← Karuna Cayton

The Misleading Mind (12 July 2014)

Karuna Cayton · 12 July 2014 · 4 h 31 min · Tse Chen Ling via Internet Archive

Download audio

Automated transcript, estimated accuracy about 90% for this source; report an error.

Words the recogniser was unsure of are underlined with dots. Use “Report an error” beside any passage to tell us what the teacher actually says.

Key passages

The teacher's own words, quoted from the transcript below and chosen automatically as representative.

  • 18:10

    I thought they were the Four Noble Truths because they're such great things, right? And that's not exactly why they're called the Four Noble Truths. The reason noble is, of course, what's the Sanskrit word for noble? Arya. Yeah? So when we attain insight into emptiness, we become an Arya being. Non-conceptual, direct insight.

  • 29:11

    This is suffering, you know, and you really get a feeling for it. It doesn't end. The dissatisfaction doesn't end. You begin to see. As you get older, also, it seems you'll see. Just keep doing the same thing, you know, and you're not getting dissatisfied. So, that means it. The third of the three problematic conditions, remember, is pervasive. They call it pervasive suffering. Remember that word? Did you ever think about that?

  • 50:43

    But what it means is you have a little bit more of an encounter. In other words, here's a good example because I think we all can identify that spontaneous agitation that comes up. So in this case, the spontaneous agitation, and you go, Don't yell at the kids, don't yell at the kids, don't yell at the kids, right? And in this case now, in the second one, in terms of what we call maybe the Mahāyāna Sutrayana approach, is you actually have them arise and you, and there's one part of the Sutrayana, you have them arise and you actually confront them, you actually deal with them, you actually look at them, you engage with them, is a better way to put it.

  • 1:36:19

    We're not confused. That's why we need this. This is for meditation and for developing the mind. Now, the definition of the mind is that which is clear. Well, no. The definition of mine is that it's clear and known. And let's expand on that. It's clear and known. So another word for clear sometimes that they use instead is it's luminous, which I find amazing words. I don't really know what it means.

  • 1:44:26

    So the mind is clear like the sky, obscured by afflictions, delusions, mental disorders. It's obscure. Basic nature is pure and clear. That's amazing. Now, the other thing about the mind that's good to know is that it is an impermanent phenomenon. There's the definition of those two bullets.

0:00 Thank you for welcoming me back. I do apologize. Last time I'm going to apologize. For last time. Did everyone come last time when I didn't come? Yeah. Well, that's not bad. I mean, 90 % of the people came. Just 1%. Yeah. Anyway, I felt really bad. Okay. So I believe this is our third class. Okay. And it's hard for me. I'm going to stand up and walk around for a bit. Report an error

0:36 So sometimes hard when, I like the one month, the class per month, that's fine. In fact, I missed a month, we lost a little momentum and focus maybe. So let's just think about what we're, I was trying to also get clear from Lisa and Rich and Carol where we were at. And then Pam said, well, just review everything. Report an error

1:01 It's like, well, no. We won't get to, right? Especially the way I review. Report an error

1:09 But just to give context, I think we need context, right? We need to be able to situate ourselves. Report an error

1:18 Beginning would be, you know, I don't know if you remember the picture with the tiger, the snow leopard, snow tiger, white tiger. I wonder what it is now that I think about it. What are white tigers? Yeah, they're nothing, it's just the picture's in the snow, so it makes you think it's a... Snow leopard, but it's not actually, it's just an albino tiger. Do you remember that? Give it a hug? Because the idea was that, you know, what stimulated a lot, it kind of gave me a kickstart, because I planned on writing that book a long time ago, but it was when Rinpoche said, if you're just helping people feel better, there's really not much benefit. Report an error

2:03 He was saying that to me as a therapist, going and therapizing. And, you know, if you think about it. I make up words. Here's your first quiz for the day. How many words were in the English lexicon when Shakespeare wrote his sonnets? Report an error

2:25 How many are there now? This is even more shocking. Report an error

2:34 How many think? How many words supposedly are now in the English language? Any guesses? I mean, it's really pretty surprising. They have some way of doing it. There's some person there who counts them, right? Report an error

2:52 Well, that's right, and they're counting all those. Yes, they are. Report an error

3:03 There's a million. Yeah, it's pretty surprising. Yeah, they're counting all those computer, I mean, they're counting all the scientific words, all the computer words. So how many did, uh-uh, you can't be, he's texting. I'm not going to say what it is. What do you think? Okay, Rich, you're first. What do you think? One million. Report an error

3:24 No, you missed that part. When you were texting, we already said the answer. Now, what's the answer to how many when Shakespeare was writing? Report an error

3:39 Those are good guesses. 25,000. But then there's something else that I think we only use. We use, I believe it's 400 words 90 % of the time. Something like that. Isn't that amazing? It's all those millions of words. What's that? What's that? Yeah. Report an error

4:00 I guess all the words, different uses of dude. Yeah, likely. Anyway, so it's interesting, but now let's, I think it's worth talking about for a second about, because all of us here are probably in some sort of helping capacity. Report an error

4:19 Don't you think? Well, no. What did, well, okay, so does remember Shae's advice that if you're just helping people feel better, there's not much benefit. Does that only apply to me? Okay. Report an error

4:41 black and white, know, and then I thought, Report an error

4:58 I think we have to clap in it too. Report an error

5:02 Contextualize it. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Report an error

5:10 I've brought that up many times. That's your job. Yeah. But you know, okay, so let's push it a little further. Couldn't a therapist say the same thing? They're a mental nurse, so to speak. Report an error

5:32 Yeah, but you give them the medicine that they need, not that they want. They don't want someone to say it's okay. It's, because I understand what you're saying. It's not like, oh, it's okay. It's, you know, you need to put your stuff together because obviously you can't. You know, I'm not going to be a therapist by being nice to you. So, so that's a therapist, but with, but a nurse, what about, you're talking about a therapist or a nurse? Report an error

5:56 Therapist. Yeah. Now, how about a nurse? Nurse is different. But does that mean that a nurse can't practice? Report an error

6:06 I think it's worth thinking about whether that then means that a nurse, and we're generalizing right now, that a nurse only makes people feel better. In other words, could it be something more? That means that in a way you can't practice what Rinpoche said. Yeah, so how would it be? Report an error

6:35 Yeah. we're just, yeah. Report an error

6:46 It's fascinating. It's fascinating. Report an error

7:01 So you know what we're missing, in my opinion? So, you know, they always do that, right? You kind of have the answer and the answer. I have a answer. I shouldn't say the answer. Do you remember? Yeah, yeah. You were saying pretty quiet over there in the corner. Do you remember? You don't. You may not. Report an error

7:18 But do you remember in our very first, probably first class, We talked about where as a spiritual person, which is my term for a Dharma practitioner, I don't have to use the word Dharma practitioner, a spiritual person, which means someone to me, it means someone who is, remember the word nangpa? We covered nangpa? You may not know, it's okay. Nangpa is a Tibetan word for Buddhist. Nang means inside or in, and pa is like an article for a being or a being person. Report an error

7:50 So it means an inner being. And you think about that a lot. So as a nurse, you can be an inner being or an outer being. Or any of us. And I don't think it matters what you do as much as what you think. So that's what I would say. Of course you have to give a Band-Aid. They've got a bleeding thing. But what is your mindset? Rinpoche might give food to a dog, but he's not thinking, Of just making it feel better. I don't think that's his motivation. Report an error

8:40 Right. Report an error

8:44 Right. Good. So let's talk about that. That's where we're headed. That's where we left. Sort of left off last night. So anyway, that's the context is to begin to start thinking how we begin to, not begin, but how we continue to make the shift the inner being. And it's always hard. And it's always a challenge. Because once you figure out, okay, at this level, Then you think about, well, as a therapist, you're going to go into, or a nurse, or a nun. I mean, people are looking to you for support, right? Report an error

9:17 They talk to you about personal issues and stuff like that. And so if you, if we're really committed to being an inner being, which is the very first step in being a Buddhist, actually, it's not even, and of course, we traverse that throughout our practice, but you think of it, that's the first step? Report an error

9:34 You know, and that guides everything we do, whether we're parenting or we're... We're practicing, we're doing our careers. You know, what's making us different is that what makes us different from everybody else is that one little shift. That is the main difference. I believe. And so you start looking for the world from the internal locus. You know, so when people come to you and they say, you know, I'm not getting along with my neighbors, what's your default mode? Report an error

10:06 You know, fan stuff. You know what I mean? Just think about it. Your default mode is, well, have you tried talking to him? Yeah, I like that, right? But our default mode should more be like, well, what's happening internally? What's really happening? We're going to talk about that today, I think, about the ignorance aspect. Report an error

10:22 What is really happening? So I started with this slide because you can have it all, right? We talked about this, right? Just correct me if you don't remember. This had to do with the idea of those three conditions. And the three conditions which we, I think, was sort of the main part of our last one. Report an error

10:44 Three conditions correspond to one of the Buddhists, because we're all Buddhists here, right? What do you remember the three sufferments? There's different ways when Buddha taught. You know, it's pretty amazing when you think about it. I was asking when I was in Mexico, I was asking people this a lot. I said, how many people have had insights? Report an error

11:08 I feel kind of like, hmm, I'm not sure what you mean. They actually don't have a word as bad for insight. So what made it really complicated is like three weeks before I found out or something. No one or no one's answering. Report an error

11:27 Things like when you, it's easy to say with you guys, because I would call it that aha experience, but they don't have the, they're not going to know. You know? Report an error

11:26 Yeah. They Report an error

11:39 And also, you know, a lot of times I think for a lot of us who are like psychedelics, walking in nature, right, or in a retreat, or, you know, it didn't happen, it wasn't ever, if you think about those experiences, they're very, very rarely contrived, very hard to make them happen. And, oh, when you found love, or, I always think of like the birth, around the birth of a child, and then you get your own children, or you guys deliver, and... Report an error

12:08 Pretty amazing, isn't it? If that's one of those things, everyone always goes, yeah, I can't. That's miraculous, right? So you can't ever, if you try to tell someone, hey, you know, is that my granddaughter's birth today? Let me tell you what it was like. It's very hard to, Report an error

12:29 it really does. Wow. Report an error

12:39 But anyway. it's not bad. Report an error

12:34 It's really hot. I'll ask you to stop. Report an error

12:46 anyway, these are just props. Report an error

12:53 it's all shut and down. Okay. It'll come back. In the middle of a presentation. Report an error

13:05 No permission at all. See who runs the world. So anyway, I was talking about something really, really important. Report an error

13:19 Insights. Have you ever tried to explain that to somebody in words? Words are conceptual, and those experiences are non-conceptual, right? Report an error

13:37 Yeah, so I had to think of examples, and then they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, because everyone has them, I think. spunking, spunking, spunking. Report an error

13:48 They already told me that my mustache increased to about 300. Report an error

13:57 They got it. They did translate it because the word insight didn't work. And then she told me, oh, it means, maybe I can remember it. I'll try and remember it. It's interesting. So that's what happened to Buddha, though. That's what I was going to say. So Buddha had this insight, but it continued. It was like, it never stopped. Ours are like a few seconds, a couple minutes, whatever. Well, I don't know how they call it. Report an error

14:23 And as we develop our single point of concentration, they last longer and longer. But when you think about that for Buddha, so his went on for a long time and continued, and no wonder he didn't teach. It just made sense to me. Those six weeks where he just wandered around completely. So what did he start with was this idea of suffering, right? Report an error

14:46 The truth of suffering, which was a, that's what the three problematic conditions were, one way of capturing. in many ways, right, six sufferings, three sufferings, eight sufferings, all different kinds of ways of talking. Do you think that we get it? Do you think that we get this idea of suffering? Do you get it? Report an error

15:10 I mean, I'm sorry. First of all, do you get it intellectually? The definition of get it? I can understand it intellectually. Report an error

15:27 Yeah. This is suffering. Let's go on. This is suffering. Yeah. Right now. So that has become a very, very interesting challenge for us. Report an error

15:42 My story, I think I told you a story, my only one was about Benny. Remember Crazy Benny? And I realized, what did I miss? He goes, I'm not suffering. And I took that on as my mistake, not so much his. Report an error

15:56 And so one of the things that I think that one way or another, one way of understanding that is see if this works for you. In relationship to what our potential is, in our relationship, in relationship to what we can be and could be and kind of should be, then suffering makes sense. For example, when we look, would any of us, if one of our dogs is in here, would any of us want to be, say, yeah, I really want to be a dog. Report an error

16:27 I had a person that said yes. I talked her out of it. She wanted to be her cat. I know. But now, those of us in the room, well, then you have to take that a little further. You say, okay, now, you wake up in the morning with all this hair. Do you remember Shaggy Dog, that movie? Scariest movie I ever saw. I really thought that. As a kid, remember? It's a Disney movie where he wakes up and he starts sheepdog. Report an error

16:57 Yeah, like Rinpoche talks about. Yeah, over a few days, right? Report an error

17:08 Oh, yeah. Report an error

17:13 So then you really get a sense. So if you looked at a dog and say, you're suffering, we would agree with that, right? But the dog doesn't feel that way. Report an error

17:26 So when Rinpoche looks at us, what do you think we look like to him? Or the soul in us? yeah. Report an error

17:36 Then, so that made sense to me, honestly. So, you can't, at all, you can't really explain that they're suffering, and it's the same thing with people. It's very difficult. Report an error

17:51 Do you Report an error

17:55 know why they call it the Four Noble Truths? I only found out about two years ago. Seriously. I'll tell you my story about it, because maybe Carol knows, maybe you know, some people know. But if you don't know, it's quite interesting. I thought they were the Four Noble Truths because they're such great things, right? And that's not exactly why they're called the Four Noble Truths. The reason noble is, of course, what's the Sanskrit word for noble? Report an error

18:24 Arya. Yeah? So when we attain insight into emptiness, we become an Arya being. Non-conceptual, direct insight. At that point, that Arya being sees the world in the Four Noble Truths. So actually we can't even realize those in our regular state. So everything we do with them is just pretty much intellectual, conceptual. Report an error

18:50 I think that's pretty amazing. In meditation sometimes you can see the depth of those. You actually see suffering. But you don't really actually see the full truth of suffering until you're an Arya being. So it's like what are we doing instead? Report an error

· · ·

19:44 Rich, can you please something from me? Report an error

19:58 I can put this on the floor. Report an error

20:05 just want to put it in the door somewhere. Do you want another color paper? Uh, actually what I can do... Report an error

20:16 just super stupid. Report an error

· · ·

21:21 So that's the last, what was it? Report an error

21:42 We do or the English language? Report an error

21:48 Of course. Thank you. Report an error

22:04 we'll have to, yes. Report an error

22:28 then you've got the rest of the world, which is huge, and you know, from our even motivation, like, you could do that. But then, everybody else is out there like Benny, thinking, that's kind of great. These guys are crack cops, you know. The building bridge. And like, how do you have it all? Mm-hmm. And the same thing. Mm-hmm. And I'll say. Report an error

23:00 Right. I mean, I have, you know, I mean, there's a sense of obligation. Mm-hmm. are about to go away. Report an error

