the proof of heaven, I think. Isn't the name of his book, Proof of Heaven? Here's a man who, by his own account, was kind of a namby-pamby Christian. Like, you know, Easter, Christmas, once in a while and someday, thank you, Jesus. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:49 Highlight the passage at 1:09:49

1:10:13 Something like that. I mean, really weak-kneed Christian. And then he had this post-death experience where he's brain-dead for I don't know how long. A weak man. And then during this time he had this radiantly clear, detailed vision of what looked for all the world like heaven when he's brain dead. And then he comes back as a neurologist and is recounting this. And no brain damage, that's an interesting part, yeah. So I think the point here is that just the mind-brain interaction is far more mysterious than most people in the field want to imagine or can imagine. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:13 Highlight the passage at 1:10:13

1:10:46 And so a lot of this is being shunted aside. And said, well, that's anomalous. I won't ask that question anymore. That's anomalous. We won't look at that. But then looking at the soft targets, and it's what David Chalmers calls the easy problems. Well, let's find one more mind-braining correlation, and we'll publish one more paper. That this memory is associated with this ganglia of cells, and if you do a minute electrosimulation of this ganglia of cells, suddenly that memory will pop up. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:46 Highlight the passage at 1:10:46

1:11:13 Let's publish a paper. That's cool. It's good. It's good science, but it's a soft target. We found one more correlation. And then you ask, what's the nature of the correlation? I don't know. I don't know how to ask the question. So I don't ask the question. Let's find one more correlate. And then off they go. They're staying in the comfort zone. But you start taking seriously some of these outlying types of evidence, and that's where the revolution can take place. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:13 Highlight the passage at 1:11:13

1:11:38 Physicists are more confident. That's where my training is in physics. In my experience, again, I'm not a scientist. I've had some scientific training. But among the scientists that I've engaged with, I find the physicists tend to be the most confident because they know that other branches of science experience physics envy, using the word quite consciously, because it's a gold standard. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:38 Highlight the passage at 1:11:38

1:12:01 It started with Galileo and its physics, astronomical physics, the rest of physics. It's a gold standard. Everybody knows that. Biology is a hard science insofar as it's like physics. Psychology is a hard science insofar as it's like biology, says the materialists. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:01 Highlight the passage at 1:12:01

1:12:17 They're the ones, and they've already gone through two revolutions. Biology only one, the mind-science is zero, because they're still sticking with the same metaphysical assumptions they had 135 years ago. They haven't budged, because they refuse to look at them. But physics has gone through two, and they still have an enormous amount of credibility. So I find, actually, in my experience, the most adventuresome scientists, the ones who are really willing to go out on the furthest out on a limb, are the physicists. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:17 Highlight the passage at 1:12:17

1:12:46 Because they know they've got such a strong tower, have so much credibility, that if they're doing good science, it'll be harder for them to be a vulnerable ridicule. So we'll see how that plays out. But it's just that, that in the closing years of the 19th century, there was an anomaly. An anomaly, like this Pam Reynolds having these detailed out-of-body experiences of things other people could see and corroborate. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:46 Highlight the passage at 1:12:46

1:13:17 She just had no business knowing about it all. She should have batted zero. That is, gotten zero accuracy when she's having this hallucination. And whatever she experienced of these ethereal beings, well, who knows? Nobody can corroborate that. But conversations and drill bit and pitch of the, that's things that, you know, intersubjective. And so there's an anomaly. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:17 Highlight the passage at 1:13:17

1:13:37 What do you do with it? Well, you ignore it. That's what you do with it. Or you explain it away. You come up with some cockamamie, ad hoc explanation. That really doesn't account for much in anything at all, but at least it's materialistic, and that means it's got some credibility for the materialist. And that's the way it's commonly dealt with nowadays. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:37 Highlight the passage at 1:13:37

1:13:52 But in the closing years of the 19th century, there was one great big glaring anomaly in physics. And it had to do with black box radiation, that's what it's called, or it came to be known as the ultraviolet catastrophe. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:52 Highlight the passage at 1:13:52

