Integration Practices - Discovering Buddhism (29 May 2007)

0:00 Just a minute or two to calm down, get in the room, in your body. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

· · · silence, 1 minute

0:46 And now let's just take a minute to set our motivation for this session. Thinking of your reason for coming here, it may be just curiosity. You may have just started studying Buddhism and want to learn what a retreat is all about. Or you may be inspired to actually do a lamrim retreat yourself with the motivation to either become liberated from saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 0:46 Highlight the passage at 0:46

1:11 If you understand the Four Noble Truths or you may have the aspiration to complete the spiritual path for the benefit of all beings. So just take a minute to reflect on your motivation. Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:11 Okay, since most of you are unknown to me and we've got such a small group I thought maybe we could just start with... If everyone could just go around and say your name and maybe how much experience you have, maybe how long you've been studying here at Sei Chin Ling or elsewhere, and if you have any retreat experience so far. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

2:29 So let me start with you. Report an error in the passage at 2:29 Highlight the passage at 2:29

2:39 Great. Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

2:50 Very good. Good. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 2:50 Highlight the passage at 2:50

3:08 I that's a good question. It's a good one. Yeah, we went to... Report an error in the passage at 3:08 Highlight the passage at 3:08

3:19 Oh, good. Report an error in the passage at 3:19 Highlight the passage at 3:19

3:31 Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:42 I have Report an error in the passage at 3:42 Highlight the passage at 3:42

3:54 a visual Report an error in the passage at 3:54 Highlight the passage at 3:54

4:07 impairment so I kind of feel like I'm trying to devote my time to this. Although it could be a better retreat than it is so far. But I've done a little bit of, you know, here at the center since maybe October last year, so Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

· · · silence, 1 minute

4:19 a two-day retreat at LMD, and I've done one-day things here, but not extensive retreat. Okay, great. Yet. Yet. Keisha? Report an error in the passage at 4:19 Highlight the passage at 4:19

4:33 very short retreat experience. learn more about it. Good. Report an error in the passage at 4:33 Highlight the passage at 4:33

4:44 I love them. never done a Report an error in the passage at 4:44 Highlight the passage at 4:44

5:07 He changed his mind. Go ahead. You Report an error in the passage at 5:07 Highlight the passage at 5:07

5:27 ready? We're just doing introductions. Just quick introductions and if you have any retreat experience. Report an error in the passage at 5:27 Highlight the passage at 5:27

· · · silence, 1 minute

6:50 great. So I've got so So much to talk about, you know, in one two hour session, it was sort of like, oh God, what do I cover to give them an idea? So there's a lot of material that I'm going to cover and I also want to leave time at the end for questions because a lot of people, you know, I can't always figure out what it is that people really want to know. Report an error in the passage at 6:50 Highlight the passage at 6:50

7:10 And a lot of times people have questions about... You know, retreat experience and things that come up and experiences and things like that. So we'll try and leave time at the end for experiences and questions and things like that. So what I'd like to cover tonight is just the basic purpose of retreat, how to do a specific lamrim retreat, including how to organize your sessions and how to actually do analytical meditation on the lamrim, which is a kind of real specific... Report an error in the passage at 7:10 Highlight the passage at 7:10

7:40 Technique of how to do that kind of analytical meditation. And then just general instructions about retreat which apply to both lamrim retreat and deity retreat and any other kind of retreat. So it's a lot to cover. To start out, to sort of de... To mystify this word retreat. You know, it's so interesting. I've been living in quote-unquote retreat centers for the better part of 16 or 17 years and you tell kind of normal people at your workplace that you live in a retreat center and they think that you spend all day kind of lying around in hot tubs and eating bonbons and taking a break and lying in hammocks and reading novels because that's sort of the, you know, general public's idea of retreat. Report an error in the passage at 7:40 Highlight the passage at 7:40

8:29 Clearly, in our tradition, it's not like that at all. In fact, it's the hardest job that you'll ever do. I have a friend who's a Theravadan monk, and he says, you know, getting enlightened is the most difficult thing that any human being will ever do. Period. That's pretty, you know, non-ambiguous, isn't it? You know, oh, I have a plethora of beverages. How nice. Thank you so much. Report an error in the passage at 8:29 Highlight the passage at 8:29

8:56 Okay, so what retreat means in our tradition is deepening your experience, especially in the context of what's called the three higher trainings. Okay, the three higher trainings and especially wisdom, you know, increasing your wisdom, increasing your direct experience of the teachings, your direct experience of, in this case, the lamrim realizations. Report an error in the passage at 8:56 Highlight the passage at 8:56

9:20 Now, those of you who have been studying for a while may be familiar with the three different ways to approach the teachings. There's listening, contemplation and meditation. Listening means going to teachings. You know, coming here to Se Chin Ling, to Chogky's classes, to Geshe Dagpa's classes, reading books, listening to tapes in the car on your way to work, all of this gathering information. Report an error in the passage at 9:20 Highlight the passage at 9:20

9:44 That's the first level of relating to the teachings. The second level is contemplation. And that means mulling over the teachings and seeing how they apply to you. This is all about, was the Buddha right? What do you feel about the truth of suffering when you study the Four Noble Truths? Does it apply to your life or not? You know, making the teachings real for you. Contemplation is that second step. You know, you get all the information and then you really mull it over, see how it applies to your life. Report an error in the passage at 9:44 Highlight the passage at 9:44

10:15 You can do this with other people too. Dharma friends are great. For contemplation. And this is in the car on the way home from the teachings you talk about it. Or you get together for discussion groups during retreats or you get together and hang out for coffee and talk about the teachings with each other and mull it over, review it. Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

10:36 This is a really important aspect. And then the third aspect is meditation. And this is actually bringing the teachings to the cushion and making them real for you. Like making them... I heard one, I use this all the time because it's such a great quote. There was this one Western Buddhist scholar that I heard give a talk one time and he kind of sits around all the time studying, you know, polytext and things and doing these, you know, translations of these esoteric texts and he was saying, one day I was studying this text and for the first time something went below the neck. Report an error in the passage at 10:36 Highlight the passage at 10:36

11:14 You know, it's sort of like it had all just been in his head is this intellectual thing. And meditation is bringing it below the neck. You know, that's all about bringing it below the neck. The information goes from just some intellectual thing until like a lived experience, you know, that will change your life. Report an error in the passage at 11:14 Highlight the passage at 11:14

11:33 I always tell my students, if you don't want to change... If you're really happy with life the way it is, and if you don't want to change, God forbid, go near the meditation cushion. This is when your life will change. When your rear end is in direct contact with that meditation cushion, and you're going over the lamrim subject. So if you're really happy with your life, stay away from the cushion. Report an error in the passage at 11:33 Highlight the passage at 11:33