23:11 I don't. Mm-hmm. Report an error

23:15 See, I think it goes back to what we were talking about in the very beginning. It goes back to mindset. Because, you know, someone asked me not that long ago, they really wanted to know, one question was, why isn't everybody, you know, Dharma practitioners, why isn't the main focus about developing shamatha, single point of concentration? Report an error

23:36 Then someone else asked me, well, they said, well, all the people, there's a lot of people that go do three-year retreats. He said, Don't they all attain shamatha? He says, no. I said, no, not as far as I know. And then this question was very logical. He says, well, why not? Isn't three years enough? Report an error

23:57 You would think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, three years of just, why not? And so that's a very profound question, you know, and of course a profound answer. That, you know, the why not is because what you're saying and what you're alluding to is Why not all of us go into retreat? And what about everybody else? Because I don't think we necessarily would accomplish it. Most of us might not accomplish much in retreat because we don't have the imprints to be able to generate through that time. Report an error

24:28 And that's why, for example, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, I believe that's why in our tradition, shamatha is not expressed in that way. Because you just go in there and sit there and it doesn't mean you'll attain much. I mean, you can attain good concentration. But due to the imprints, you know, there's not much that can be developed. I mean, snipers develop good concentration, right? And tennis players. Report an error

24:54 And golfers. Don't forget the golfers. Report an error

25:08 Yeah. Because he can see what people's capacity is, right? And so, now, if you go back to real Dharma, well, what's the definition of Dharma practice, according to some of the scriptures? Report an error

25:27 What did Drone Tompa say to the... Fellow at the stupa? Ah, see, like those little... Yeah. You know, what was he doing first? First, he was reciting prayers at the stupa. And Dr. Tsongkhapa said, it's good you're reciting prayers and better to go, better to practice Dharma. Second thing, what, you're circumambulating? Good you're circumambulating and better to practice Dharma. And the third, what, he's meditating? Yeah. Good to be meditating, better to practice Dharma. Report an error

25:58 So to practice, what did he mean? What was he saying when Kara remembers, when he's finding that guy freaks out, he says, what do you mean you practice Dharma? And what did Dron Tompa say to him? Do you remember? Report an error

26:19 The happiness of this world. Report an error

26:24 So how many of us are doing that? Report an error

26:31 No, no, it has to do with motivation. So why, look, for most of us, when we sit down and meditate, Oh, sorry, it didn't mean ass. Report an error

26:46 No, I shouldn't say, but typically, typically it's to feel better. Actually, if you think about, you know, I'm maybe not in this room, but you know all the mindfulness movement, that's why I have a problem with, there's no outside. That's why I have a problem with that whole thing. But it's good because people are doing more positive than negative. But it's not Dharma practice from the traditional strict use of the word. Report an error

27:12 However, someone, Ningje, Paula. She said, you know, I really like your book. The only thing is, it's not really Dharma, is it? Report an error

27:24 And I said, well, you know, technically speaking, no. I knew that at the time. I knew someone would come up with that. Because it doesn't, what she meant was, it's just helping people develop a healthier mind. And I said, yes, that's for this life. And so I mentioned the Dalai Lama Zopa Rinpoche. And she said, well, he was very calm. Report an error

27:46 He said, So technically she's right, but it's Dharma anyway, because it leads people to compassion, and then compassion leads them to thinking beyond this life. Report an error

28:02 Right, but right questioning. Well, that's right. Report an error

28:11 That's right. Report an error

28:25 So let's hope. So that's anyway. That's kind of a lot of context there. Report an error

28:32 Yeah. Report an error

28:37 It's possible, isn't it? Yeah. Report an error

28:42 Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the point. So again, just on a personal level with us, you know, when you go into work, what's going to mean, when I wrote the book, I tried to motivate in the right way. So maybe that carried some flavor, some scent. So when you go into work and you motivate, and then you go put the band-aids on, okay. Report an error

29:07 Your motivation has become like, because the suffering is this, This is suffering, you know, and you really get a feeling for it. It doesn't end. The dissatisfaction doesn't end. You begin to see. As you get older, also, it seems you'll see. Just keep doing the same thing, you know, and you're not getting dissatisfied. So, that means it. The third of the three problematic conditions, remember, is pervasive. Report an error

29:34 They call it pervasive suffering. Remember that word? Did you ever think about that? Report an error

29:42 It's a hard one. It's a hard one, but it just comes down to that ignorance. It just comes down to the fact that we don't see that. And as a result of that, that is dissatisfying. Okay, we're going to talk, hopefully we'll talk about more to go on today. I'm still with you, right? Okay. Saw that, right? Report an error

30:09 Okay. So, this is just straight out of the book where you begin to get, help people, really the idea of meditation. It's about becoming familiar. Remember that? That's the definition. So I think becoming familiar means to be curious. Now it's really different. When we sit down to our style of meditation, I think we add mindfulness to, say, thought transformation, where we're really curious about what is this, what is this coming up for me? Report an error

30:47 And that sort of analytical quality. People have to be taught that. And I think that could be the next wave, that's my hope, is that once people become bored with mindfulness, that we're ready and poised to teach about the other part of mindfulness, which is the analytical, discriminating way of generating insights. Report an error

31:15 So you still need that sense of curiosity. Makes sense? know, and that. Report an error

31:21 I think a lot of times we're looking at subduing the uplifted minds or the disturbing emotions, which is because we want to be happy right now. If you think about it, when you, when I sit to, let's say my mind is really foggy, what is it I want to do? I want to get rid of the foggyness. Why? Because it doesn't feel good as the clarity. I mean, it's not a normal motivation. Report an error

31:49 It's not a, it's not. It's just another different level of feeling with it. Because it's about this moment. And I'm not saying, you know, we can rationalize and say, well, you need to have a clear mind to meditate. Well, of course. But I'm not talking about that. I'm going more subtle. Like, really, what do you, what's your relationship with that foggy mind or tired mind? Or what's your relationship with that agitation? Report an error

32:11 Do you want to get rid of it? Or do you want to be curious about it? That's very, in the mindfulness thing, I don't think it's about curiosity. Is it? I'm generalizing. No. It's not, it's about, Subduing. Yeah, relax. Report an error

32:31 Where? Oh, the VA. Stress reduction. Well, it does help. It does help stress. But we're being more rigid, right? We're being more disciplined. Report an error

32:47 What do you think? It's okay? Report an error

32:54 Yeah, this is just something to help people understand. I think this is a big, what do you call it, big... perspective shift, okay, about We tend to think that we are the problem. Report an error

33:16 So when you say I'm not feeling good today, that's a good way of saying I don't feel good today. When we say that because of our ignorance, because of this pervasive ignorance, we're actually identifying, let's say it's a feeling. Report an error

33:33 Because when you say I don't feel good today, it's probably a feeling, right? Report an error

33:40 We identify some feeling that it's not feeling. What happens is then, If you think of the languaging of that and you think the languaging of it and you think about our perspective, we feel merged with that feeling. That's the only way I can describe it. So that's about, like when we're in this traffic, we become merged with whatever sensation and perception we have of this based upon our past experience. Report an error

34:08 You know, to be able to separate is, you know, when they talk about interdependence. They're talking about the having problems as opposed to being a problem. You know what I mean? It's a separation. It's not that traffic doesn't exist. It has some level of existence, right? But the way we experience traffic is emerging. Report an error

34:37 Yes. Yes. Right now, I'm in traffic. Right. I'm in traffic. That's right. It's almost like there's traffic. I mean, this is not... Exactly. But a good trick of the mind is say, there's traffic and there's me. That's not actually reality, but that's a better way of starting. Because the other one is, we merge with everything. We become inseparable. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? And then when you step back, it's like before Lama Zopa, when he sees defendant arising, everything can step back from. Report an error

35:17 He's not merged with any of them. Of course, he's not independent. But no, we need more independence. Report an error

35:27 we're struggling. of people with depression, this is the best example. Do you know how depression, have you seen like depression war? It started off as some sort of initial event, probably. And from that event, there comes some thoughts about the event. And that's all okay until something happens, right? There's just some line that we cross and we begin to, it's almost like. Report an error

36:00 You know, where I live down in Santa Cruz, it's like La Selva Beach is south, the fog comes first. And it's almost like you, the depression is like where you see the fog. Yeah, but depression is when you're in the fog. And because when you're, when fog's over there, it's easy to say, yeah, you know, I'm sad about, you know, losing my job. Report an error

36:27 Yeah, so losing your job is like fog over there. But then you start, it gets a little closer. Which means you start thinking about more. And then there's some thought about it. What usually happens is there's some connection with your identity. All of a sudden, it's not just you've lost your job, it's your identity is flawed or something like that. And then that hurts. Report an error

36:53 That's because we identify so much with our identity. Report an error

37:03 Right. Report an error

37:09 It's like that. So now you're in the fog and you know the fog is just made up of molecules and moisture, you know, right? Raindrops, so to speak. But you can't see that anymore. When it's over there, you can see it. All of a sudden you're in it, it doesn't seem like made up of parts. It's just like you're it. So that's that fusing. Report an error

37:30 And we do that with a lot. And of course, it's easier to start resisting that with big emotions. But the problem is when we... If we don't, if we're in the effect of it, like it's already taken us over, very hard to do anything. So it has to do with not, to be more vigilant, more mindful. There's mindfulness, good, right? Enough of the traffic, right? Traffic is one of my favorite problems. And everyone's like, why? Report an error

38:01 And I say, well, don't, maybe figure it out. Maybe I have problems too. Well, there's the nangpa, right? This one, just a quick little story about that. Did I talk about that before? No. No. This is a line, when you're, so as I became, at Copan, one of my many responsibilities was originally to take care of the Western studies for the monks, the Asian monks. Report an error

38:35 And then, of course, with the November course in Lama, I also were the organizers that helped me with that. So, you know, how many people have done a full-time course? So, you know, who was your course leader? Report an error

38:52 Oh, Report an error

38:57 Marcelo. That's amazing because he, in 75, he was mine. It was brilliant. I digressed for a second. In those days, you had to do a human being. So, I was just this, you know, student, kind of hippie, doing my Nepal thing. that. Don't do it? Leo? Report an error

39:20 I didn't want to go to Kuwait because I was floundering in my research project, which was supposed to be a comparison of Hinduism and an indigenous culture versus what was coming to America in those days, which was, you know, Monterey Shinesh Yogi and Beatles and all that sort of stuff. And I had sort of fallen out of all that. And so my professor said, well, you know, go and see what the real thing is. Report an error

39:47 And she says, oh, by the way, you might, and this is before I left for Nepal in 1975 as a junior. She says, oh, by the way, you might like this book. And I didn't know anything about Buddhism. I could find her. Isn't that amazing? She spoke Tibetan. Report an error

40:09 She's a scholar. I think she would be a Buddhist, too, but she's a real scholar at the University of Washington. And, yeah. So I was living in a village about a mile from Copan, and I was doing my four hours of language training a day, and I was living in San Jose, where am I doti in the village? You guys really plugged in, you know? But I couldn't get this research project going. I was having such a good time, and I was not into it, and I started working and went trekking, and you know. Report an error

40:47 friends, I came back, it's like a day later and later, and I was like getting desperate. And someone said, well, what? And my wife I always ask people, do you know why I wasn't willing to go there? Report an error

41:16 Do you think it came up in my English? I was like this local guy. I wasn't going to go with a bunch of tourists. Report an error

41:27 Yeah. But anyway, I was desperate enough, so I trudged up there, and he had to do this interview, and there was Marcel. Was he still a monk in 90 months? Oh, yeah. I mean, he was a monk's monk, right? Oh, yeah. He was like the idea. Yeah, he was like the idea. And he had just come out of nine months' retreat. Report an error

41:45 So he was even more like, and there was this hippie guy, and then there was Marcel, the Dutch monk. Yeah. Report an error

41:50 And he doesn't move, he doesn't express. I thought for sure I failed the interview. It's not going to let me in here. Anyway, so that course, my introduction was, you know, that's kind of pretty strict. In fact, one time, a couple weeks after we started, Marcel came in and he said, I heard there's some people who are leaving the hill. Report an error

42:13 If you leave the hill, don't come back. And the other ones, you know. So one year, we had... It was kind of, I don't know, it always depends on who the course leader is. Some people are more flexible, I should say. And so people were leaving, you know, to go get some heat or a cigarette or whatever they were doing, you know, getting high and all kind of that. Report an error

42:36 So I was, of course, the fundamentalist. You know, hippies always become the fundamentalists. Do you know that? Yeah. Lamyesha used to say that. My hippies become the most rigid ones. Yeah. And he said, Anyway, there was one German monk who was a hippie before he came monk. He was really, really blacked loose. Report an error

43:03 And then Lama started referring to him and started calling him Hitler. Do you know how mad that is for a German? A young German to be called Hitler? You Hitler. Report an error

43:22 He's become so rigid. So I went to Lama Yeshe and I said, you know, Lama, there's a problem because a lot of people are leaving the hill and they're going to smoke and they're going to get some heat and they're going to shower. And I thought, I really have an ally. I'm going to have an ally. Now, the thing is about Lama Yeshe, he never, if I said it was black, he would say it was white. Report an error

43:47 I mean, he never gave me slack. It didn't matter. He always made me look wrong. But I always, what's that cartoon? Oh, the Roadrunner. You know, always would like, it's gonna be different. It's gonna be different. I was so, such an idiot. Report an error

44:05 And so, so I went down and I'm telling him this thing. And he just said, people are at different levels, dear. Remember it to today. Because just to have that sense of you know, it's flexibility to look at, know, he was happy. So I think the same thing for us. It's like we're talking about having this nangpa attitude internally. But like we're all saying at the same time, they need a bandage. Report an error

44:39 But Lama saying that didn't mean that he swayed from his overall view of enlightening all the other things. He just worked at different levels. He can relate. We have to have a harder time. I think we're more one dimensional. Totally. I think that is really, really distant. So that's what that means. Report an error

45:06 Okay. We started this. This is where we kind of got into, right? That's a great picture, isn't it? Remember? What's that? Drunk and monkey mind. Drunk and monkey. Do you remember? Because I remember talking about this, that I like this picture because training the untrained mind. Because we often ask, well, if the mind's untrained, how do you train it? Report an error

45:30 Who's training it? And that's a good question, but when we understand how the mind works, then we know there's parts of the mind that are very functional. Report an error

45:41 It's just that dysfunctional ones tend to be dominant. There is in our mind, for example, one of the mental factors is concentration. It's there to be developed. Report an error

45:54 It's just that's not the one that's dominant for us. Okay, Report an error

46:00 so did we talk about this? Do you remember? This has to do with my attempt to talk about the three Janas. And it's not quite right. It's an attempt to make it. So I always use the example of alcoholics. And we don't think alcoholics. We think about, like, let's say you always get angry in traffic. Slow drivers in a fast lane. Or what's your hot button issue? Report an error

46:34 Anyone have? don't know what I want to say. Tell me what to do. Good. What happens? Sit down. So what happens with authority? What's the spontaneous reaction? If I respect you, I'll do it. If I don't like you, I'll say no. Okay. And how does no look like? Report an error