1:14:07 And I won't go into the details of it, I wrote about it years ago, but many people have written about it much more. Much more and with much greater expertise than I have. But it was simply in a black spark radiation that certain frequencies of radiation being emitted by it shouldn't have been happening. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:07 Highlight the passage at 1:14:07

1:14:22 It was an anomaly. There was no way to explain it in terms of this state-of-the-art cutting-edge physics of the late 19th century. They couldn't explain it. It was an anomaly. Like the placebo effect. It's happening. We can't deny it. We have no way of explaining it. And so we're stuck. Because we can't explain it away, but we can explain it in terms of everything we know about the universe. And this is based upon 300 years of tremendous progress in physics. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:22 Highlight the passage at 1:14:22

1:14:49 And this is kind of a big glaring nyan-nyan-nyan-nyan right in front of us. We don't know what to do with it. And what you do with it is you start thinking outside the black box. Outside the box. And that's what Max Planck did. And he said, well, okay, we can't understand this. Nobody's been able to understand this in terms of our familiar constructs. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:49 Highlight the passage at 1:14:49

1:15:10 But if we consider... That's the notion of quanta. Then from that perspective, bringing in a new innovation, that's redundant, bringing in an innovation. From this perspective, it wasn't just a word or an idea. He developed this as a theory, quantum mechanics, the rudiments of quantum mechanics. Although it cannot be explained in terms of classical physics, this anomaly can be made intelligible. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:10 Highlight the passage at 1:15:10

1:15:34 In terms of this theory, this theory covers everything that was known prior to that point, so it's not just some ad hoc little explanation to explain black-box radiation. But this has explanatory power for everything else, which classical physics also explains. But this explains not only classical physics, but it also explains the anomaly. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:34 Highlight the passage at 1:15:34

1:15:51 In other words, it's better. This is a paradigm shift. And so it was very sophisticated, excellent mathematics and physics, and then more experiments were done. Albert Einstein jumped into it and came up with the term photon, that energy itself is quantized, comes in little packets. And so you have a quantum revolution. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:51 Highlight the passage at 1:15:51

1:16:11 But it happened because they did keep on asking questions. They didn't say, I can't explain that, therefore I've stopped asking the question. They let it nag at them until somebody said, okay, here's a new idea, how about this guy's? They were all men at that point. And came up with a new theory that explained it. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:11 Highlight the passage at 1:16:11

1:16:30 But was continuous with what had been explained previously. So it wasn't just off in left field someplace. And so that's what is needed now. I'm on my soapbox and I'm almost going to finish. But if there's going to be a true revolution in the mind sciences, it's going to be after theory that embraces and makes intelligible what we already know, that the brain influences the mind, the mind influences the brain, in very complex, subtle and sophisticated fashions, strong correlations. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:30 Highlight the passage at 1:16:30

1:16:56 But now what cannot be explained in terms of The mind is what the brain does type of paradigm, but rather there's some very subtle phenomenological causality, which is two-way in very subtle ways. And here's a new theory that accounts for everything we know scientifically about the mind-brain, but it also accounts for this. It makes intelligible, and moreover it has predictive ability, because that's the thing about quantum mechanics. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:56 Highlight the passage at 1:16:56

1:17:20 It doesn't just explain what's already happened. With the Schrödinger wave equation, it gives you predictive ability for new experiments you can run and finding, oh, it works there too, son of a gun. And so a theory of mind-brain that covers everything that's known, explains the anomalies and has predictive power for setting up new experiments and suggests what the outcome may be from that. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:20 Highlight the passage at 1:17:20

1:17:42 So there in broad strokes, anybody would like to formulate that theory? Get cracking. We really need one because the old one is just rotten. You know, it's just like dead meat rotting in the sun. It's so stale, it stinks. And they keep on trying to say this explains everything. What they mean is everything that they can explain. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:42 Highlight the passage at 1:17:42

1:18:01 So it's completely tautological. So have Report an error in the passage at 1:18:01 Highlight the passage at 1:18:01

1:18:09 a good night's sleep. Mindfulness of breathing, really good way to get a good snooze. And then tomorrow we'll move into new territory in Samatha as well as Vipassanā. So we'll keep ourselves busy out of mischief. See you tomorrow morning. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:09 Highlight the passage at 1:18:09