11:58 This is when the life-changing realizations... You can understand something like, for example, impermanence and death awareness. You know, we all can understand. Of course we could die at any time. We have no idea what it is. For sure we're going to die. Everybody does. And you're like, ho-hum, yeah, whatever. And it's like when you sit down on the cushion and actually do that meditation, that's when you get up with those... Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

12:24 Realizations of the person that got the terminal diagnosis hears they have six months to live and decides to check their Fortune 500 company job and go sailing around the world. That's when you decide to change your life on the basis suddenly it becomes real for you. It's not just some intellectual theoretical thing. Report an error in the passage at 12:24 Highlight the passage at 12:24

12:45 So this is what retreat is all about. It's what it's all about. It's making those teachings real for you. Bringing them below the neck. This is what retreat is all about, bringing it below the neck. And in order to really engage with the teachings with that level of intensity, for most of us, especially as beginners, retreat is really necessary. Report an error in the passage at 12:45 Highlight the passage at 12:45

13:06 There are certain conditions that we're going to go into, as I explained, that create a container for that to take place. You need certain conditions for most of us when we're in the world. It's full of distractions. You know, full of responsibilities. It's really hard for us, even in the morning. Even you wake up early and you try and have a meditation session. What are you thinking? Report an error in the passage at 13:06 Highlight the passage at 13:06

13:28 That meeting you have with your boss at 3 o 'clock this afternoon, the 60 emails that you have to send. You know what you're going to do tonight, what you're going to have for lunch. It's distracting. Retreat creates a container for you to really focus on your practice. Single-pointedly, without that level of distraction, and there's just much more of a likelihood of things going below the neck. You know, I'm a big proponent of Dharma in daily life, and really practicing in your daily life, and it's not just about the 45 minutes on your cushion in the morning, and still... Report an error in the passage at 13:28 Highlight the passage at 13:28

14:02 Retreat really creates an environment where that happens. And then you have those life-changing realizations that you come out of retreat and you change your life. Watch the fireworks. It changes your life. So that's the purpose of retreat, to just create that situation where you're much more likely to have the realizations of the lamrim. Report an error in the passage at 14:02 Highlight the passage at 14:02

14:25 Now it's interesting because Lama Zopa quotes Pabanka Rinpoche who I'm going to be using as a lot of my bases for what I'm talking about tonight and they say even to do a lamrim retreat where you don't even get the full realization but you just get a taste, like you get some experience of the subject, they say is better than even developing single pointed concentration without any kind of understanding of the lamrim. Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:52 Like you think, oh. Psychic powers and single-pointed concentration, all this stuff, that's amazing. No, the most amazing thing is really realizing that saṃsāra is a big drag and we have to get out and we have to get everybody else out too. That's the really amazing thing. Anybody can fly through the air. Who cares about that? Anybody can get the ability to focus single-pointedly on an object. Report an error in the passage at 14:52 Highlight the passage at 14:52

15:17 It's not going to get you out of saṃsāra. It's not going to help you at all without the lamrim. So the lamrim is so important. So spending any amount of time that you have meditating on the lamrim, and even especially when you're doing a deity retreat. I did this three-year deity retreat, and right before I went into retreat, I was really fortunate to spend a lot of time with Lama Zopa and the great holy lama, Riba Rinpoche. Report an error in the passage at 15:17 Highlight the passage at 15:17

15:42 And the two of them were talking to me a lot about... We were hanging out at this house in New York State and during all the breaks they're giving me advice and we're chatting about retreat and Riva Rinpoche said, you're doing a deity retreat for three years, that's alright, it's okay, you're going to get some imprints but you're not really going to get tantric realizations. Report an error in the passage at 15:42 Highlight the passage at 15:42

16:03 Meditate on the lamrim during that retreat because that's where it's really going to happen for you. And sure enough, he was absolutely right, you know. And his advice I really took to heart. And even during my deity retreat, I really focused a lot on the lamrim. And if I hadn't had that advice, you know, I thought, when he told me that, I was like, no, no, I'm doing a deity retreat. I'm really, you know, bad, you know. Report an error in the passage at 16:03 Highlight the passage at 16:03

16:27 I'm going to be able to pull off. And he was right. You know, tantric realizations are something that for most of us... We don't have a direct realization of emptiness. It's really difficult. It's great to have that imprint, but put your energy into lamrim retreat, even, I mean, lamrim meditation, even within the context of a deity retreat. Report an error in the passage at 16:27 Highlight the passage at 16:27

16:47 That's the really important thing. Okay? Okay. So how do we actually do lamrim retreat? How do we do the practice? One of the most important things that especially Lama Zopa emphasizes is the importance of purification and accumulation of merit. Report an error in the passage at 16:47 Highlight the passage at 16:47

17:06 So during the Lamrim Retreat, we spend a lot of time on purification and accumulation of merit. It's really important to do your meditation sessions within the context of the six preliminaries, and especially the Seven Limb Prayer, which is one of the six preliminaries. And I want to review these at least quickly. I think this is things that you've done in classes with Chogky, but just to give you the context. Report an error in the passage at 17:06 Highlight the passage at 17:06

17:32 Don't just plop down on your cushion and start meditating on the lamrim. The analogy they give is a field that's kind of rocky and unplowed and has a bunch of weeds and stuff like that. If you go scattering seeds on it without preparing the earth, nothing's going to grow, right? You need to plow it, chuck all the rocks out of it, pull up the weeds, put fertilizer. Report an error in the passage at 17:32 Highlight the passage at 17:32

17:59 Get the ground ready. And that's what we're doing with purification and accumulation of merit. And you might think, oh, I don't want to spend a lot of time on that. I only have two weeks to do this lamrim retreat. You know, I don't want to spend time on doing all these other practices. Forget it. You need to do this. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:16 You need to prepare your mind. And then the time that you spend on your actual lamrim analytical meditation is going to be really fruitful. Report an error in the passage at 18:16 Highlight the passage at 18:16

18:26 So, what are the six preliminaries? The Tibetan word for this is Jorcho. So you'll see, for example, there's a practice that Lama Zopa has compiled called the Jorcho and Lama Chopa practice. And this contains a lot of these preliminary practices. And I'm just going to go over them just quickly. For a lot of you, it'll be a reminder and for the details, you can ask Chogky to explain. Report an error in the passage at 18:26 Highlight the passage at 18:26