46:57 Defiant. Defiant, right? Yes. Do you get aggressive? If they get aggressive, yeah. And do you, when this happens, sorry, it's okay, yeah. This is a spontaneous thing. This is a hot button. We should think about what our little triggers are. Report an error

47:22 It's a natural reaction. Report an error

47:30 We all have a lot of them. I have a lot of them. Think about... If something that I Report an error

47:34 So, you know, so. Report an error

47:38 So if you think about what's your, now we become educated as Buddhists or whatever, and we want to stop doing that thing, right? It's very important to identify what that thing is for you. Anyone know? It's like that spontaneously how you lose it. Report an error

48:00 You don't have to tell, yeah, you don't have to tell us. You don't have to be as courageous as Rich Lopesong. Rich Lopesong. That's nice. He's rich in low sound. But it's important to think about it so it's not just theoretical. Report an error

48:23 That's good. Well, let's look at it. You don't have to say what it is, but everyone... House cleaning. Okay, so let's... Okay, so authority tells you something. House cleaning. It was like a knee-jerk. huh? How's the mess? Oh, how's it? When you see the mess, there would be a spontaneous, uncontrolled reaction. Report an error

48:57 Verbal what? Barrage. Were you friends with my mom? Report an error

49:05 So we know those things, particularly as we become mindful, aware, Buddhist, whatever you want to say, you begin to think, you know, that's kind of destructive, right? right right and then you began Report an error

49:17 It kind of sucks. And people even think that without being Buddhist necessarily. They just can't stop it. So you think about when you first started working on that. Report an error

49:29 The first thing we tend to do is, I'm just not going to get angry anymore. I don't care. I'm just not going to, right? That's the first approach. That's this one. Blocking the afflictions. Report an error

49:48 That's blocking the afflictions, right? Report an error

49:55 That is something I refer to as, that's kind of the Hinayana approach to think about. Make enough rules and boundaries. Like alcoholic, don't go into bars. Don't hang around people who drink. So that's not a bad thing. Buddha taught that. But it doesn't actually get rid of the affliction. Have you noticed that? Even when you see the mess and you say, okay, just don't get angry. Report an error

50:26 I bet what really made the change was the space that gave you. They began to think about it differently. So the second one is really to get rid of that affliction is we have to face the emotions, actually, and then just let them go. But what it means is you have a little bit more of an encounter. In other words, here's a good example because I think we all can identify that spontaneous agitation that comes up. Report an error

50:54 So in this case, the spontaneous agitation, and you go, Don't yell at the kids, don't yell at the kids, don't yell at the kids, right? And in this case now, in the second one, in terms of what we call maybe the Mahāyāna Sutrayana approach, is you actually have them arise and you, and there's one part of the Sutrayana, you have them arise and you actually confront them, you actually deal with them, you actually look at them, you engage with them, is a better way to put it. Report an error

51:16 Now the third one is actually sort of just an addition to the second one, it's not actually Tantrayana, it's a little bit of it is. In the Vajrayana, you know, As I understand it, is you have them come up and they become actually the energy that defeats them in themselves, they transform. Report an error

51:36 And it does work, obviously it works, but it's not a very easy way to do it. So this one I say, analyze and transform it. Probably the better way to say is there's four steps. The third one would be analyze. Because even in the second one, it can be a bit of a Vipassanā approach. It can be still a sort of a Hinayana approach. Report an error

51:57 Do you know what I mean? It's where you watch them arise and fall away, so to speak. Like you don't engage with, not just blocking the, yeah. And that observing alone dissipates them. But then in the sort of second tier Sutrayana approach, you actually begin to engage with them in the sense like, for example, meditating on ugliness when you really realize your attachment is coming up. Report an error

52:23 Or in the sense of the agitation with the mess. I guess you would, maybe it's anger, so maybe you would think of some way of being compassionate, generating compassion. That would be the sort of second tier suturyana. Huh? Yeah? Did I get that right? Patience. Compassion for what? Compassion goes anger. Report an error

52:46 Right. And compassion, it's not an antidote to hatred? Patience. That's right. No, you're right, because I just heard that I'm driving up, actually, from John C. Chodron. Patience. Report an error

53:03 Well, that's the same as hatred. Yeah. No, she's right. You're correct. Because I was just listening to it, actually. But compassion also, of course, can be an antidote. Report an error

53:19 Right. Report an error

53:27 You can't generate compassion. Yeah. Report an error

53:35 That's right. Report an error

53:42 So here's a good example. So with agitation, which is anger. Yeah. Report an error

53:47 And you just say, I'm not going to get angry. In a way, that's what Venerable Kara was saying, was the first stage of patience. Just don't do it. But then it transforms into actual patience. Report an error

53:57 That would be the second tier of that sutrayana approach. The third tier, which is what we say is vajrayana, which is not even worth, you don't even need to say the word, but it's about transformation. It actually transforms. It transforms into qualities. The anger itself, it's actually working with that energy, transforms. Report an error

54:18 It actually increases one's patience to a higher level, I think. Anyway, compassion. Report an error

54:29 Because none of it really happens without a view of reality anyway. The rest are just stop gaps. They don't actually purify the imprints. Report an error

54:39 In other words, just being patient is good, but it doesn't actually get rid of the affliction. Make sense? Report an error

55:10 Okay. Report an error

55:14 So the highest level will be, think about this, can you imagine that process in the future, six months from now, six years from now, where actually you're enjoying the fact that it's coming up, and then what is it going to become? What quality is that going to develop in you? And what does that guy look like? You know what I mean? You don't have to say it, but you see, that's the transformative quality. Report an error

55:44 You're like, wow, now I'm this person rather than that guy. You know what I mean? Wow, that's like huge. Because those qualities exist, but they're dormant. That's what I was trying to say, is they activate these dormant qualities. In the beginning, they're just blocking. Then in the second, there's curiosity. But the third, where they're really transformative, is when they really awaken that other quality of rich, right? Report an error

56:08 You know, those other qualities that are in there, that don't get activated. Does that make sense? Is that helpful? I'm just saying yes. Report an error

56:21 Yes. Yeah. Report an error

· · ·

56:56 That's exactly what it is. That's right. And doesn't purify or get rid of the bodhicitta. I think so. you know, you never get quite Report an error

· · ·

57:24 structure in place that accept. Yes. Report an error

57:34 Yes. Report an error

57:38 I think that's what we're talking about, about the capacity of beings. That's why Buddha taught ethics. That's why ethics do exist. Because that makes sense. In fact, His Holiness always says, isn't it great there's different religions? I guess the way he describes religion is that which is morality. Report an error

58:01 the very basis of this teaching morality is in this Report an error

58:10 move on, I'm trying to get to, that's all, embrace the problems, but that's a good picture. Report an error

58:18 a fox and a rooster. Oh. It's hard to see. We'll have to find another one. Report an error

58:28 that's what I'm doing. Okay. What's that? Oh. . . Report an error

58:38 So this is where we left off, right? Is this where we left office last time? Yes. Yeah, you have a choice. Okay, we'll go through quickly. Okay, Report an error

58:54 again, I don't know if I want to dwell too much on this because everyone here has a form of practice, but as a way of getting this practical, you know, making it practical for people, non-Bruce, you know, I have to try and think of what is it we do? You know, what is it when you think, when I think about when I have, This has to do with those hot button triggers, okay? So using your trigger, for example. I think it's really helpful. Report an error

59:23 You have a choice. The first thing is having a choice. And so I think that this has to do with being human. I call it being human. And when we're not exercising choice, what are we doing instead? Instinct. Reactivity. We're just reacting. And it's sort of embarrassing to think about, but when we think about from when we got up this morning to now, how much of that time were we not in reactivity? Report an error

1:00:01 Which means to me, how much of that time were you exercising choice, which is to be freedom, which to me is being human. I really think that's the primary... Report an error

1:00:17 emphasis behind that teaching on a perfect human reader. really been trying to analyze, I always spend time analyzing Long Rim in terms of what specific is the Long Rim, because it was directed for all living beings, it wasn't just for Tibet. It's written in a sort of Tibetan model or Tibetan frame. I think it had to do a lot with it in the way maybe Tibetan style. But of course it was Indian too, right, in terms of the teachers' thinking. Report an error

1:00:47 But maybe as modern people, we might not exactly come at it from the same angle, but each lamrim topic, I believe, is centered, is focused on confronting a basic human misconception. I think we could go through a whole lamrim about it. Maybe we don't need to say, many exact outlines are not the right way for us, but I think perfect human rebirth has the fact that we're not living as humans. Report an error

1:01:16 We have a human mind that's not living as a human potential. I don't want to be blasphemous, so I hope I'm not saying anything wrong. But I think it's whatever we need to get to that, because actually also the Holom Rim is designed, I believe, to help us see reality, actually. Report an error

1:01:37 So I think this human quality has a perfect human labor, a precious human labor. It has to do with the fact that we're not human. We're not exercising on human mentality, not just being human. It's about, and one of the things I think is counter to being human is being just a reactive animal. Report an error

1:02:05 You know, we just go, you know, I don't even preach in the choir, but we think about how much of our time is not in the activity. That time to me seems more to be human. So. When all of a sudden you come up against an authority situation, you just react, right? That's what we're talking about. You see the mess, you just react. So that's not being human. Animals can do that. Anything can do that. Report an error

1:02:38 So here's like one, here I am again in this particular situation. That alone is exercising choice, I think. I don't have to be that way. That's what this first thing is. It's about creating a gap. Make sense? You have a choice. The first step is always the fact that I have a choice. It's always funny. I was, where was I? Something. I wish I could remember the instance. Report an error

1:03:09 But you know, people say, well, you know, you should be angry. You've got a right to be angry. People say that all the time. You have a right to be angry. Yeah, that guy cut you off. You should get angry. Yeah, get in front of them. Tell me. Teach them a lesson. Right? Then Report an error

1:03:36 the laboratory. Yeah. You can see that. Let's apologize, right? But you should do it. Report an error

1:03:57 It's really fun when you go in. So step two is the lab. This is a mistake. This is a mistake. I have fixed this. I have fixed one. Step two is what's happening. And I think I haven't fixed it on this one. Meaning, that's just that, in terms of the mind type practice, you identify the emotion. You just gotta name it. Because you create the gap, it will unreact it. I don't have to. Report an error

1:04:32 I can be human. So then you have to say, well, what was happening? And become more familiar with our minds through naming the emotion. Without judgment, it's really around that practice, mindless practice, or the kasha practice, where emotions arise, you just name it. Report an error

1:04:53 But what's interesting about this step is why I think it's maybe, maybe it's basic for a lot of us, but you know, normally people don't know what their emotions are. They don't even know it's an emotion. Report an error

1:05:07 didn't even say things, it's so funny, well was this my care for you, that's why I told you, just my care about you, we that all the time. Report an error

1:05:18 That's not what this number two is. It's like being, it's being accountable and knowing that, oh, my mind's adjectives. People learning that their minds are adjectives, then he will then know what is meant by suffering because he doesn't have control over his mind. Report an error

1:05:35 So that's the two. So three is the lab. Now it had to do with that, it's A, B, C, D method and I add it in B. We did this last time, right? Report an error

1:05:47 This is for people who don't have experience with their own minds. So this is a very nice, easy way to begin to turn them inward. And we can do it. ABCD, then you can take it out from here. Report an error

1:06:09 It's very basic, but a way for you to help. So the slides cover A, B, C, D, but I can just walk you through it. So I'll explain it first and then we'll just do it. So A, when you're talking to people, A stands for anatomy. So it just has to do with the body and you can instruct people that the main thing around the body is their feet, they're usually in chairs, their feet are flat on the floor. Report an error

1:06:18 and then Report an error

1:06:36 Their hands are just easily resting on their knees or their lap. And the main point is that the back is straight. That's all that really matters. And then I usually say that the crown of the head is in line with the tailbone. And they need to instruct people that they can have their eyes gently closed or slightly open. Report an error

1:07:04 How many people meditate with their eyes open? Report an error

1:07:10 That's what happens to me. it with the open. Report an error

1:07:12 I never ever did it with my eyes open. I thought it was distracting. You don't find distracting. Report an error

1:07:24 Yeah. I know. I know. Then I just, but he says, because of, because of tiredness or, Report an error

1:07:44 yeah, that's what Alan, Report an error

1:07:55 yeah, you know, I was saying, yeah, a couple of months ago when Alan Wallace was in Vajrapani. Do you read that? That's the first time I heard the reason why to have them open. It did make sense. Report an error

1:08:13 You're supposed to be beyond, it's not about, beyond the visual, the focus is on the mental activity. But my eyes get very dry too. I can't do it. I can have them a little open. Report an error

1:08:30 No, that's what the problem is. My Report an error

1:08:37 eyes are burning. Yeah. Your eyes are actually, yeah. It doesn't happen to you. Will your eyes dry out or hurt? Report an error

1:08:51 I see. Report an error

1:09:14 Yeah, I mean, the object is not to have anything outside. Your focus is not outside. It's just the eyes are not an issue, basically, is what it is. Okay, you got that for A for anatomy? B stands for breathing. In this case, breathing is the anchor of the attention. but I, Report an error

· · ·

1:09:37 It's completely neutral. Report an error

1:09:43 The focus is either the abdomen or the nostrils. There's a third choice, but we don't teach it in this one in typical. Just to make sure you know, this is for lay people. This is not a highly technical approach. So that's B. And the other thing about with the breathing, I sometimes explain to people that it's as if you're watching traffic from a high building. Report an error

1:10:05 If the traffic's light or if it's heavy, you can't do anything about it. You're just observing. Report an error

1:10:12 C stands for counting. And for beginners, it's very important to count. The counting in this case is on the exhalation or right at the gap between the inhalation and exhalation. And the reason that we count the exhalation, I don't know if you've heard, is because when the mind wanders, it tends to wander on the exhalation. Report an error

1:10:37 on the inhalation, tends to be distracting for some reason. So adding the counting there, so when you exhale you count one, next exhale two, next exhale three, up to ten, and then you go in reverse, ten, nine, eight, round one, and you do three rounds. And believe it or not, it takes about five to seven minutes. And by the way, this... Report an error

1:11:07 Practice takes 10 minutes. People do it at their offices and stuff, in groups. I'm doing it in groups. Report an error

1:11:19 So the counting goes for three rounds of 10. 10 up, 10 back. Sorry, 1 through 10 up, 10 through 1 backwards, and you do that three times. And you only have to start over if you completely lose count. Completely track of the counting. And if you, there's time left in what we suggested, you drop the counting for the last two or three minutes and just focus on the breath. Report an error

1:11:49 But again, these are beginning, so people even have a hard time doing that for two or three minutes. So that's C. And D stands for distractions. And here's the big difference between normally what's taught and mindfulness practice, is that in this practice, distractions are your practice. Report an error

1:12:11 Meaning, yeah, people have to be told that you're going to get distracted and what you're trying to do is catch the distractions when they arise. And then just note it, distraction, and bring it back to the breath. It's amazing how difficult it is to do that. People either then go with the distraction, mind wander, or they do a lot of judgment. Report an error

1:12:33 God, I can't even concentrate for a moment. So they don't even know what distraction is, learning what distraction is. Yeah, so that's the job. So it's really a meditation on distraction. So let's just do it for a minute so you get familiar with it. Okay? I mean, in this approach. So, yeah. So feet flat, back straight, and then also you just do a quick scan of about two seconds. Report an error