18:52 To use some of the details. Okay, so the six preliminaries. The first is clean the room and set up the altar. Two of these preliminaries happen before you even sat down. Clean the room and set up the altar. It's really good for your mind to meditate in a place that's really clean. Clean, not big piles all over the place. Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:18 You know, set up a corner of your room that's your meditation spot that's really dedicated for meditation. This is super important because you build up a certain energy. Some of us have taken commitments to do a practice that we have to do on the same cushion every day until we're done with the practice. And this is all about the energy that you sort of build up in the space where you do your practice. Report an error in the passage at 19:18 Highlight the passage at 19:18

19:42 So it's really good. For most of us, we don't have a whole room we can dedicate for our shrine room. Just a corner of the bedroom or the corner of one of our rooms. But it's really good to dedicate a place for your practice, set up an altar there. And then in the morning, it doesn't mean you have to, you know, bring out the vacuum every single morning, but just make sure it's clean and tidy. What I do, I have a little whisk broom in a pan and I just kind of sweep around and just get any dust bunnies sort of out of my meditation place. Report an error in the passage at 19:42 Highlight the passage at 19:42

20:12 So clean the room, set up an altar. It can be really simple with just a statue of the Buddha. It doesn't need to be elaborate. It's recommended to put a representation of the Buddha's body, speech and mind, which is represented by a statue, a scripture and a stupa. So if you want to do an elaborate kind of proper altar, that's good to do. Report an error in the passage at 20:12 Highlight the passage at 20:12

20:37 Now one thing, it's really important if you have any images of the Buddha to put an offering underneath. And it can be as simple as a little vase of flowers or a little candle or something like that. Even if you have pictures of your gurus or tankas on the wall, make sure that there's some sort of offering underneath. Report an error in the passage at 20:37 Highlight the passage at 20:37

20:56 And also His Holiness really says it's good not to use pictures of Buddhas as decoration. So you've moved into a new place and you have this nice big empty living room wall. Don't buy a tanka and put it up there as a decoration. This is a representation of the Buddha's holy body and should only be used at your altar. Report an error in the passage at 20:56 Highlight the passage at 20:56

21:19 For your practice, it shouldn't be used as decoration because it's so pretty. So His Holiness is really heavy about this. He says it's absolutely wrong to use these things as decoration and they should always have an offering underneath. Yeah. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 21:19 Highlight the passage at 21:19

21:43 Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 21:43 Highlight the passage at 21:43

21:50 Well, a lot of the tankas have offerings painted into them. If it's a Tibetan-style tanka, most of them will have an offering painted in. But if they don't, you know, if it's just a picture of His Holiness on your wall, put some kind of offering. If it has it in it, then that's okay. And that's why they do it, by the way. So you're covered if it's a traditional tanka. Yeah, exactly. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:15 Yeah, yeah, all of these traditional tankas mostly have some kind of offering in it, and that's the reason. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:34 You know, Peter, that's a good question, and I don't know. Actually, I had two questions about that. One was there was an article last year in Mandala that said it's actually good to have holy objects as kind of, you know, inspirational items, and I'm kind of seeing what the line would be between them, because I don't really see them decoratively. Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

22:54 Also, I have katas hung over some of my tankas, and I was wondering if that would be considered an offering. It probably would, because katas actually represent flower garlands, which is one of the traditional offerings from ancient India, and because they didn't have a lot of flowers in Tibet, they were the substitute for flower garlands, so that would probably do. Report an error in the passage at 22:54 Highlight the passage at 22:54

23:17 That's interesting, I never thought of that, but just thinking through, I think that would be all right. And, by the way, It's all depending on what your motivation is, of whether it's decoration or whether it's inspiration. One woman last week was saying, oh, but in my guest room, you know, I have a Buddhist statue with a little candle in front of it, and I think, oh, wouldn't it be a good imprint for my guests? Report an error in the passage at 23:17 Highlight the passage at 23:17

23:41 And I say, that's fine. In that, you know, in that situation. Her motivation is to inspire people, not just like, oh, I've got an empty top of a bookcase, I'll just chuck a Buddhist statue up there. So it just depends. You just need to check your mind. I have a question. It's really about my friend's house. Report an error in the passage at 23:41 Highlight the passage at 23:41

24:04 They don't practice Buddhism, but they have Buddhist things, like the living room, because I'm not sure why, actually. I always find myself sharing Buddhist stories when I'm around it, but I don't really know how to... Handle this. Handle it, yeah. Do you think they would be open? I mean, it just all depends so much. Like with people who aren't Buddhist, you have to be really skillful. Report an error in the passage at 24:04 Highlight the passage at 24:04

24:33 And it usually never works to kind of come down heavy because then they just get defensive and it's like worse than if you didn't say anything. And I guess it just depends on their relationship and if you could explain the reasoning. Report an error in the passage at 24:33 Highlight the passage at 24:33

24:46 If you could just say, oh, you know, in Buddhist tradition, these are supposed to be really specific objects of, you know, respect and not used as decoration. And you might just be able to say, it makes me a little uncomfortable when they're used as just decoration because that's not, you know, according to what we do. Report an error in the passage at 24:46 Highlight the passage at 24:46

25:08 And then they may say, too bad it's not your house or whatever. you know, it just kind of depends on how open that you. You think they would be to kind of listening to your feelings about it and maybe respecting that. I don't think they're trying to be disrespectful. I think they just are ignorant. Sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of whether you think it would be effective to really just mention what it means to you. Report an error in the passage at 25:08 Highlight the passage at 25:08

25:33 And sometimes you just have to go, okay, for them it's not disrespect, so it's okay. Like for us, it wouldn't be so proper because we've taken refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha. So that's sort of one of our refuge commitments. But if somebody hasn't taken refuge, then it's not so much of a karmic fault for them as it is for us. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

25:54 So it's not worth... Like risking World War III over at all, you know. So that's, you know, for our minds it's more of an imprint because of our refuge than it would be for somebody else. Yeah. Okay. So the second of the six preliminaries is making offerings. Okay. So it's nice to use sort of the traditional water bowl offerings. And I won't go into all the significance of all the seven or eight water bowls because that's something that you can learn from Chogky in the other texts. Report an error in the passage at 25:54 Highlight the passage at 25:54

26:28 But it's really important to, you know, make offerings not to leave water bowls upright and empty. That's super important, okay? So it's really good to, you know, make your water bowl offerings every day. Don't leave them overnight. And this is a Kadampa practice. You know, these Kadampa llamas were really hardcore and they just tried to make everything practice. And they would empty their water bowls at night and turn them upside down to prepare for death. Report an error in the passage at 26:28 Highlight the passage at 26:28

26:57 You know, because they're like, hey, I could die tonight. And then my water bowls would evaporate and then the bowls would be sitting on my altar empty and that's not good. Report an error in the passage at 26:57 Highlight the passage at 26:57

27:06 Empty them every night. And remind yourself of this. There's no guarantee. You've got to get ready. So this is an important thing. You should obtain offerings through proper means also, through proper livelihood. So it's important to have offerings that are pure. It's really important not to have any kind of attitude of miserliness towards the offerings that you make, which is why water bowls are used. Report an error in the passage at 27:06 Highlight the passage at 27:06

27:36 Because the idea was everybody can afford water. Nobody's going to have a mind of miserliness about water. And then in your mind you visualize them as these seven offerings that were traditionally given to a king who came to visit your house in ancient India. In your mind you transform them into these substances and think of them filling the whole universe. But you're just offering water so you're not going to have a mind that grasps. Report an error in the passage at 27:36 Highlight the passage at 27:36

28:03 Okay. Now. You can put a representative of these different offerings in the bowls also. Like one of the offerings is incense and you can stick some sticks of incense up in a bowl of rice. It's good to have rice because then it's not empty. You know, you don't risk it being empty. You can make food offerings with your last water bowl. Report an error in the passage at 28:03 Highlight the passage at 28:03

28:28 Now for the food offerings, it's good to change these every day and it's good not to eat them yourself afterwards. Because you may have that mind, for me it's chocolate, right? If I put chocolate on the Mint Milanos on my offering bowl in the morning, all day my mind is going to be like, I get to eat those at the end of the day when I, you know, take down my offering. Report an error in the passage at 28:28 Highlight the passage at 28:28

28:50 So if it's anything that you might have any kind of mind of grasping, and it's better just as a general rule, don't eat your offerings, your food offerings. If you make food offerings on your altar, you can give them to your friends. Your friends can eat them. You can put them outside in a high, clean place. Don't chuck them in the garbage. Don't throw them down on the ground. Report an error in the passage at 28:50 Highlight the passage at 28:50

29:13 They say it's okay for birds to eat them. I think they say that because who can help it if you put them outside somewhere high? But it's not good to feed them to your dog or just throw them out on the ground where any animal can eat them. Report an error in the passage at 29:13 Highlight the passage at 29:13

29:29 Yeah, let me just say that one of the nice things in my last retreat that I did at my house, which is in a second floor apartment, and I didn't want to leave the house, and I didn't have a high place to put the food offerings. Report an error in the passage at 29:29 Highlight the passage at 29:29

29:42 And the Lama that was guiding the retreat suggested I get a bird feeder that's stuck onto the window, so it was suction cups. So it was so cool, so I had all this food piled up and the birds never came, by the way. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

29:58 So this little compost heap was developing, but I worked it out. Nice, yeah, yeah, little suction cups, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 29:58 Highlight the passage at 29:58

30:13 Okay, the third preliminary is set up your posture, your seven-point posture that you probably had in other classes, your proper meditation posture. Take refuge and generate bodhicitta, okay? Now you're on your cushion, okay? By the way, it's good to do three prostrations before you sit down on your cushion. Report an error in the passage at 30:13 Highlight the passage at 30:13

30:35 Then set up your posture, refuge and bodhicitta, okay? This is all number three, posture, refuge and bodhicitta. Now most of your practices will have refuge and bodhicitta in there as the first step and this is fine. You don't have to do it twice. It's like now we're kind of getting into where most of us have some sort of meditation practice that we're doing. Report an error in the passage at 30:35 Highlight the passage at 30:35

30:59 The next step is visualizing the merit field. And also, this will differ from practice to practice. One of the practices that's really nice to do for a lamrim retreat is this daily meditation on Chakyamuni Buddha. And again, like I said, your lamrim meditation session should be within the context of all of these preliminaries. So a practice like this sort of encloses your retreat, provides the preliminaries that I'm talking about as part of it. Report an error in the passage at 30:59 Highlight the passage at 30:59

31:31 So this is a good one. If you don't have another daily practice, some of you have practice commitments, and then you can do your lamrim meditation within the context of your other commitments. If you have, for example, six session guru yoga, if you've taken tantric initiation, you can do your lamrim within the context of that too. Report an error in the passage at 31:31 Highlight the passage at 31:31

31:51 But this is a good one. Did you have a question? Yeah. So about the marriage field, I know there is a... complex merit field, like the one behind, you know, with all these lineages and stuff. I never learned that one. And now that I'm studying about deities and all these things, so there's all these different merit fields and stuff, so I'm just wondering... Report an error in the passage at 31:51 Highlight the passage at 31:51

32:16 Yeah, it just completely depends on what the practice is that you're using as the basis for your lamrim. Meditation, for example, there's a practice called Lama Tsopa, which is this very elaborate merit field with this lineage of extensive deeds and the lineage of the profound view and this tantric lineage over here and that one over there. Report an error in the passage at 32:16 Highlight the passage at 32:16

32:38 It's really hard to visualize. It's really hard to get a good visualization. A lot of what the Lamas recommend, especially for beginners, even if you are doing a practice like that, they say, There's this practice called the jewel embodiment, and they say visualize the main figure of the merit field as the embodiment of all enlightened beings, especially your gurus, all enlightened qualities. Report an error in the passage at 32:38 Highlight the passage at 32:38

33:05 And then over time you can build up the complexity of the other figures, but for us as beginners, if you have a practice with a really elaborate merit field, you can always simplify it to the main figure. As the embodiment of your guru and the embodiment of all enlightened beings. Okay, so that's okay. And then over time, you'll get more used to the, you know, visualizing the other figures. Report an error in the passage at 33:05 Highlight the passage at 33:05

33:30 But for us, you know, it can be a real obstacle. We're such perfectionists, right? And you want to get everything right. And then you spend like 45 minutes on the merit field visualization and then you're exhausted. Report an error in the passage at 33:30 Highlight the passage at 33:30

33:43 And then you figure you can't meditate and who needs that? You know, we don't need more reinforcement for our low self-esteem. So, you know, I always suggest for beginners, unless you've got a lot of practice, just do that jewel embodiment visualization of the main figure of whatever practice you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 33:43 Highlight the passage at 33:43

34:00 And for this one, it's really easy because it's just Shakyamuni Buddha, really easy visualization, you know, very, very simple. So like that. Yeah. Don't make the visualization an obstacle. You know, work on it over time, but if it's really elaborate, just, you know, give it some space to develop. Yeah. Okay. And so that will differ, you know, the merit field will differ from practice to practice. In this one, it's Shakyamuni Buddha, really simple. Report an error in the passage at 34:00 Highlight the passage at 34:00