1:13:02 If you find any tension, you just let it go. Report an error

1:13:12 Then you identify the anchor of the breath at the abdomen or the nostrils. If it's very agitated, then we suggest using the abdomen and Report an error

1:13:25 counting on the exhalation 1, exhalation 2, up to 10, between 10, 9, 8, 7, and 1. And then your job is, if you lose complete count, you start over, but the main job is to catch the distractions and note them, and then go back to the counting, to the breath. Okay, we'll just do it for a few minutes. Report an error

· · ·

1:18:39 So this is simple. And you can share with anybody. The E, which I've added, which is E for examining or inquiry, is to add, you know, now to begin to add, looking at different aspects of reality, different qualities of the mind, to think about the long rim. Mainly the inquiries are going to, not the main, but to begin with around impermanence, for example. And the way that I do that is actually help Report an error

1:19:16 Looking at, rather than just impermanence as a topic, I try to just move the focus, since they're already focusing on the breath of the mind, I just focus on the impermanence of the mind, or unsatisfactoriness, which is a normal ripassional practice, but it's not very taught very often. The dissatisfactory quality of the mind, for example, things like that. Or the suffering, you help people just to... Report an error

1:19:43 Keep the mindfulness going, but just shift the topic of focus. Does that make sense? In fact, I think that's the big thing with our analytical meditations that we do. It's not to lose your focus. I think with analytical meditations, like Lamrim and things like that, it's actually generate that insight we were talking about earlier, and then once you get the insight, you leave the conceptual analyzing. Report an error

1:20:08 I think all those are just ways to help us get that insight. Okay? Report an error

1:20:16 To hold me. It's kind of, sorry, say again. Yeah, as holding. It just means not to wait. Okay, so, yeah, so let's. No, no, that's, you drop the sentence. You drop the technique. You drop the conceptual technique. And, like, you get a feeling. Let's just say precious human reason. Excuse me? Report an error

1:20:52 Yes. Yeah. And then you hone in on it. You hold it. Actually, if it focuses on it, it expands, right? Report an error

1:21:09 Right. Report an error

1:21:21 Yeah. Report an error

1:21:31 Well, as we get better at the other way, as we get better at, like, just straight proportionate, shamatha meditation. For example, you notice... Your mind gets distracted, right? You get better and better at that. And then you notice there's more subtle and subtle distractions, right? So when we say hold that insight, you know, the way you hold it is there's a part of the mind, the attentiveness of the mind that notices a distraction coming in or notices it's getting distracted. Report an error

1:22:06 So the way you hold it is you actually, it's held naturally by being aware of the distractions that are going to pull you away. Does that make sense? Yes, exactly. It's just a different, it's just another level. Report an error

1:22:25 Yes, but a better way to say it is you're just choosing a different topic of focus. In the other one, we're using the breath. Report an error

1:22:38 And you notice distractions coming that distract you from focusing the breath, right? You get better at it. Now all you're doing, there's no difference, the exact same practice, but instead of the breath, it's that insight that you had. Report an error

1:23:11 There's still a mental image. Well, are you saying it's difficult because it's still conceptual? Report an error

1:23:27 Have you ever had the feeling, oh my God, I could not wake up tomorrow morning. Have you ever had that? That's what we're talking about. Yeah, so oh my God. So the only thing about... was Report an error

1:23:40 Forget about holding it. Forget about that. Lose that language for a second because that's not working for you. Don't get distracted from that. Report an error

1:23:52 No. No. No. Oh, you are. Report an error

1:24:00 Yes. But when you're in the insight, without being too technical, okay? When you're in the insight, you're not being conceptual. Report an error

1:24:14 Correct? That's what I think of as insight. It's like the bare experience. Now, I want to say something. It's not completely that easy, but it's more that than the conceptual thinking. There's not the thinking thing going on. Okay? You know what I mean? So now, just don't get distracted from that. That's the holding. So maybe holding is not the right word for you. Report an error

1:24:38 Because it can seem like squeezing. Report an error

1:24:47 Yes? Report an error

1:25:07 Okay. Report an error

1:25:15 Yeah. Yeah, well, when I say holding, to me they're holding, but you don't have to use that, if that's not the right word, it's fine. You know, if you look at, for example, well this gets more technical, if you talk about shamatha, you know, the reason that most of the mindfulness teachings are incomplete, in my mind, is because they're not actually teaching, they come from shamatha practice. Report an error

1:25:50 They come from practicing the, Technically traditional, developing a single point of concentration. And developing a single point of concentration, we talk about three mental factors that are active, that are used. Focus, concentration, attention and discernment. Those are mental factors. So forget about the holding. Report an error

1:26:13 Just keep those three working and that enhances your mindfulness, enhances your concentration, enhances your awareness. Because concentration is there, attention is there, discernment is there, and what does that create? Awareness. So I don't know what they're doing, but I think what you're talking about, that to me is holding. Report an error

1:26:35 Okay, forget holding. Those three working together is kind of, for me, holding. But maybe a better way of saying it's increasing your awareness. Because distraction is not taking over as much, which there's many kinds of challenges, but generally it's laxity or excitability, right? Those are not taking over as much. So that's what I mean by holding. But it's maybe better to think of it as a negative rather than as a positive. Right? Report an error

1:27:02 It's the absence of distraction. Report an error

1:27:14 It's refinement. It's constant refining because there's subtle laxity and there's subtle excitability. Report an error

1:27:24 No, no, no. He's not saying so what? Uh-uh, not at all. He's saying so what to the approach. He doesn't want us to use that. That approach that we're talking, because it's still Buddhist teachings, but it's a teaching, I'm generalizing, but it's generally a teaching of the Theravāda approach. Report an error

1:27:44 That's not his style. Does it make sense? It's getting more confusing. Report an error

1:27:54 That's how I see it. No, no, no, no. I like the way you phrased it. It is a so what. It's not his emphasis. you know, and he's Report an error

1:28:10 It's not as emphasis for a lot of things that are still practices, you know? A lot of things, you know? Well, maybe it was helpful. Was it helpful? Report an error

1:28:37 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error

1:28:46 All right. A lot of doubt. Wait a minute. Report an error

1:29:01 Oh, distractions. This is one thing to remember. Distractions are always considered, it's not, okay, so I have a listen, I'm not going to use one thing. Report an error

1:29:12 When we're distracted, this might be helpful. It's going to be a distraction through one of the five senses or the mental sense. It's not simple, but there's no other distraction. There's no other place to label it. Usually we don't really think about that. Report an error

1:29:41 And then the last fourth step is take action. So if you're, let's say, I don't know, a messy thing. I know we're going back in time, but let's say your kids are like there, somewhere there. So you go through this and you know the setting up the lab with the breathing and all that? The idea is to extrapolate for what works in your situation. Obviously you're driving, you're not going to close your eyes. But it's about that gap. The first thing is a choice that creates a gap. Report an error

1:30:15 The second thing is, oh, this is what's really happening. I'm really getting pissed off. It's my anger, right? My agitation. And then the third one is... You know, you have to do some sort of intervention. An intervention in this case is about a mindfulness type of a practice, which just using the breath has an effect on the nervous system. Report an error

1:30:37 It just does. So whether, you know, you go, you know, it's hard, but you think, okay, hang on a second, and just go and just think about this breath for three breaths, five breaths, ten breaths, whatever. Obviously, you know, I often use the example that you're about to have a meeting at your office when you work, and it's with that person that always agitates you. Report an error

1:31:00 You know that guy, right? Whatever. Never stops talking, doesn't get so aware of his actions, takes the last donut, right? Report an error

1:31:13 And so then, you know he's coming or she's coming into your office in three minutes. Three minutes, yeah. Three minutes is a long time still in a way. You can still do all these steps and you do three or four, five breaths. And it changes the whole experience, the relationship with this. Okay? And a lot of times I've added this let go because I think that it's important for people to go, you know, this is just a blip in time. Report an error

1:31:42 Move on. Let it go. There's some examples in the book about that, but I like to let go. Okay, now. Report an error

1:31:55 Yeah, you like that? Report an error

1:32:01 know, is it Ricky? No, it's not. one of those guys. Report an error

1:32:09 Of Report an error

1:32:14 course, the human mind has both positive and negative sides, but the negative is transient, very temporary. Your up and down emotions are like clouds in the sky. Beyond them, the real... Basic human nature is clear and pure. That's what we're talking about now. Report an error

1:32:37 I mentioned this earlier, but now you think about how many times do we think about us who are educated and then take everyone else in the world. First of all, what percentage of the population even knows the idea that basic human nature is clear and pure? Report an error

1:32:59 No, it's infinitesimal how many people might really. From a religious point of view, say, well, you know, I know it's my soul is this or that. But they don't really believe. Or if they believe it, it's not really accessible. Report an error

1:33:14 And this is what Lama Yeshe is saying. No, this is accessible. And I think that's what Buddhist teachings are about, right? These are accessible. And this is your sort of, our birthright. Okay? And so, that transience is, again, another thing that the myth we live under is a myth of criminals. Report an error

1:33:38 Oh. Report an error

1:33:42 So it's good that Carol's not here right now. Report an error

1:33:48 Now you've taken a lot of teachings from Geshe-la and other people, right? So now this is a, now remember, this kind of class, this class, this seminar is designed for both boos and non-boos. Report an error

1:34:02 And so people are always asking, well, let's look at this, and it's very important. So what is the mind, first of all, what's the definition of mind? Report an error

1:34:20 I know Carol knows, that's why I'm glad she's not here. Can you send me a text message please? If you send a text message, that would be cheating. That's interesting. so that Report an error

1:34:54 She's laughing in there. That's good, Carol. Thank you. Report an error

1:35:04 So you're describing its qualities. You might be describing its qualities. You might be. And I asked you for the definition. I'm glad you're taking the chance. Report an error

1:35:15 No, no. You'll know it after this. Report an error

1:35:23 Yeah, but see now, this is what's unique about About Buddhist teachings, everything has a definition because how can you talk about something of these topics if we don't know what we're talking about? It's like you always say, oh, you don't believe in a soul. And I say, well, define it for me. And then I'll tell you if I believe in it or not. We're very sloppy with our concepts and words, actually. Report an error

1:35:49 Physicists are less sloppy. But that's kind of, we're actually, we're actually. Demanding on ourselves that we be more like physicists, scientists, and less rigorous. Report an error

1:36:11 We have to have a certain level of discipline. The reason we have this discipline is that when we're actually meditating, we have this at our fingertips. We're not confused. That's why we need this. This is for meditation and for developing the mind. Now, the definition of the mind is that which is clear. Report an error

1:36:31 Well, no. The definition of mine is that it's clear and known. And let's expand on that. It's clear and known. So another word for clear sometimes that they use instead is it's luminous, which I find amazing words. I don't really know what it means. Report an error

1:36:51 There's nothing I haven't read and tried to figure it out, but I think that luminous means it illuminates. Okay? So it illuminates things that it comes into contact with. Report an error

1:37:03 Like a candle in the dark. And then it knows. Now knowing is the traditional word, it's clear and knowing, but you know what that, I think it's easier way for me anyway, the thing about knowing is it's experiences. Report an error

1:37:20 It's a little different flavor than knowing. Because knowing is like, I know Spanish, but I don't know French, right? And we can tend to mean knowing in that way. It's not that kind of knowing. It's actually cognizing or experiencing. All knowing. All knowing? Report an error

1:37:40 I'm not sure what that means. Buddha's mind is all known? Oh, Buddha's mind. No, we're talking about mind. Mind. Mind. Mind. Mind. Mind is all known? Report an error

1:37:52 Carol? No, that's different. No, we're talking about the definition of mind. And the definition is clear and knowing. I'm using different words for clear and different words for knowing. And then Rich said, oh, it's one of the terms all known. I've never heard. But that's Buddha. That's Buddha. That's our potential. But not how, in the definition, we don't say all known. Report an error

1:38:23 Never? Look, look. But potential, yeah. But we're not talking about potential. That's right. Yeah, the definition. If you want to know what a mind is, you wouldn't say a mind is all known. It has potential to be all known. It has a potential to lots of things. But the mind is clear and knowing, and we don't like those words particularly, which are luminous. Report an error

1:38:44 experience, a prognizer, a prognizer. Report an error

1:38:53 That's not a definition. That's a synonym. Right? And consciousness is a synonym. But consciousness doesn't tell you what it is. It doesn't define it either. People can still say, well, you know, the light is consciousness, for example. It could say. You have to know what the definition is. Report an error

1:39:15 Okay? So, are plants mine? Why? Report an error

1:39:26 You can't cognize. You can't experience. So when you hold a lamp up to a plant and it moves towards it, isn't that cognizing? Report an error

1:39:41 Why not? It's just a reaction. Know it. There's nothing there that knows it. Report an error

1:39:53 Well, Report an error

1:39:58 if... Well... Does a moth have choice? Somewhat. Somewhat. But the moth moves to the light, doesn't know if it's a sun or a lamp. No, but it has a choice to move towards the light towards the sun. It does? Why doesn't it exercise a choice? It just flies into the flame and burns up. Report an error

1:40:27 How is that different than the plant? It's not really that much. Well, that's not rigorous enough. You can't say not that much difference. We have to define, think of what is the characteristic of different. Report an error

1:40:53 Dogs analyze? Really? The moth analyzes? Oh, there's a flame that's going to burn me up. I don't want to be burned. Report an error

1:41:05 Well, the plant isn't at the level we do either. So it analyzes like a moth at its levels. Report an error

1:41:20 Very cute. I like that. Report an error

1:41:25 Well, how I think it works is it was really funny. I didn't quite get what Lama Zopa meant by this, but someone had this exact same argument that plants were sentient, living beings, because they reacted to the light. Report an error

1:41:47 Carol, are you listening? You've got to hear this. remember A person was saying to Lama Zopa Rinpoche that plants were sentient because, you know, they react to the light. You know, when the light is near, then they react. And he said, this is a true story. He said, well, when someone farts near you, you react. Report an error

1:42:14 Because that doesn't mean the fart is sentient. I couldn't believe it. I think he just wanted to say it because I was thinking of logic. I didn't quite get it. Report an error

1:42:26 Anyway, so reaction is not a definition of a mind, right? I mean, you're right, Rich, it's not a mind. But we have to think about why it's not a mind. Things react all the time. Computers react, right? Well, that's right. The definition is clear and knowing, clear and cognizant, which means clear and experiencing. And my guess is there's no clear in there, for one thing. Report an error

1:42:53 In other words, there may be something reaction, but there's no experiencer. There's no one to say, ouch. So that's one thing about the moth. It does say ouch. And the moth says ouch. I like this. I don't like that. And the plant may like the sunlight, the light over here. But there's no one in there saying, I like the sunlight. Report an error

1:43:18 It feels good. I'm moving there. Now, here's the really important part. We don't actually know that, do we? We've just been told that. Report an error

1:43:28 So we're just going on. Faith at that point. But then they always talk about, well, don't kill plants because there can be living beings that embody the plant. Well, of course, a lot of living beings on the plant. But there are certain kinds of spirits and things like that that take on plants as their home. Report an error