34:29 Okay. Now, the fifth of the six preliminaries is purifying obstacles and accumulating merit. And I will hammer this in, Lama Zopa, if you ever hear him talk, he'll hammer this in over and over again. Before you actually start your main meditation, you need to purify and accumulate merit. Now, a great way to do this is the seven limb prayer, which you will also find in most of these meditation practices, including this one. Report an error in the passage at 34:29 Highlight the passage at 34:29

35:02 So before you actually do the meditation, Good accumulation of merit and purification of obstacles by the seven limb prayer. And I'll just review the limbs really quickly. Prostrations is the first limb. Don't get back up off your cushion. Just do it mentally. Kind of bow down in your mind to one of the qualities of the enlightened beings that you admire. Report an error in the passage at 35:02 Highlight the passage at 35:02

35:26 Offerings. You've already set up your water bowls. This is where you offer them. Okay, so this is where you offer and visualize. Now there's three levels of offering that you can make to your teachers. Okay, one is material offerings, which is all these water bowls. The second level is the offering of service. Report an error in the passage at 35:26 Highlight the passage at 35:26

35:45 You know, work in an FBMT center, make a million photocopies, you know, send a zillion emails every day. And then the third level of offering, which is the highest level, is the offering of your practice. So it's really nice during this limb, you visualize all the water bowls and everything. Think of some aspect of your practice that you've done in the last day or two and offer that. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

36:08 That's the highest level of offering. You know, our llamas don't care about the little red envelopes with the $20 bills in them. They really don't. You know, they're not doing it for that. They really want you to practice. And that's the offering that pleases them the most. Confession. The limb of confession. Before you can purify, you just need to acknowledge that you've done something that you regret. I emphasize the word regret, and this is not guilt. Report an error in the passage at 36:08 Highlight the passage at 36:08

36:37 Buddhism does not believe in original sin. It's not wallowing in guilt. It's just going, as an educated Buddhist, I created a non-virtue that's going to lead to my future suffering. What a drag. Let's purify. I don't want to have that result of that ignorant, Report an error in the passage at 36:37 Highlight the passage at 36:37

36:56 Delusional misdeed that I did. That's all. Just acknowledging, confessing. The next limb is rejoicing. And Lama Tsongkhapa really emphasizes this. This is getting off on virtue. Both your own and that of other beings. Your Dharma friends, especially these holy beings like, just spend a minute to really reflect on, you know, His Holiness is the Dalai Lama's virtue. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:22 It's unbelievable. And there's this equation that they say you get 10 % of the virtue of somebody with more realizations than you, an equal amount of somebody with the same level of realizations, and more than somebody with a lower level of realizations. So can you imagine getting 10 % of the Dalai Lama's virtue just by being happy about it? It's the cheapest way to get... Report an error in the passage at 37:22 Highlight the passage at 37:22

37:49 Unbelievable merit. So Lama Zopa, when you do a meditation, he pauses for like half an hour at this point. Rejoice in His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Rejoice in all the holy beings. And he goes on and on. And it's really important to do this. It also really is an antidote to this Western low self-esteem thing. Report an error in the passage at 37:49 Highlight the passage at 37:49

38:08 So make sure you rejoice in your own virtues too. You're totally allowed. It's not hubris. Do it. you know is it just Deepens that imprint of your own virtue by getting off on it. You're totally allowed and in fact you're encouraged. And this is the limb of rejoicing. So it's a really good thing to do. Okay, the next limb is requesting the gurus to have a long life and also requesting teachings from them is the next one. Report an error in the passage at 38:08 Highlight the passage at 38:08

38:41 Our gurus only show up and teach us because we create the cause, you know, and even for us who pretend to be Dharma teachers, we have to be requested three times before we teach. There needs to be a lot of, you know, wish from the side of the students for us to teach. We're not allowed to stand out on the street corner, you know, with a sandwich board, you know, Lord Buddha is coming, the end is near, you know. Report an error in the passage at 38:41 Highlight the passage at 38:41

39:09 we're not. In fact, it's so interesting because I've been going to teach at a prison. And Katie's been working with the prison administration, trying to find a teacher, and then I agreed to go, so all like this. And then the prison administration, the chaplain's really happy, and he's like, can you keep coming? And I said, well, like the prisoners need to... Report an error in the passage at 39:09 Highlight the passage at 39:09

39:29 Want me to and they need to ask me and he goes no no no but we've decided it's good and it works out and I'm like no no no like the students have to ask me it can't be the prison administration you know it really needs to come from the side of the student. So we are unbelievably fortunate to have the teachers that we have and to have the merit to have the teachers. Report an error in the passage at 39:29 Highlight the passage at 39:29

39:51 And for God's sakes, keep requesting them to stay in your life and keep showing up for the rest of this life and life after life. Don't be complacent. And that's what this limb is all about. You know, request them to teach you. Beg them to stay in your life. Beg them to have a long life. And keep showing up to teach you. Let's not get complacent. You know, unbelievable virtue that you've done in a past life. Report an error in the passage at 39:51 Highlight the passage at 39:51

40:19 Like all the llamas. Say, you know, these students come and they ask, like, what was I in my past life? And they're like, look at you. I mean, it's so obvious what you were in your past life because you're here. Just keep it up, you know, just if we could have a future rebirth like the one we've pulled off in this life, unbelievable, you know, and this is part of how you do it. Report an error in the passage at 40:19 Highlight the passage at 40:19

40:44 So this is really serious. Ask them to stick around, live long and keep teaching you. Now, you have all of this virtue, you know, that rocky soil is cleaned up, the rocks are thrown away, the fertilizer's there. Now you do your meditation. Now you do your meditation right here. You insert your meditation after the sixth of the seventh limb prayer. Report an error in the passage at 40:44 Highlight the passage at 40:44

41:14 So do your lamrim meditation, your shine meditation, whatever it is that your meditation subject, okay? What's that? Report an error in the passage at 41:14 Highlight the passage at 41:14

41:27 Yeah, that's part of the seven limb prayer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then now you do your meditation. Now, the sixth of the six preliminaries, with seven limb prayers and other things, so now we're to the sixth preliminary, is called Requesting Blessings. And in most of your practices, there'll be some step here. Report an error in the passage at 41:27 Highlight the passage at 41:27