1:43:46 But it's very interesting. If you kill that plant that's housing one of those, like a spirit or whatever. It's interesting. You don't actually kill the spirit, right? It's more like you destroy its home. You don't separate its consciousness from its body because it's not its body. It may suffer a lot because it might identify it as its body, but it doesn't take another rebirth. Yeah, it chases you. Report an error

1:44:13 It's pissed off at you. It can happen. Okay, so let's keep going so we say that we got somewhere before lunch. Report an error

1:44:25 Okay. So the mind is clear like the sky, obscured by afflictions, delusions, mental disorders. It's obscure. Basic nature is pure and clear. That's amazing. Now, the other thing about the mind that's good to know is that it is an impermanent phenomenon. There's the definition of those two bullets. It's beginningless. Report an error

1:44:53 It's formless. And you ask people this all the time. Is the mind... Atomic or non-atomic? Molecular or non-molecular? Report an error

1:45:09 You don't know what that means. Good point. Report an error

1:45:15 Is it made up of atoms or not made up of atoms? Just to make it healthier. No. No. Okay. Correct. That is the definition of formlessness. Well, not the definition, but that's the quality of formlessness. If something has form, Report an error

1:45:35 on some level it has atoms and atoms. Some level. Okay? It was really funny in Mexico. I would ask this question about the mind. What is the mind? You have to have different things, right? Well, and some of you say, well, it's energy. And I said, but it's formless. He said, yeah, it's formless energy. Report an error

1:45:59 Think about that. It's really fascinating. Formless energy. You just have to use your logic to say, that's a pretty common thought these days. The mind is energy. You just have to ask, well, what's energy? Report an error

1:46:19 I'll use it at that point. If you think about it, when they mean energy, what do people mean? Report an error

1:46:32 It's a force, it's something. Now, that force, is it, something you say, is it formless? If it's force, doesn't it have to be form? Report an error

1:46:49 Okay, if it's force, yeah, but in this case, just talk about form or formlessness. I say form. How many say form? You said form. How many say form was this? Okay. Oh, but is that the definition of form? Is that it has to be visible? What's the definition of form? Ah, it's the definition for everything. Okay, we typically say atoms. That's right. Report an error

1:47:19 That's the way I use it. Report an error

1:47:24 Ah, now we're getting more disciplined. Report an error

1:47:32 So it's form. So is it form? Something that has parts, is form or not? Can something formlessness have parts? Yeah? Okay. You guys are all over the place. You guys are very quiet. Report an error

1:47:54 Okay. Parts. What are you doing? Where are you going? It's not in that book. Report an error

1:48:11 We're not going to lunch until we figure this out. Yeah. Okay. So. Report an error

1:48:20 Where were we? I was on energy, energy and visible. Okay, now it's very important to know, at least from the Buddhist physics, what is form? Report an error

1:48:35 What's their definition? Okay, so one way of saying form is that which obstructs. Report an error

1:48:45 You think about the mind, it doesn't obstruct, right? But another way, easier way to distinguish. Report an error

1:49:02 special, obstruct me. Report an error

1:49:08 That's a different use of the word obstruct, right? Report an error

1:49:14 Yeah, but not in the way that Report an error

1:49:24 it gets... That's different obstructions, yeah. Really the term obstruction means it gets... Well, let me give you a different way of looking at it and then you'll see what obstruction means. Is aroma obstructive or not? Report an error

1:49:56 It takes up space. Obstruction in this sense means taking up space. The obstruction you're talking about, like I'm obstructed from realizing emptiness by my ignorance, doesn't take up space. It does obstruct you in that use of the word. But now, it'll make it even easier. This is really interesting. So now think about, you said something about invisible form. Report an error

1:50:23 Right. So what makes it form? That's one thing. The other thing that makes it form, and this is a really easy definition, is anything we perceive with our five senses, which I never knew before, some years ago. Report an error

1:50:46 That's right. It is made up of atoms, too. And take this one even further. Take this one, just because you don't see. We're so hung up on the visual sense. We're so dominated by it. Our other senses are really pretty undeveloped compared to our visual. Report an error

1:51:06 uh... So the one that got me was sound, like the music coming from over there. I thought, that's form? But it has to be, because I'm perceiving it with one of my five senses, right? And then it was explained to me by physics that, yes, it is form. It's waves made up of molecules, protons. I mean, it's smaller than molecules. Report an error

1:51:32 Yeah, of course. Report an error

1:51:40 Yeah. Yes? What do you think? Right. Report an error

1:52:11 experience with it. Report an error

1:52:40 Almost nothing still can be something, right? Almost nothing is very important. Subtle. Okay, now, this is a good point. So subtle, if something is subtle, it does not mean it's not formed. It just means subtle. Now, let me help you out a little further. So energy, sometimes I don't even know what it means, but let's say we know what it means between you and me. How is it experienced? Report an error

1:53:10 How is it known? How is energy known? Report an error

1:53:19 Okay, what experiences energy? Report an error

1:53:25 No, what I mean is, how do you experience, we say we experience energy, right? Or someone experiences energy, right? How do they experience it? Through what? How is it? Report an error

1:53:36 What medium? Report an error

1:53:56 That would be a mental energy, right? Or you're feeling the vibes. So you've got to distinguish. I mean, there could be, which one are you, which one, we're not clear. This is the point. No, we're not clear. Report an error

1:54:15 Yeah. Because that's what I meant about how we're sloppy. We're very sloppy in our concepts and our language. Now, if you're talking about energy, and a lot of times people talk about energy like electricity, for example. right. Report an error

1:54:27 As energy, right? Is electricity form or formless? Yes. Yes. It's experienced through your tactile sense. So it's atomic at some level. It's molecular or it's protonic. It's form. The other way of saying it, is it measurable? Yeah. So it's form. Now when you're talking about going into the gopa and I feel the energy is very peaceful, that's actually a misconception. Report an error

1:55:06 In the sense that you're experiencing peaceful, you're having a peaceful emotion, feeling, based on your previous experience. It's not really in the gompa. Report an error

1:55:28 It's not saying that there's not something going on, but what's going on... Right, but you know what... Say it again. No, no, just say that last one. The what? Report an error

1:55:44 The what? What's the second word? Molecules. It's form. I agree with you. Report an error

1:55:55 Right. So there's sense, you're having a sensation through one of your five senses. Probably you're tactile. I don't know. It could be a visual. I don't know. But probably tactile. Just because it's subtle doesn't mean it's not form. You know what? When we die, what happens? The consciousness leaves the body, right? Report an error

1:56:18 But did you know there's a subtle body, a wind, an energy? That's form also. It's so subtle people can't even perceive it. Hardly measurable. It'll be measurable someday. Report an error

1:56:30 They do say that, what's that in movies? You know, they say that you're lighter when a dead body is a little lighter than, they have seven ounces of, yeah. Report an error

1:56:42 But it makes sense. I don't know if the instruments are sensitive enough. But when they're sensitive enough, it should be. A little lighter because that subtle body, subtle wind, subtle energy. In theory, it's measurable. Report an error

1:57:03 Yeah. Those meters. Yeah. In theory, they should be able to measure them because it's form. Whether they're sensitive or not, I don't know. Okay, so now we know form. This is very important, actually, for figuring things out about what's happening in our minds and not. Okay? So... Now, I mentioned to you that the five senses of the five, these senses are what they perceive only form. The mental sense, there's a sixth sense, right? Report an error

1:57:38 The mental sense, that perceives formlessness because it's perceiving the mind, the qualities of the mind. Like when you say, oh, I feel good in this room. That's the mental sense perceiving a mental phenomenon. Okay? Yeah, I decided a long time ago. Report an error

1:58:03 How do you experience? How is it experienced? So that means that people experience energy purely in their minds. What kind of energy are you talking about? That's mental. But then we're using the word energy in not the classical sense. Classically energy is like electricity, is energy. Report an error

1:58:37 Well, so that was molecular that you have a relation. By the way, just because there's... Form and formless, it doesn't mean there's not a relationship. I didn't say there wasn't a dependency. But when you say I feel really good energy from that, that would be a mental experience, that energy. Report an error

1:59:05 Because the effects on your tactile from the quality of that form, yeah. Report an error

1:59:27 But that has, yeah. Report an error

1:59:41 When everyone goes in that room, Mm-hmm. Report an error

1:59:45 The mind is cognizing, everyone's mind is cognizing all the qualities in that room. So the relics, you know. But the awareness of it is different. Awareness is based on previous predispositions. So some people might only go, God, this feels creepy in here. It's not that the relics are creepy. They are just that neutral energy. Well, whatever that energy is. Subtle or... Report an error

2:00:14 Or soft, or who knows. But people's experience varies. That's predispositions. Report an error

2:00:27 It's amazing. Report an error

2:00:37 When was it? When was this? When? On May. Report an error

2:01:08 Wow. it was not small. Report an error

2:01:09 Wow. It was like, everybody was like, crying. And I was like, bang, bang. Report an error

2:01:18 That's amazing. Report an error

2:01:23 sheep is surprised. Okay, is this a good place to break for lunch? Report an error

2:01:31 We're slated to beginning at 1 or so. Then I'm going to really push. I want to get to new stuff. Well, this is a little new, right? This part now, finally. Was the review okay or was it too slow? Okay. and, you know, we can... Report an error

2:01:46 I know. No, we didn't. Oh, yeah, right. Brain is old. Okay? Okay. Okay. Report an error

2:01:59 Okay, we better start now, then. Report an error

2:02:06 No, can you fit in an hour? Good. Stay, if that's okay. Besides, there's lunch. And then you can't feel too guilty if you leave right after lunch, so. Report an error

2:02:17 true. Report an error

2:02:21 It was even more shocking because it was such a quiet moment that all of a sudden he jumped because of the apartment. What's that? Oh, yeah. He's in the chair. Report an error

2:02:40 Smells so good. Report an error

2:02:53 What's Report an error

2:03:15 that? I am here? No? Report an error

2:03:27 You work for Google? No. I have a friend that works for Google and I gave him one and he said, how is it then? But I couldn't resist. Well, you know what you can do on your, because you can put location, right? You can always tell where your location is. Report an error

2:03:49 but I mean just I put it on Yeah, I'm here. I like that. Report an error

2:03:57 Carol, do you need any help? I got a member of the message. Report an error

2:04:19 you're all right. Report an error

· · ·

2:06:42 here. Report an error

· · ·

2:07:13 not bad. Yeah. Do you know how to tune it? Oh, it's on Star. Report an error

· · ·

3:09:50 If you have no object, so when you think about, when you see your house, your room at home, is that seeing your room? Report an error

3:10:02 No, because it's not an object. It's a mental perception of it, but it's not the room, right? It's a You following me? Report an error

3:10:13 The point is, if one of these three is missing, we don't have an experience. That was the point. Pretty simple. But that's something we don't think about much. Report an error

3:10:27 Give me an example. Yeah, but you have all three then. You have your mental consciousness, your mental sense organ, so to speak, and the object being a concept. Report an error

3:10:45 Not an object, but the eye, sorry, the eye organ. Well, but that's great now, I mean, I can experience but I can also experience... Report an error

3:10:57 Yes. Report an error

3:11:03 You have these three. You have these three. No, we're in agreement. We're not disagreeing. What I'm saying is you don't have an experience. I don't see it in my mind. not, mean, I'm not having Report an error

3:11:19 Let's go backwards. I probably wasn't clear. We don't have an experience if we don't have these three. These have to be functioning to have an experience. Your experience of your pink chair at home, you have these three. The mental image is the object. It doesn't have to be the physical object. No, but you're not seeing. Report an error

3:11:49 But you're not seeing a chair. Right? You're not seeing a chair. Report an error

3:11:59 No, because you're not using your eye organ. But you are having a conceptual experience of a chair. So that's all I meant. Go ahead. Report an error

3:12:09 Let's make clear what we're talking about. I want to keep it simple, too. We're a bunch of Buddhists, scholars. I'm just talking about experience. Now, think about people for a second. I like this discussion, but actually let's get clear what we're doing. What we're doing is we're just helping people understand what their world is. And that what happens is, I don't like that cup. Report an error

3:12:35 Okay, I don't like, that's right. And people, and so what we're trying to say is, we're trying to give people an appreciation that what they're perceiving doesn't exist the way it appears. So I'm trying, let's go back to simple, okay? So what we say is, Report an error

3:12:52 We identify the world according to out there. And then we make judgments about the world out there. Acuras are better than Lexus, right? We all know that. That kind of thing. And then you start thinking about it and you help people understand, well, what is the experience of the Acura? What is the experience of the Lexus? What is the experience of the pink chair? Report an error

3:13:09 Some people like pink chairs, some people like blue chairs. And the whole world revolves around it and that's where all the problems arise, right? All the problems arise because this thing exists there. Report an error

3:13:20 This thing, that cup exists there. And so what we're trying to do and what I'm trying to do is help break down all of our preconceptions. We're operating from a set of myths, a set of preconceptions, a set of pre-designed frames. And one of those frames in which this is trying to help people see is that things don't exist just objectively. This is a good way to start teaching people about dependent horizon for them. Report an error

3:13:50 Everyone goes, what do you mean dependent on that? I don't get it. Oh, well, this is dependent on that, and that's dependent on this. Okay, I get that. Why does it matter? Well, now it matters. Because I can't stand black people. I think... Sorry, I had to be provocative, right? I'm trying to, you know, be... Report an error

3:14:08 Okay, that is just an example. I can't stand white people. You know. I've got to be careful of that, but it's context. So I'm trying to be provocative. So I can't stand litter. Litter. How about litter? Everyone knows that litter is bad, right? But it's not bad, right? We can't say the litter is bad. No, because it's just an object. Report an error

3:14:39 And it doesn't exist without an eye organ. Okay, I got the litter, I got the eye organ. Okay, then you throw in the consciousness. OK, so really what the litter is, is this. So where is the litter, actually? And this becomes very interesting. Because I recently found out, according to, anyone know physics very well? Report an error

3:14:57 OK, so like the color of this carpet or the blue cushion, did you know where in the molecules or the protons is the color blue? Do you know? Report an error

3:15:18 Right. I just found out recently, and you probably knew this, that the protons don't have any color. I think there's no objective color. It's all translated in the mind, right? This blue. Yeah, I did. Report an error

3:15:38 Yes, of course I did. Well, I didn't realize the molecules, even though there's no physical color. I didn't know that. Report an error

3:15:51 Yeah. Well, I could see that there's no truly existent color. But then the same thing must hold for shape, too. Report an error

3:16:04 Yeah. So people are colorblind. They aren't colorblind. They're just, well, I mean, there's no color anyway, so how could they be blind? Report an error

3:16:18 I mean, it should be color, color, something in the mind thing. But blind implies the organ. Huh? Color element. Report an error

3:16:33 Yeah. Report an error

3:16:40 Well, I heard that if they, if they condense, just took all the space out and just had the matter, that it was like of the universe. Now, who knows what the universe they mean is, but... There was something like a nine-foot cube with all the matter would be, if you took out all the space, it would just be a nine. It's conceptually not possible, but, you know, it's an interesting, nine-foot cube is all the space, all the matter there is in the, is that possible? Report an error