41:51 Where the Lama dissolves into light and comes to the crown of your head or some kind of light comes from them into the crown of your head or the middle of your eyebrows. There's some stage. And what's going on here, you're actually just absorbing the qualities of the Lama. Usually in some form of light. Like either they melt into you or they send light to you, to your heart or to your forehead. Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:16 So this is all about you absorbing and becoming one with the qualities of the Lama. And this is the sixth preliminary. It's not really preliminary anymore, is it? Because it's at the end. But most of these practices, including the Shakyamuni Buddha, will have this step, some step that involves absorbing the qualities in the form of light. Report an error in the passage at 42:16 Highlight the passage at 42:16

42:38 And then at the end is dedication, which is the last of the seven limbs gets stuck at the end. So you're dedicating the merit. And this is super important, dedicating the merit. Put it in the karmic bank account for your future enlightenment. Otherwise, it'll just create the cause for a better rebirth. Report an error in the passage at 42:38 Highlight the passage at 42:38

42:58 But you really need to specifically dedicate the merit for enlightenment. Put that stamp. On it, at the end, you know, and then it won't go to waste, okay? Okay, so that is all the context of your lamrim session. Without that, you know, don't just plop down on the cushion and start your lamrim session. And even though this takes time, it's really, really important and you'll be able to feel the difference in your meditation session if you do this, you know, all of these preliminaries in the seven limb prayer. Report an error in the passage at 42:58 Highlight the passage at 42:58

43:33 Do all your meditations in that context. Okay, are there any questions at this point? Yeah, Peter? I just had a quick one. Report an error in the passage at 43:33 Highlight the passage at 43:33

43:47 Because I'm visually impaired, my pouring water bowls is kind of a disaster. It usually ends up being the floor that gets anointed rather than water bowls. So is it possible to have the bowls continually filled with rice that you bless and then to change the offerings every day? Oh, that's an idea. Report an error in the passage at 43:47 Highlight the passage at 43:47

44:06 You could do, you know, you could even, I'm trying to think, how could you do it? Well, there's a couple of ways you could do it. Could you put your finger in the top and pour really slowly and feel it when it got to a certain point? I can do that, but you're supposed to feel it almost all the way to the top. Report an error in the passage at 44:06 Highlight the passage at 44:06

44:24 Yeah. Yeah. That's where I start. Yeah. Well, I think it would be, you know, considering what's going on for you to fill it a little bit less. I mean, you're not supposed to have it just like halfway, but if you filled it like at least like three quarters of the way and then you could just put your finger and feel when it reached your finger. Report an error in the passage at 44:24 Highlight the passage at 44:24

44:50 No, I mean, you know, you have to deal with the situation. I think that would be okay to do if that works and just maybe use a really small pitcher so that you're not, you know, Too much wouldn't go at a time. Yeah, or you could just somehow put, you know, you could put bottles of water that you fill at the sink and put little bottles with the lid on it and then you could fill them at the sink and just put them up there. Report an error in the passage at 44:50 Highlight the passage at 44:50

45:17 Something like that might work rather than just like open bowls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like really pretty bottles. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no rule that says it needs to be an open thing. So even if you had a top on it, that even you could take the top off. Yeah. Well, try the finger thing. I would try the finger thing and just see how that works. If you get a really small pitcher, you might have to refill it a lot, but one that wouldn't like dump all over and then just do it kind of slowly. Report an error in the passage at 45:17 Highlight the passage at 45:17

45:55 That might work. Yeah, wash your hands before you do it. But I think, you know, it's not that disrespectful. You have to deal with the situation, you know. Yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 45:55 Highlight the passage at 45:55

46:08 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 46:08 Highlight the passage at 46:08

46:31 Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 46:31 Highlight the passage at 46:31

46:39 yeah. Yeah, yeah. I will, but also which way that Report an error in the passage at 46:39 Highlight the passage at 46:39

46:39 Okay, now in terms also, while we're still on the subject of purification and accumulation of merit, Lama Zopa really recommends that when we're in retreat, we do additional purification and accumulation practices also. Now there's this great book called Heart Advice for Retreat that I recommend that everybody gets. You don't have this? It's out there on the little twirly stand thing. Report an error in the passage at 46:39 Highlight the passage at 46:39

47:07 This is excellent. It has translation of a lot of advice from Pabanka Rinpoche that I'm going to go over the essence. It also has a lot of advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, like specific inspirational essays that he's given on the importance of retreat and really specific instruction. So when he talks about structuring your daily practice, he does emphasize purification and accumulation of merit. I'm just going to read over some of the points that he mentions. Report an error in the passage at 47:07 Highlight the passage at 47:07

47:37 Take the eight Mahāyāna precepts every morning. This is really excellent to do when you're in retreat. Another really cheap way to get extra merit, you know. You will find when you're in retreat, for those of you, has everybody done the eight precepts? Are you familiar with what they involve? Report an error in the passage at 47:37 Highlight the passage at 47:37

48:00 Mostly. You have a chance on Thursday. Okay. So mostly what it is, the point of the eight Mayana precepts is living like an arhat for a day. It's very cool, you know. One of the practices that you do is eating just one meal a day. However, if you take them for a long period of time every single day, you're allowed to eat breakfast to after about the second or third day, okay? Report an error in the passage at 48:00 Highlight the passage at 48:00

48:28 Anytime? If you just take it. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

48:36 Oh, okay, okay. Oh yeah, that's the way we're all trained to do. So you have to eat your last meal, you're supposed to eat it before noon, but then there's a thing that if you at least start eating before noon and then there's people that go, well, like Lord Buddha didn't have a digital watch, you know, like set to the cesium clock in the Bureau of Standards. Report an error in the passage at 48:36 Highlight the passage at 48:36

49:03 So it's basically midday should be your last meal and then you don't eat solid food. And this is really easy to do when you're meditating all the time. Your metabolism really shifts. It's really easy to do. And it makes it really easy to wake up early in the morning, which is another thing that's good to do when you're in retreat. Report an error in the passage at 49:03 Highlight the passage at 49:03

49:21 And it's incredible virtue. So I'd really recommend you to take the eight precepts every day when you're in retreat. And it's an extra way for purifying and accumulating merit. And so you get details about... The eight precepts and how to do it. The first time you do it, you're supposed to do it with a Lama and then you can do it subsequently on your own. So, 8 o 'clock, no, 5.30, 5 o 'clock Thursday morning. Report an error in the passage at 49:21 Highlight the passage at 49:21

49:47 Okay, which is a big merit multiplying day. So, you know, if there's any way that you can do it Thursday morning. Yeah. All right, too many questions. Just a quick thing. Report an error in the passage at 49:47 Highlight the passage at 49:47

49:59 For the Mahāyāna precepts, I've heard you can take for longer retreats, you can take them like for a month or for a week at a time. Yes. So you don't have to do it every morning. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And the other thing is because what I'm going to do, I'm planning to do like probably two months in Lundras, which is basically mostly frustrations. Report an error in the passage at 49:59 Highlight the passage at 49:59

50:20 And I'm thinking, I don't know if it's going to be a good thing for me to... take the Mahāyāna precepts if I'm going to be working on a lot of frustrations because of the physical activity all day long, probably like four sets. And I'm going to try to do like a whole lot of them because I have plenty. Report an error in the passage at 50:20 Highlight the passage at 50:20

50:34 Getting enlightened is the hardest thing that any human being will ever do. I don't have much experience on longer retreats. Maybe just check. I mean, I would say if it's hard, but you can do it, it's great. If you get sick, I mean, some people have terrible hypoglycemia. I do, personally. Nugnays are really hard for me because I'm really hypoglycemic. If you get sick or if you feel like you can't do as many prostrations as you'd like, because I know it takes a lot of energy. Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

51:18 But maybe... Try doing precepts and just experiment with it and see if it works at all, but if you're just completely sick and exhausted and can't do it, then, you know, the merit of all the precepts is, I mean, of all the prostrations is quite... I Report an error in the passage at 51:18 Highlight the passage at 51:18

51:42 don't know if you want to keep going on this because you've got so much to cover today, but I have to say that's the way I did during my retreat. And a huge meal. It was better. I meditated better when I took Mahāyāna precepts. But I have to say, thinking about that heavy big one meal, doing it again and again every day, it's a big deal for me to get it all together to hit everything at that time. Report an error in the passage at 51:42 Highlight the passage at 51:42

52:11 Because I need to have those calories. Or at least I think I do. Anyway, the point is breakfast. You've just added a whole new thing to my life because now I could do it. I'm so glad. No, I'm not kidding. Oh, I mean, I took my laundry and retreat, but I didn't know that I could have had that extra pain. Report an error in the passage at 52:11 Highlight the passage at 52:11

52:28 And then you wouldn't be just highlighting yourself. Yeah, no, it makes a huge difference. Yeah, yeah, no, it makes a really huge difference. And high protein keeps your blood sugar levels steady. Like when you do precepts, I would just recommend really high. Protein, especially for your lunchtime meal, because then you'll have steady blood sugar levels. Okay, he says, this is from Lama Zopa's advice, do an extensive motivation at the beginning of each session and reflect again on the motivation before beginning, he's talking about mantra recitation, but I would insert here your lamrim session. Report an error in the passage at 52:28 Highlight the passage at 52:28

53:06 So start with a really good motivation. He says, for the first session of this... Do the combined Giorgio and Lama Tsongkhapa with meditation on guru devotion. And we're going to talk about that in a second too. And then he says at the beginning of other sessions, do a glance meditation on the lamrim with deep reflection on one particular topic. Report an error in the passage at 53:06 Highlight the passage at 53:06

53:28 Begin each session with prostrations to the 35 Buddhas. And the eight medicine Buddhas together with the general confession prayer. And even if you don't do it for every session, I'd really recommend doing it at least once or twice a day. Prostrations to the 35 Buddhas. Once again, heavy hitter practice for purification and accumulation of merit. And then at the end of the day, do extensive dedication prayers like the king of prayers followed by multiplying mantras and end of the day dedication prayers. Report an error in the passage at 53:28 Highlight the passage at 53:28

54:02 In the FPMT prayer books, there's nice dedication prayer sections. In this book, there are a lot of dedication prayers. What I did in Long Retreat was just rotate the dedication prayers so it didn't become just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I'm doing it every day. There's so many beautiful dedication prayers from so many scriptures and ones that have been composed by Lama Zopa and other Lamas. So it's nice to just kind of rotate through different... Report an error in the passage at 54:02 Highlight the passage at 54:02

54:29 Dedication prayers. And then you really preserve the feeling of it. But this is a nice way, these things that he suggested, these extra practices, especially prostrations to the 35 Buddhas, precepts, you know, as a way to really make the most of your lamrim retreat. Okay? Okay. So, how do we do analytical meditation on the lamrim? Report an error in the passage at 54:29 Highlight the passage at 54:29

54:54 Now this is one of those things that's very interesting. There's three main kinds of meditation. There's analytical meditation, there's single point of concentration, and then there's review or glance meditation, where you just do something like read a prayer that covers the whole lamrim to just remind yourself of all the points, point by point. Report an error in the passage at 54:54 Highlight the passage at 54:54

55:17 Now when we do a good lamrim meditation, We alternate between the first two kinds, analytical and single-pointed. And this is the way we do this. For the Lama meditations, and there are a lot of good books with outlines of the points that you cover for any analytical Lama meditation that will have certain points that we're meant to reflect on. Report an error in the passage at 55:17 Highlight the passage at 55:17

55:44 So what you do, you think of the different points that are mentioned in that particular in that particular Lamrim topic And then when you feel some sort of a feeling for what it is, you know, you focus on it, you mull it over, you contemplate it. Sometimes you'll get one of these sort of aha moments, like it'll become real for you and you'll just get some feeling for it. Then focus on that with single point of concentration for as long as you can, for as long as that feeling lasts. Report an error in the passage at 55:44 Highlight the passage at 55:44

56:19 For example, I remember the first little baby realization I had of a lamrim topic when I was first starting out, I was doing a death awareness meditation. And it was this thing of like, I could die any time, I have no idea when, yada yada yada. And then the teacher used this great analogy and she said, we're all in the position that we've jumped out of the plane without a parachute. Report an error in the passage at 56:19 Highlight the passage at 56:19

56:44 Well, I'm really scared of heights, so this was a very visceral image for me, you know, of just jumping out of the plane and it's like, I'm going to hit the ground sooner or later and I have no parachute and it's just a matter of time. And it was so, I sort of work in visual images and it was just so gripping that I got it. Like, I finally got it. Report an error in the passage at 56:44 Highlight the passage at 56:44

57:07 You know, I got the... Definitiveness of death. And I remember I'm sitting there in a room full of people and I kind of went like that and everybody's really like... And then, like stay with that feeling. Like when you get that feeling, stick with it for as long as you can. You know, eventually the feeling will fade a little bit, then go back to the analysis. Report an error in the passage at 57:07 Highlight the passage at 57:07