3:17:05 Yeah, nucleus, Report an error

3:17:20 yeah. Report an error

3:17:29 That's so fascinating. Report an error

3:17:34 This is a tough crowd, though. You guys know too much. Nucleus. Report an error

3:17:49 Okay, I changed all this. Report an error

3:17:57 Okay, so the people familiar with Dan Siegel? We didn't do this last Sunday. We did do this? Let's move on. Okay, we'll do this real quick because it is interesting. Report an error

3:18:17 So now in terms of the research around the brain, because this is where the discussion usually goes, people think that often the mind is in the brain. And what's interesting between the mind and the brain? And they are, of course, interdependent for some reason. It's almost like the brain is an organ of the mind. I'm not going to go as far as saying that. Report an error

3:18:35 And Dan Siegel actually now doesn't talk about the brain. He talks about the embodied brain. He doesn't talk about the brain as this thing. Because he can't seem to find... A real differentiation, a clear enough differentiation between the function of the brain and the function of the nervous system. They're so interrelated that he doesn't feel that they should really be spoken about as separate, which I think is interesting. Report an error

3:19:01 And of course, if we look at the brain structure now, anyway, I'm not . What's that? Well, he's talking about them as different entities, and he likes talking about more as sort of one entity. Report an error

3:19:16 he is now Dan Siegel, why I'm respectful of him and actually quite fascinated by his work, is he has never approached the functioning of the brain through anything else but science. He never had any Buddhist content. He is not Buddhist. I've asked him directly. He hasn't even collaborated with Buddhists until the last few years. Report an error

3:19:48 um... And also, he used to, he still asks in his seminars, I mean a couple of them, he asks if the attendance of 10 people attend, for the most part are psychologists or psychotherapists, mental health workers, social workers, educators, and he always asks them, you know, what is your, Report an error

3:20:13 how many, have you ever received a definition of a mind? And of course, when a psychologist, you're a studier of the mind. Or a psychotherapist, you're a therapist, you're a curative person, there's curative practices of the mind. And of course, you know, he asks people to raise their hands and how many have received, you know, some sort of class of definition of mind. Report an error

3:20:38 And he says he's asked now 100,000 people. It's not nobody, but it's under 5%. And that's pretty... That's pretty pathetic. I mean, this is your profession. Imagine asking 100,000 heart surgeons if they know what the heart is, and 5 % say yes. You're pretty worried. No, exactly. So, but anyway, so there is a relationship, of course, between the mind and the brain. Report an error

3:21:09 And so it's a lot around this idea of, you know, when I was in, say, my psych degree, I think we were told in developmental psychology that the brain is fully formed by the age of... Yeah. Report an error

3:21:34 I heard seven and nine, so yeah, seven, eight, nine. Report an error

3:21:42 But then they say that's the end of the growth of the brain when they can do that. Well, of course, you know, now they know that... Because if you try to tell a child about death or something like before that age... Report an error

3:21:55 No, no, life, life. That's why they now use that term plasticity, because it's neuroplasticity, which continues to grow and change. We know that with Alzheimer's, because it's degenerating with Alzheimer's, the brain is changing still. Report an error

3:22:18 Right. There's a bunch of stuff on it. A really good one, if you really want to, it's funny the name of it, because... um... Report an error

3:22:24 Is Buddha's Brain? Have you heard of that book? Yeah, that's very good for explaining the basics of neuroscience and what's happening there. A lot of this stuff is taken from there. And that wasn't Dan Siegel, but he's all over the internet. And so, anyway, so maybe we don't need to discuss this too much. Report an error

3:22:46 It's just mainly that I think it's fascinating. If you think of mental activity, not brain activity, mental activity, like all those... The mental thoughts and dreams and schemes we had when we were young, those patterns of thought, those are what create neural pathways. Report an error

3:23:06 I think those are like ruts in the road. Then you go down the road enough time to keep you deeper and deeper ruts, which also explains, which the therapist and psychologist couldn't explain before, is if you have two, let's say two brothers who are twins going through the same experience, alcoholic dad, right? Report an error

3:23:26 Why would both of them grow up to be identical in a sense? One sees dad or getting ready for dad to come home and he gets nervous. You know when dad comes home, he likes his beer, he likes it cold. Remember, we're not supposed to talk to him for the first hour. Remember, he likes to sit down on that couch and get the newspaper, watch, put on the sports, ESPN, put the beer there. Report an error

3:23:52 Remember, you know, time up. But we know if they answer this topic. Report an error

3:23:54 That's what dad likes, so he doesn't get upset, doesn't get grumpy, doesn't get, you know, arming in. So there's one brother who gets very vigilant about making sure that everything's right, you know, don't, you know, walk around eggshells. And the other brother, what does he do? Five o 'clock, he heads over to his friend's house. Oh, there's dad? Okay, I'm out of here. Right? Screw him. Report an error

3:24:19 They both develop, so night after night they develop the same, they both have mental activity. Report an error

3:24:28 The data is the same, isn't it? The data is dad walking up the sidewalk or whatever it is. Different meaning, different neural pathways. I think, so that's what his thing about, what wires, wires together, wires together, because we're having all these mental activities, creating brain activity. And synapses, 5,000 synapses per neuron, there's something to 100 billion neurons the brain. It's amazing. Which then they talk about, I have a number there. Report an error

3:25:01 So the brain is constantly being reshaped. Use it or lose it. This is what I like because when you look at the mental factors, that we have virtuous mental factors, but they're not so developed. They can be. They can be. In some families, the kids do develop them better. Report an error

3:25:21 Information that parents are stimulating within their children's brains. Now you look at us. What happens? We have all these wires together, wires together, wires together. We've wired all these things about, you know, Report an error

3:25:41 litter is bad, you know, and litterers are worse. And the power comes to the worst of them all. You know what I mean? That's what we get. Now, if you're in another community, It's dependent upon oil. When you're living in Lubbock, Texas, you have a completely different mental experience around oil. Oil is neutral, right? It's data. And so that's how people say those beliefs are real. Report an error

3:26:18 It's still just mental activity. Report an error

3:26:23 I like to think of mind training as a conscious and intentional way of shaping your own networks. You think about in our work on meditation, our practices, particularly thought transformation, think about that. Lamrim, you know, like I'm taking a simplistic statement about your enemy being your best friend. Report an error

3:26:48 I think that's a good statement, but I think where it really gets effective is when you really see... How our minds respond to enemies, and then knowing that that's just habit, right? It's just these new ways. We were told when someone's not nice, you know, you better stand up for yourself, right? That kind of thing. But you can't let people take advantage of you. Or, yeah, you should get angry. All those messages. You have a right to get angry. Report an error

3:27:14 Okay? So those, now think about Lama Zopa comes along and says, oh, your enemy is your best friend. It doesn't even fire, right? He hardly inspires anything at first. First, he's like, well, what is that? Many people are going to argue against it. Oh, you mean I should be a doormat? Because that other neurocapitalism is undeveloped. Whereas for, you might find in Tibetans, for example, when that study that was done on post-traumatic stress disorder, have you heard about the study that did amongst the Tibetan refugees? Report an error

3:27:52 Anyone heard about that? Very fascinating. Huh? It was with people who had been in the prisons in Tibet, and a team of psychologists were interested in doing a study on PTSD with the ones who had been imprisoned and tortured, or imprisoned in particular, and many had been tortured, and then the findings were that the PTSD behaviors were very low. Report an error

3:28:25 In other words, Very low night terrors, very low sleep disorders, very low anxiety disorders. It wasn't that there were none, but it was a shockingly low amount of data that they were receiving. So he finally went and talked to His Holiness about why, if he had any theories as to why it was so low. And His Holiness said if he had two. Report an error

3:28:54 Two reasons. He had a theory that could be a combination of one or both of these. He said, number one, even the uneducated Tibetans, all Tibetans were educated as a cultural value of ours to believe and really believe in karma. Report an error

3:29:15 I'm putting my own words now, so what he was saying is the prisoners in Tibet had a different narrative around their imprisonment. Report an error

3:29:25 Narrative is what? Mental activity, going back to these neural pathways. And it doesn't mean that they didn't feel the same pain as anybody else, but they created a different meaning around it. And so the second thing is now in some cases, for very advanced practitioners, not only do they understand karma, but they might have generated compassion towards the torture. Report an error

3:29:52 It's amazing. Report an error

3:30:12 snuggled out all the purchase things and a speaking for the guest room. Report an error

3:30:26 the journalists are asking. Report an error

3:30:34 That blew me away so much, I thought, stop, are you kidding me? Yeah, I know. I mean, that was a plot coming from a western way of thinking, I thought, what? So... So taking that, let's extrapolate on that and look about, when we look at mental illness, mental disorders, In our culture. And then we base our approach on a description that doesn't include, let's put it different. Report an error

3:31:05 We base on description that what way is it, take a purely scientific point, what way is it helping to rewire and reform those node pathways. Report an error

3:31:18 And that seems all bad. But as you think about If we start looking at mental disorders and mental illness, mental illness is not quite the right word because it's all mental illness, but dysfunctional mental behavior. In the DSM-5, DSM-5 is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. Now there's five. Four came out, I believe in 1997 or 1998, so it hadn't been changed since then. Report an error

3:31:48 And originally, the first DSM had 106 diagnoses, 106. The second one had 220. And then DSM-IV had 297. So something was going on, like people were getting sicker or what. There was a lot of theories of why there were more. Now, there was one very enlightened member of the committee for the DSM-V, which came out in three years ago, I think. Report an error

3:32:17 And he said, I'm protesting any more diagnoses being added to this. So they didn't add any. They wanted to add a lot more, you know, like Asperger's as opposed to autism. Yeah, medications, right? That's right. So there's 297 still. But you think about the treatments for those. If it's just in the context of neural pathways, forget about it. Report an error

3:32:48 Buddhism, but this fits Buddhist psychology. Are the interventions such that they're reforming the neural pathways, forming the neural pathways that are healthy versus not healthy? You know, in his research, in Dan Siegel's research, did we talk about the PTSD? He did research on PTSD and MRI imaging. Report an error

3:33:14 Did we talk about that? Well, To simplify the research, so he's taking photographs of people's brains who had PTSD and anxiety disorders and found that there's one part of the brain that's very active. I don't know which part, but one part that's very active. And then in normal subjects, that part of the brain is not active at all. It's there, it's functional, but it's not overly active. Report an error

3:33:40 But what is interesting is there's another part of their brain that's kind of overly active in the normal subjects. And going back to the PTSD patients, that part of their brain, that functional part, is not active at all. So he's just looking at purely from a physiological approach. That's why I have so much respect for him, because he's getting to the same conclusions. So he started looking at the normal subjects and looking at different ways that they would stimulate that positive side. Report an error

3:34:13 Because not only was it more active, but they could make it even more active. So he was asking different kinds of questions, and then, oh, that stimulates, and this kind of thing. So then he went back to his PTSD subjects. And instead of looking at helping them suppress the active part of their brain, he didn't do that. Report an error

3:34:32 What he did instead is he was sort of asking these same kinds of questions or interventions that worked, that were just naturally aligned with the control group. And slowly... You got a little activity in that part of there. Slowly, slowly, slowly. It took a long time. And then you know what happened? What wires together? Report an error

3:34:53 Use it or lose it. The PTSD side started becoming dormant and atrophied. It's like, wow. So that tells you something right there about how to focus. So in most talk therapy, not most, I'm generalizing, but it typically is to focus on the problem, right? So when did you first get depressed? And what do you do when you're depressed? And how much sleep are you getting? And it's depression and what? You're not sleeping because you're depressed or you're not eating because you're depressed, depressed, depressed. Report an error

3:35:26 So it's stimulating that same part of the brain as the depressed part of the brain. What about talking? So this is a big clue to therapists to start talking about rewiring. No, sorry. Yeah, rewiring the parts that are not wired. And forget about the parts that are already active. Lose their power over time. So when we think about thought transformation and meditation, that's what we're doing. You know, when you say to meditate on patience when you're angry, that must be the exact part of the brain that's just not functioning. Report an error

3:36:00 And of course, when we first do it, we're going, okay, I'm patient, I'm patient, I'm patient, I'm patient. We're not doing it, right? But you've got to start somewhere. Because we don't have that part of our brain that's not active, that's not wired together. So I just want to give encouragement. I find this very encouraging. Report an error

3:36:15 When you're teaching meditation, when you have meditation groups or when you're talking with even people in your work, think about what is it that's not active in their brain and what kind of questions or conversations can we have that will activate that? Because it is through conversation. Even if it's a meditation that you're guiding, it's a conversation. Report an error

3:36:39 No, yes, but no. Let me just, yeah, because you said that first. Positive affirmation, the problem with positive affirmation is that it's not necessarily the thing that they're not doing. Do you know what I mean? For example, let's say you have a problem with smoking. Okay, you can stop. I know you can stop. You can stop smoking. That's a positive affirmation. Report an error

3:37:04 That's not necessarily the opposite brain function of the smoker's mind. Okay, the opposite function of the smoker's mind is to identify with you, the non-smoker. Report an error

3:37:17 Like, for example, a little stressful situation happens, the smoker, the smoker, I'm a smoker, I need to have a cigarette because it's stressful. Report an error

3:37:27 As opposed to positive affirmation, what we need to do is start looking at the mind that's functioning. For example, you were in a stressful situation yesterday, you didn't have a cigarette. How come? Who was that? That part. It's not noticed. It's always there, but it's dormant. And you start thinking who that is. Report an error

3:37:46 Well, let me see. Well, I was thinking about what you were doing. That stimulates that part of that mind. So positive affirmations in and of themselves, some positive affirmations can actually strengthen the negative mind. Report an error

3:37:59 Because it's like saying that that negative part is so truly existent, valid. Report an error

3:38:16 Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

3:38:26 Of course. Yeah. Report an error

3:38:39 I'm sorry. You know, it just validates. I was always explaining, there's no word in Spanish, no concept about soapbox, you know, standing on your soapbox. Because I always say I have a lot of soapboxes, or a few anyway. That's one of them. I have a soapbox about modern psychology. Because some of it's good. Because so much of it is, because it comes from misunderstanding. Report an error

3:39:03 Even this, if we understand how the brain functions, that'll affect, if you can show this to your psychiatrist, he won't listen anyway probably, but if you could, I say, what about this? Wouldn't it make more sense if you could help me stimulate these dormant parts of my brain? No, I don't think so. Report an error

3:39:24 Well, he's a doctor. He should know this stuff, but most of them don't. Report an error

3:39:40 It Report an error

3:39:47 doesn't do the thing. Anyway, that's my soapbox. You're all on it with me. But it's valid. This is serious work. You know, this is serious what we're talking about because these, it's like anything, politics, it's always, you know, there's always the cutting edge side that people really see what's going on and then there's the rest of it, you know, humanity. Report an error

3:40:13 So we're always going to be a bit of a minority, unfortunately, in whatever area this talking about. But it doesn't mean we give up. We've got to keep going. Report an error

3:40:25 And the alternative has a lot of political weight behind it. It has a lot of money behind it because... There's not a lot of medication in this. There might be some, right? Report an error

3:40:55 were published for the doctor's office. they weren't what... prevailing view or it's not this. Report an error

3:41:15 and this whole thing of the whole locat it's a lot of politics yeah And it became so strong that any researcher who said anything concrete, I mean, they don't invent anything. And now they're turning around and realizing that for the last, you know, 20 years, it essentially created a major epidemic of obesity because we had people eating low fat and high sugar. Report an error

3:41:43 I mean, it was like a hydrate. Have you seen all this? Have you seen all this? It's in population. Well, yeah, but I was. I know. Report an error

3:42:07 What you watched, was it King? I was a, was it? Report an error

3:42:21 Well, also the whole thing of palm oil. Because now palm oil, no, it's not good at all. But what's interesting, sorry, we're going to go on. But I want to say one thing I learned about palm oil is how much it's contributing to the deforestation and to this thing that's not happening. What's it called? Global warming. Global warming, that thing that's not happening. Report an error

3:42:51 I don't want to. Yes, please. Report an error

3:43:20 Yes, please. you're feeling the rise, and you also sometimes have those feelings for yourself as well. It's like that, you know, when you're Thank you. you how other, you know, being compassionate with other people and you think about own judgmental view for yourself in trying to be compassionate. So all these things, it's like... Yeah, what you're also pointing out is all of that is irregular thinking. It's not typical at all. Report an error

3:43:55 So even that has... You know, I said to Astana Zon Rinpoche a couple of years, last year, and I was getting in my soapbox about psychology, right? And I said, you know, since mental afflictions are mental, that's one of them. it was on my dick wave, but almost. Report an error

3:44:20 And that a result has to be the same nature of a cause, right? So, you know, that old saying about, you know, apple seed can't grow or pear tree and causes of it. Well, to have a mental solution, resolution, mental experience, a positive experience, has to have a mental cause. So I was saying to him. I said, so right there, therapy seems so ill-defined because you're talking. He had a great answer. He said, when you talk, you think. Report an error

3:44:58 No, there's thinking that goes on. You might think you're right. They're still thinking. But I thought, because the part about therapy that I've always enjoyed was a Socratic conversation. I really believe in having a curious conversation with someone asking the right kinds of questions. Report an error

3:45:19 If you look for negativity, you'll find lots of it. So then I think that my job is asking kinds of questions that will generate positivity. And that's what Rinpoche was saying. The right conversations, like debate. Debate is a conversation. It's language. But it has a mental effect, no doubt. So therapy can do the same thing. Not that all therapists should be like debate. But some of your conversations, If what a person needs is this compassion, self-compassion, then the conversation should lead to that. Lead to her or him having that experience. Report an error

3:46:00 Very, very different way of thinking about therapy now. You can still talk about talk therapy, but it's the kind of conversations we have. Report an error

3:46:18 No. Report an error

3:46:31 It's not something you just create to say, oh yeah, let's do something. Let's look at that. Let me just build that. Because a positive affirmation, the thing that doesn't work, is a lot of it is kind of magical fantasy. You know, it's already our fault. And the other thing about positive affirmation is a lot of the positive affirmations are created for you from somebody else. Report an error

3:46:55 So again, it's not authentic. So, you know, some positive affirmations are really good, like seeing yourself as Buddha. There's a way to do it and there's a way to do it. It's false. Report an error

3:47:17 I'm smart enough. I'm good enough. Doggonna people like me. Report an error

3:47:26 So this is a living being, body and mind. So I don't know. This is kind of like some people here. This is so elementary. Report an error

3:47:36 So this is where... right, Grace. Report an error

3:47:38 So, those are those five. And that's called the body. And then we have the primary minds. You all know this, right? Primary minds are secondary. Oh, it's primary minds. And then what happens, we go back to, here I have experience. Experience. So, primary minds do experience. So that, when we say consciousness, we could say the primary minds also. Report an error

3:48:32 You could say like the I consciousness, it does experience. Okay, it can distinguish. know, between, uh... There's an object there, you don't walk into it. You don't have to be more complex than that primary mind's function. It does have some, it's not totally, they used to say that they're stupid. You ever heard that term? The primary minds are stupid? Yeah, they used to say in early translations, stupid meaning they don't know anything. Report an error

3:49:01 But they do know. But that knowing is extremely fast. It's too fast for ordinary beings to see. Aria beings can see it. Some texts say that there's 70 mental experiences in a snap of a finger. And you know there's another one? 200 something. 200. Yeah. I always like to know the exact number. There's always someone who'll know it. No, it's not 230, it's 227. Report an error

3:49:30 Right? Just like this group. Okay. Report an error

3:49:36 Okay, then I just put this in a little while ago. Just so you know, the always there function, you know about, these are called omnipresent mental factors. So these again are happening so fast. Every mental, let's just, for the sake of discussion, we say there's 70 mental experiences within every instant, that's an instant. Report an error

3:50:01 Well if there's a mental experience, everyone got to consciousness, sense organ and object, that's what we're talking about. There's 70 of those of them. Did you know that the brain uses 50 % of the body, takes up 50 % of the energy that you expend? Did anyone hear that? I know it uses 25 % of the oxygen and 25 % of the glucose, but recently I read that it takes up, it uses fully 50 % of the body's energy that is burned by the brain. Report an error

3:50:33 Now here's the emotion. That's whether you're sleeping or awake. Report an error

3:50:41 There's a lot of people thinking, well, I don't know, you know, there's no one there when you're asleep. There's still this that's going on. There's still experience, you know. When Rinpoche, you know, so lucky because he's aware of the experience all the time, you know, whether it's sleep or not sleep at night or day, you know, he knows his experience. Report an error

3:51:03 He is experienced. We are too, but we don't have any awareness of it. We actually know what the experience of deep sleep is. That'd be fascinating, wouldn't it? To be able to experience deep sleep. Report an error

3:51:23 be aware of deep sleep. mean, like, awake? Yeah, that is one aspect. The deeper, that's I guess is supposedly easier compared to awareness of deep sleep. That's when you're, yeah, I think. Report an error

3:51:46 I believe it's a question like that. Huh? Report an error

3:51:54 There you go. Let me know if you ever have the experience. I was saying that the awareness of lucid dreaming is an easier experience than actual awareness. I was going to say it's the same. I was going to say if we could do that well, no problem dying. You go through the whole experience of dying with awareness. Report an error

3:52:19 Yeah, that's what scares me because I can't sleep at all. Report an error

3:52:25 hope it's not exactly the same. Report an error

3:52:31 No, no, no. Real time. The dream experience, the sleep and dream experience is similar to the depths, right? Yeah. very muscular. So, yeah. Report an error

3:52:50 it goes through the death pile. Yes. And then I watch some scientific... Okay, so those are the five that... It happened all the time. It's amazing. These don't come out very well. It's a circle because it's not like it goes from one to the other. It's almost all simultaneous. Contact, intention, discernment, intention, and healing. So going from there, so that's why I think it gets interesting for people, again, who are not as educated as you. Report an error

3:53:25 But now think about if you're having 70 mental experiences in that. And one of them is feeling or sensation. So that means we're always, every 70 times in every instance, we're having either a neutral, agreeable or disagreeable sensation. Report an error

3:53:46 So there's nothing, quote unquote, there's no bare experience that we have. Even though there can be, we can say there's bare experience, but we never stay there. We always are responding rather than just experiencing. Because what happens, even though this is just experience, one that once we, self grasping, sees, always sees a sensation and sees it as real, truly existing, permanent, what you want to say. Report an error

3:54:21 Then we go down the road to problems. Report an error

3:54:28 Like when we say, this room feels peaceful, that's just an exaggeration of this thing. And this thing is only, what is that? And we think it's real. This really is a peaceful place, right? Didn't you love that gompa? It was so peaceful. And then you talk to your kids and go, oh, God, it's so boring. I thought it was never going to end. Who's right? Yeah, both are wrong, actually. Neither are right. Report an error

3:54:58 Right? Because to have that agreeable experience or the disagreeable experience, you have to see it as truly existing that way. And one way which I explain a lot to you, which is not, from a scholarly point, is not accurate, is to start people off with, it's difficult to start people off with, you see this as truly existing. Report an error

3:55:24 But start them off with, you see it's permanent, it's fixed. You fix, you froze one-seventieth of an instant and says, this is how it is. Report an error

3:55:39 If you've got a stream moving, at what part can you say that's the stream? You can't. You can't grab any part of that and hold it. It's moving. Or smoke. So this is all smoke. Everything is smoke. Everything is just like smoke. Report an error

3:55:58 And we say, no, it's really a beautiful woman. It's really a handsome guy. It's really a peaceful room. It's really a peaceful room. There's nothing you can find that's not moving. It's impermanency. Lower schools teach that impermanence is the ultimate reality. Very easy for people to go. It's not that hard for these intellectually to say, yes, I see everything. Isn't everything here moving? Is there anything here not moving? Report an error

3:56:33 Just a space which you can't see. But is it? Huh? It's not an object. Report an error

3:56:48 Anyway, in this case, it's inferred. a, it's a, um, Report an error

3:56:51 inferred. Well, let's not go on space because we don't worry about it, right? So isn't everything moving? So it's a good way to teach people that they don't see reality. Even though that's not the deepest, don't worry about not being the deepest. It's good enough. Report an error

3:57:23 him, in response of Will, you he can't. Report an error

3:57:33 that. Report an error

3:57:36 just going to be, I'm going to do a lot. Yeah. I'm going to experience that. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, that whole thing of like, emancipation. Report an error

3:57:44 Extreme. No, it's okay. Report an error

3:57:55 And Report an error

3:58:01 function. On a very practical I feel that because we're Report an error

3:58:16 What do you think would be there? Nothing would be there. Report an error

3:58:24 So my process, when I do, because I'm usually talking to people, well, Buddhists and non-Hus, and it varies, is that when we talk about this, it's as if we begin to think that the, I, I, yeah. Report an error

3:58:43 Since I don't see what's there, nothing is there. I mean, I'm not accusing you, but the way the mind kind of goes, oh, I get that it's all moving, so that means almost like there's nothing there. It can feel like there's nothing there. And the thing is that we know that's not true. We know that conventional reality is that karma, and this is what we're talking to the Buddhist group now, is the cause and effect is there. Report an error

3:59:10 We know that when we say, It's very easy to say, you know, this cup is constantly moving. Report an error

3:59:25 Yes, but it's still there, right? There's still something there. It's not not there, right? Yeah. So otherwise, you can't imagine anyone functioning at all. I agree with you. And it's like... moving. Report an error

3:59:46 If this is constantly moving and I can't find the solid thing, it's true, the solid thing is not there. But then we balance that by saying, well, what is there is still, there is still an impermanent conventional phenomenon. The one that gets me, and I'm going to, because I have the same question, of course, as you do. The one that gets me, and I finally have come to terms with this, when I used to, if I was in retreat and medit, you know, kind of, Your concentration gets stronger and you start meditating on emptiness. You know, fear would come up. Fear would come up. Quite frequently. Report an error

4:00:24 And then, but then you think about it, you think, well, there is someone sitting there. You know, it's not, Carol's not in retreat, it's Karuṇā's in retreat. Report an error

4:00:38 And that Karuṇā, there's something there that's meditating and there's something there that's going to attain enlightenment. You know, if it all was about annihilation, why would anybody do it? You know, but it feels like annihilation. So it feels like the annihilation of this cup. It feels like the annihilation of the world when I see it for what it really exists, how it really is. It feels that way. And it's like, no, I'm trying to swear. Report an error

4:01:06 No, heck, it feels that way. This doesn't work the same way. You know, but... But it's never said that nothing exists. That's nihilism. So what exists is just the removal of our layer. Report an error

4:01:25 The layer is what's removed, which is the self-grasping, which doesn't exist. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's how I deal with it. Report an error

4:01:39 Why? Report an error

4:01:46 Yeah, yes, yeah, right, right, so I'm thinking, you know, we've all saw this, so this is what we're doing. Report an error

4:02:06 But then maybe the fear you're talking about, I'm thinking of in terms of if don't relate to things this. Yes, yes. How will I relate to them at all? Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

4:02:28 I think... Yeah. Report an error

4:02:29 I think it comes down to, I really think it just comes down to one small little thing. I'm serious. The only thing is that you can't help, if you take the Hinayana approach, it's very easy, then you miss, everything becomes non-important because it's just illusory anyway. And with the Mahāyāna, you know, the whole bodhicitta. Report an error

4:03:00 Motivation is more than a motivation. It sounds like motivation because we have words. It's actually not really kind of motivation. It's more, it is motivation, but it's more philosophical than that. And the philosophical is that if we're seeing things as merely illusory, then you're just not creating any new karma, are you? Report an error

4:03:23 The imprints are just more illusory. So with the bodhisattva path, When you're seeing things are looser, you're at the same time generating this mind for others. Only because they don't know it. Not any reason other than that. Not because they're more real. It's just because they don't know. You get the feeling that even though they're completely looser and you could walk away, there's something about, well, they need to find out too. Report an error

4:03:58 And it's deeper than that. But it's not so much emotional. It's more as an object. There's all those beings that still see the things incorrectly. That's the only way I can make sense of what happens. Because in a way, Lama Zopa Rinpoche disappeared a long time ago. Right? That sense of self-identity is gone. Report an error

4:04:21 But what's manifesting now is all the merit he generated through thinking about who is bodhicitta. And that's what's functioning. It's the altruism that keeps going. It's the altruism that's actually functioning. There's no identity. I mean, there was a long, you know, there was something to trace, but it's not that self-identity. Report an error

4:04:46 I believe. Report an error

4:05:04 Yeah. Report an error

4:05:12 Right. Yes. Report an error

4:05:18 That's right. Mmm. Mmm. Report an error

4:05:19 And it's just like, it's almost like a canvas. Yes. Yes, that's right. Report an error

4:05:28 That's right. There's one thing that's going to continue for us, and those are the imprints. But how those imprints manifest is in our hands, actually. Report an error

4:05:43 Right. That's right. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Report an error

4:05:45 That's right. Report an error

4:05:52 That's the human, that's what we talked about at the beginning of the day, the human life. That way of seeing things, exercising that part of your mind is the human mind. No other mind can do that. I mean, maybe God minds, but no animal, no pretta, no spirit, no healthy, they can't do that. Report an error

4:06:15 know happening is they're just so involved. a suffering. Yeah. I feel it. I feel it. I'm afraid it as well. Yeah, I think Freda's, if you think of... I mean, as if they don't have a chance to, it's just that because you're suffering with that direct... They're really in reaction all the time. In reaction. And the problem is we might be in reaction, but they're in reaction to extremist sensations. Report an error

4:06:44 I think of it like cocaine addicts. You know, people with cocaine, they can even have conversations with you about darmins. But it's not the same conversation. They can't actually do anything. You know what I mean? Report an error

4:07:03 Yeah. Report an error

4:07:16 But we're just trying to kind of extend that to what it's like to be equipped on. And the human, so you mean the cocaine addict or heroin addict, alcohol, you know. and you're only focused on your thing. You can be talking about all this other stuff, but your mind bland and very different. Yeah. Report an error

4:07:28 The frustrating thing is you think they're human like you. In a way they are, it's a trick because they're in a human body and they actually are a human mind. But they're really not in the same realm as us at that point. They have the potential to be. That's why they can get sober and they can become like us. Report an error

4:07:48 I'm not pronouncing that pedestal, but it's much better to be an alcoholic, right? So I think that because they have the potential, but if it's a dog acting like an alcoholic, it has no potential. And a precta acting like an alcoholic doesn't have a potential for some reason. Report an error

4:08:11 Hellbeams are even more bizarre because in hellbeams, I think one of the weird things about hellbeams is they say that the suffering is so intense that they're not even ever sending beans around you. You're hallucinating them. You're hallucinating them. But that makes sense to me like a schizophrenic. He's losing snakes and creatures on him and sees you as the FBI. So in a way, and they're still human. Report an error

4:08:38 They still have human lives. Report an error

4:08:54 Yeah. They do. They do. Another way to think of it is, here's actually, I thought this recently when I was thinking about suffering. So you think of Sucs Realms as loves of suffering. Well, if you think about how, when you're in a hellish state, right, really, really in pain and suffering, can you concentrate? Report an error

4:09:26 And I think about prakta. So prakta is like, when you're really, really hungry, really hungry, can you concentrate? You can. And then, of course, same thing with animal, you know, when you're really dull and you're just sleepy and you just want to take a nap, and you go, oh, I've got to concentrate. Report an error

4:09:41 So that's, I think, another way of looking at what the definition of suffering is. Another way. So you think actual realms, if those realms exist, that's what the whole animal knows. And then, you know, you tell your dog, forget about Dalai Lama's dog. Tell a chipmunk to focus. Report an error

4:09:59 You can't even understand what you're saying. And there's people out there. So I think that's another way of looking at suffering. Can you concentrate? Can you create mental stability? Report an error

4:10:19 These are just like... You know what these are like? These are like conversation stimulators. Report an error

4:10:30 Okay. That, you know. This stuff, you know. Right? It's good to show. Report an error

4:10:46 I mean, just real quickly. Report an error

4:10:54 So these are always present ones we talked about. And you know, if we were just having their experience, we would just be staying in this. Yeah. Report an error

4:11:04 Those in the primary minds. But that never happens. You know, it always, Almost always stimulates one of these. And if we're lucky, we'll stimulate one of them. Report an error

4:11:25 It all comes from wanting and feeling. Okay, and this, you know, I wish I had, look Report an error

4:11:39 at that great picture. It makes me really wonder, is that baby angry or, you know, what's its emotion? Does it fit what it looks like? Report an error

4:11:53 Okay, Report an error

4:11:59 so again, this advanced people class, but in this book we're talking about helping people understand. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Remember those three sensations? Well, generally what is happening, right, is we're not staying in the sensation. Then we begin to project onto that sensation. If it's a sensation that's pleasurable, then immediately, what do we do? Report an error

4:12:25 Move towards it. And then what do we do is we move towards it. We also want to expand. Report an error

4:12:34 So it's very interesting. You can see really how addicts work. If a little bit of pleasure felt good, more pleasure will feel better. Report an error

4:12:47 That's really essentially, I mean, that's simplistically kind of addiction. But, you know, addiction, whether it's sex addiction or gambling addiction, right, or shopping addiction, it's just different what people find pleasurable. It's different. Report an error

4:13:06 Orders. Orders. that what your thought was bringing in? No, no, Netflix is showing what you do to give it work and watch it. Oh, yeah. Of course I do. Don't you? Yeah. Okay. That's not about attraction. That's reality. That's true happiness. You know what's true suffering? Is when you can't find anything new to watch. Then you ask somebody, yeah, I really like when you watch it. Report an error

4:13:40 That's right. Okay, so is there a time, so you know, you think about our lives, are our lives, are our lives not spent in terms of moving towards things with pleasure? Report an error

4:13:58 We're probably better off, huh? But we get tripped. Report an error

4:14:11 Yeah, well in general we know people get tripped, right? And what do you communicate to those people? How do you communicate? Report an error

4:14:24 I mean, what do you do? If they, you know, you know that this is the normal thing of attraction, you know, think about, think about you and us. So like, if I look at the Thonkas, you've got some beautiful Thonkas here. Yeah. But, you know, when you look at the Thonkas, other people look at the Thonkas, everyone's having a different sensation, aren't they? Report an error

4:14:53 So, we get a pleasant sensation, right? Is that sensation better than having a pleasant sensation of, say, you know, looking at a new house? What's the difference? Report an error

4:15:10 People are looking for houses now because they want a new one instead of an old one. And they see a beautiful house and it's attractive. What's the difference in that and be attractive to these topics? Report an error

4:15:22 Is there a difference? Report an error

4:15:34 You might look at it. Report an error

4:15:48 Uh So. So we have to be careful. I agree with you. In most of my presentation, two things I didn't cover in that book, that maybe if I ever write another book, I'm going to have to tackle them. One is karma, and the other is rebirth. And actually, without confronting those two, it's very, very difficult to really think about. Report an error

4:16:19 about practicing secular Buddhism. I'm not saying I'm a fan of secular Buddhism. have a religious side, a faith side, so there are many people who are secular Buddhists, so that's fine. And also in my presentation I need to present in a secular Buddhist way. But I'm not doing it yet. I don't have karma and I don't have rebirth. Report an error

4:16:40 Now you can say that how can rebirth be secular? Meaning it seems to be something based on faith. Right? It is hard to talk about rebirth purely in a logical way, but it's possible. I know. Report an error

4:17:06 That's why they kind of go together. And why it's especially important to me is because if you're talking to psychologists and therapists, you always get to the point of what's the cause. Report an error

4:17:28 so my... Seven-year-old son, I'm sorry, he was born with Attention Deficit Disorder. And you do see there are cases, of course, most of the disorders seem to be something more socially constructed, actually, often, more nurturer than nature. But there's some that are hard to explain purely from a nurture point of view. So, of course, you go to the genetic level, because that's the only way they explain in Western thinking and science, because they don't understand karma. Report an error

4:17:59 Because they don't know that the genes are created by karma. I think of karma as mental DNA. Report an error

4:18:09 And so that we carry with us. And so without talking about that, it's very hard not to be able to have conversations about these more seemingly organic disorders. Or even physical disorders. You know, kids who are born with defects and that sort of thing. And, you know, so they're always looking for the genetic link and finding the unraveling of the genome and that sort of thing. Report an error

4:18:36 But wouldn't it be amazing to have the balance of being the fact that if there's multiple lifetimes, if people accept multiple lifetimes, then it's not so hard to talk about karma. Because then you talk about karma in terms of the mental imprints. And the consciousness, technically, again, possibly if they're not right, but... Report an error

4:18:56 All the other level schools say the consciousness is what travels from life to life. So if you talk about consciousness is traveling and consciousness holds the mental DNA, the mental being formless, see now you go back to why I'm on this formless thing. It's formless, you know, karmic imprints are formless, mental activity is formless, they're stored in a sense formlessly on this consciousness which is formless. Report an error

4:19:25 And therefore, it's easy to think about something moving from life to life, because it's not bound or contained necessarily within a body. It needs a body, it depends on a body, but it's not contained within it. Then you can start talking, it really becomes very interesting, and karma is not that hard to talk about, because it is a mental function. It's just psychology, you know, in terms of inference and how we see things. Report an error

4:19:48 All that stuff we've talked about before, about experience. Yeah. Then it's just to add the element, oh yeah, by the way, not only a movie projector, that projector is also a camera. People can kind of get that. It's when they have to think about it moving through another life that takes some sort of leap. And that's the hard part to explain. Report an error

4:20:12 There's logical ways of explaining it in terms of production and cause and effect. But it takes time and it's not easy. It's not as easy as karma is easier in that sense. The moving from this consciousness to another life, it doesn't Report an error

4:20:42 make sense. Report an error

4:20:47 Yeah. Right, right. Report an error

4:20:55 Yeah. Yeah, lived a happy life. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and also when you look at the 12 links, most of the descriptions of the 12 links are not, most karma doesn't write them. In this life that you crave. You can. You can. Really strong. But yeah, most of the 12 links are a couple lifetimes. Report an error

4:21:23 Yeah. You've got to do both. So it's a question of how to do that skillfully. And why not? They say something like 85 % of people believe that there's more than one life. In America, 85 % believe. Yeah. I read one. It depends how you word the question. Because when they say, do you believe in rebirth, I think it's 50%. But if you say, do you believe in more than one life? Because Christians believe in more than one life. Report an error

4:21:58 Yeah. You just got to get them at their own logic. I see, you don't believe in rebirth, we believe in heaven after this life. What is the difference? They think they're different. Oh, yeah. It's a lot of difference. Yeah. So, again, not to find more terms. Okay, so you know about the three. There's aversion and claim, these are all, but I'm going to claim you something else. Attachment, aversion, and ignorance or confusion. Report an error

4:22:27 These things are always happening, okay? Indifference. Report an error

4:22:36 That's, well, I really work with these words. Actually, when you think about it, yeah, well, think about a lay audience, okay? Indifference, to me, Well, first of all, the ignorance we're talking about is more of those forms of ignorance, right? Ignorance. I liked indifference. Well, the reason I don't like indifference is because, to me, indifference implies just attitude. Dislike it. Oh, attitude. And how's that different? Report an error

4:23:14 Because, well, I go back to the discussion between Paul O 'Connor and Paul O 'Connor did not like the concept of thinking, but he did like the concept of thinking. I mean, it's not, I mean, I know that. Report an error

· · ·

4:23:31 of, well, I mean, we're actually projecting, but we're misconceiving around. Well, misconceiving is what they... I'm not going to use misconceive because I have to read the discussion. Misconceiving is, to me, what misconceiving is when I talk about ignorance. You explain ignorance. It tends to be people think ignorance as a passive activity, right? Like ignorant of Spanish. Report an error

4:23:56 And ignorance in the... And the idea of misunderstanding reality is actually active, right? We don't not see reality, we actually perceive, we actually perceive the opposite of reality. So that ignorance is active. So to misconceive, so to me, indifference, if you think, let's just take a look. So we're thinking about three sensations. Report an error

4:24:27 We've got a pleasant or agreeable sensation. You have a disagreeable sensation, right, which you can see leads to you when you get away from it, which is aversion. You have a pleasant sensation, like that color of the cushion, you know, you want to have it or whatever, you want to go toward it, you want to invite and sit on. Report an error

4:24:47 Now think of the third one. Think of whatever that, because I have a hard time finding the word. Neutral. So you have to do a neutral sensation. Let's just use the word neutral. Know that it's not agreeable and not disagreeable. And what's the action? What is the mindset? What is the state of mind that that neutral sensation would generate? Report an error

4:25:08 That's what I was going to do. You just don't notice. It's like the air in this room. It's like, let's say the air in this room is, you don't even notice it because it's not agreeable. Report an error

4:25:23 That's the difference. Because I went too fast. I'll show you why. Thank you. Thank you. Report an error

4:25:30 No, it's mean. I went for the three poisons. And this ignorance, by the way, there's a couple ways to talk about that. Report an error

4:25:46 That could be aversion. Report an error

4:25:51 Which actually would be more aversion. But indifference is more like you don't have anything. Report an error

4:26:01 Yeah, Report an error

4:26:05 that's what it is. suffering, I don't care. Report an error

4:25:48 not noticing there is a neutral value point, I don't Report an error

4:26:06 I'd like to hear more about that misconception. That kind of ignorance, the root ignorance. Okay. We are multiple personality disorder. We're all multiple personality disorder. Think about it. How many personalities have you been since you arrived here? Or since this morning? Multiple. Okay. In this case, the diagram was just trying to show like whatever's arising, it's a wholesome... Report an error

4:26:18 Okay, now I'm going to have multiple preside disorder. Report an error

4:26:47 I'm a mother, I'm a father, I'm a driver, I'm a talker, I'm a teacher, I'm a medicator. And that's about helping people get into it, but it's always about me, always I. There's always an I there. Report an error

4:27:04 And then the formula is confusion or ignorance leads to cash and aversion. Leads to activate an emotion, and that emotion leads you to do or think things. And here I finally introduced this part. That leaves an imprint to continue the pattern. This could be circular, too. It's a way of understanding our mental process. Report an error

4:27:34 Where it gets really interesting for people, I think the most interesting for me is how this all arises. Oh, that's the forever. This is this, you know, we talk about saṃsāra. As a circle, that's how it should be. I think it's understood. It's impossible to get out of that cycle. Even right now, we're creating new cycles, right? This whole time, unless we're seeing reality, which you might not, but if you're seeing reality, then you're not doing this, because there's no bigger extent. Report an error

4:28:19 Some places you can't use this slide. For most, I've taken it out, but it's such a classic. Report an error

4:28:35 What the heck's going on in here? Report an error

4:28:41 Okay, so this is an ASNM. We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are. Report an error

4:28:52 Again, it's very interesting. I have a question. Report an error

4:29:00 I just like using these, but we don't see things as they are. So we see things. So, let me see what the next, okay, I'll go to the next place. Report an error

4:29:09 He's finding gold in the middle of the sidewalk, right? He's got his little, he's got his little, well come on over. It's very important. It's the most important set of slides. Report an error

4:29:24 See? He's digging in the middle of the sidewalk and finding some gold. Okay, no wait. No going. Finding more. Right? This is how we are. Pretty soon it's like he keeps finding his knee deep in gold and then finally, okay. All that glitters is not gold. So what he sees, right? He's seen things. We are seeing things that aren't there. Report an error

4:29:56 And we're not seeing the things that are there. We're seeing things that are not there. We see the gold. Literally, it's interesting to these people because these are drawings, right? Sidewalk paintings. You know about these? Yeah. So they're so clever because you know these people? We get tricked to thinking that they're looking at the gold. Report an error

4:30:16 Well, we know they're looking at the drawing. But the photo is captured in such a way that you could be tripped and imagined or just looking at the sky. Even though you know it's not even that picture. That's how we are. It's like... Report an error

Report an error

Passage at . Please listen to the audio before you suggest a fix.

Suggest a fix

Passage at . Please listen to the audio before you suggest a fix.

Related talks

  1. The Misleading Mind (23 August 2014)

    Karuna Cayton · 23 August 2014 · 4 h 18 min

  2. The Misleading Mind

    Karuna Cayton · 10 November 2012 · 2 h 6 min

  3. Working with Difficult Emotions

    Karuna Cayton · 18 April 2015 · 2 h 46 min

  4. Afflictive Emotions (1 February 2008)

    Karuna Cayton · 1 February 2008 · 1 h 42 min

  5. Introduction to Tantra - Day Course (28 June 2008, 8)

    Robina Courtin · 28 June 2008 · 1 h 31 min

  6. Mahayana Mind Transformation (14 September 2007)

    Emily Hsu · 14 September 2007 · 2 h 1 min

Talk by Karuna Cayton, recorded 12 July 2014. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/KC_MisleadingMind_201404. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Recorded at Tse Chen Ling Center, San Francisco, and archived by the center on Internet Archive. More from Tse Chen Ling

Listen on Internet Archive · CC BY-NC-ND 3.0