57:29 So we're alternating analysis and single-pointed concentration. And this is the way to do lamrim meditation. You know, alternating. And then when the feeling comes up, drop the analysis and hang with the feeling for as long as you can to make that imprint really firm. Don't keep going through the thing when you're feeling the feeling. Drop it and stay with the feeling, okay? Now another way to make lamrim meditation work for you, make it really personal. Report an error in the passage at 57:29 Highlight the passage at 57:29

58:00 Okay, make it personal. Don't go through these dry outlines and leave it dry. Like, apply it to your life, you know. Rewrite the lamrim meditation to use examples from your life. I did this a lot in Long Retreat. I would take the traditional outline and I would compose my own lamrim meditation. And in fact, this book... Report an error in the passage at 58:00 Highlight the passage at 58:00

58:25 Is invaluable. Spiritual friends. And this is a compilation of monks and nuns of Lama Zopa's organizations who have done just that. You know, this is their personal favorite personalized lamrim meditations. And these are amazing. These are just incredible. Because they've really filled in detail, you know, these things to make it really real and make it personal. Report an error in the passage at 58:25 Highlight the passage at 58:25

58:49 And this is a great book. To take on your lamrim retreat. You know, there are ones in here that I just do over and over and over again and always do whenever I do a lamrim meditation class. You know, this is my basic book. So this is great. And do your own. You know, do your own. Get creative about it. Get creative about making up your own lamrim. Report an error in the passage at 58:49 Highlight the passage at 58:49

59:10 Because that's when it's going to have an effect on your life when you make it personal and make it real. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 59:10 Highlight the passage at 59:10

59:19 How to organize your sessions. How to organize your day. Now, traditionally, the way to do retreat is in four sessions. And the traditional way is your first session is first thing in the morning before dawn. So you wake up early. Do your first session before dawn. Then you take a break, have some tea, have some breakfast. Report an error in the passage at 59:19 Highlight the passage at 59:19

59:47 Your second session is in the latter part of the morning before noon. Then you have your big meal because you're taking precepts, so you stop and have your big meal at noon. Usually after that, you take your longest break. For one thing, you're full, and it's not good to meditate on a full stomach, especially if you're just eating one meal a day and getting all your basic food groups in one meal. Report an error in the passage at 59:47 Highlight the passage at 59:47

1:00:12 You're going to be full. So that's when it's good to just take a break, maybe have some exercise, rest. Then the fourth session in the later part of the afternoon, then another break, and then your final session in the evening. Now, this usually means two or three hour sessions, which for beginners is a little bit difficult. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:12 Highlight the passage at 1:00:12

1:00:35 So for beginners, it's sometimes good to divide the day into six sessions. So you have two shorter sessions in the morning and two shorter sessions in the afternoon. And Lama Zopa has very kindly provided us with sample schedules in this book. So he kind of says the hardcore people who can sit for more than two hours at a time and then for those of us beginners who can't sit that long. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:35 Highlight the passage at 1:00:35

1:01:02 So I'll just read out really quickly his... His schedule, 4.30 to 5, you take the eight precepts, 5 to 7, you do the combined Giorgio and Lama Tsongkhapa with prostrations to the 35 Buddhas, 7 to 8 is your tea break, 8 to 9.30 meditation session within a half hour break, then another session from 10 to 11, 11 to 12 is lunch, 12 to 3 is a break, so you get a nice long break. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:02 Highlight the passage at 1:01:02

1:01:33 Another session from 3 to 4.30, then a break, and then your final session from 5.30 to 7. Oh, I'm sorry, two afternoon sessions, 5.30 to 7 with a break, and then 8 to 9 is another session. So none of these sessions are more than an hour and a half. They're all doable. One thing that as a beginner is really discouraging is to try and sit for three hours at a stretch. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:33 Highlight the passage at 1:01:33

1:02:01 That is the best way to just kill any enthusiasm you have for doing retreat and for meditating. Because as Pabanka Rinpoche, you know these Tibetans are pretty earthy and at one point he was talking about this and he says, then you're just going to want to vomit anytime you look at your meditation cushion. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:01 Highlight the passage at 1:02:01

1:02:18 And they're so real. He's like, you look at your cushion and you want to vomit. So please... Don't think that you can be Milarepa at the beginning and do a three-hour session. Be nice to yourself. Do this nice Lama Zopa hour, hour and a half with nice little tea breaks in between. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:18 Highlight the passage at 1:02:18

1:02:38 Then you're going to have some enthusiasm for practice. You're going to have a good time. You're going to want to do it again. This isn't about beating ourselves up. It's hard, but... There's no need for it to be harder than it is. So this is kind of nice. This six session a day thing is a good thing to do for beginners. Now, I'm going to give you Pabanka Rinpoche's ideal instructions about how to get realizations of the lamrim. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:38 Highlight the passage at 1:02:38

1:03:09 And then I'm going to get realistic. We're going to start with the ideal and then go to the real. So Pabanka Rinpoche has all this beautiful advice about how to get realizations on the lamrim, a lot of which is in this wonderful book. And what he says is, you know, no matter how long it takes to get realization on the lamrim, even if it takes weeks, months or years for each subject, just do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:09 Highlight the passage at 1:03:09

1:03:41 So what he recommends is, and this is a retreat advice that he wrote for one of his students who is intending, I think, to go into retreat for the rest of his life. So this is the context. It's like, I'm done with saṃsāra, I want to get all these realizations, I'm going into retreat, oh Lama, please tell me what to do. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:41 Highlight the passage at 1:03:41

1:04:01 So he said, okay, it's like this. He said, guru devotion is the hardest subject to get realizations on. So he goes, so if you wait to get the realizations of guru devotion, you're going to work on that for the next 40 years, you know, and you're not going to have a chance to work on any of the other subjects. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:01 Highlight the passage at 1:04:01

1:04:20 So he says, do one session a day on guru devotion, you know, and this is one of the traditional and the lamrim, that's the first subject that you do, which, by the way, is really from the context of Tantra. It's taught as the first session of the Lamrim because the whole context of the Lamrim is subjects that are leading you up to having a tantric guru-disciple relationship, which some of you may have and some of you may not. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:20 Highlight the passage at 1:04:20

1:04:48 So the context of this Lamrim guru devotion is a tantric guru-disciple relationship where you have to see the guru as a Buddha. And there are specific reasons for that according to tantra. Okay, so that's, you know, for some of us, that kind of relationship, if we don't have that, it's not going to apply and it's going to just be confusing. So this is what Pabanka Rinpoche said for people who have that level of relationship with a teacher. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:48 Highlight the passage at 1:04:48

1:05:16 So he said, do one session a day on guru devotion. And cycle through, there's about four different major subheadings of the guru devotion and he said work on one subheading at a time, like work on the advantages of devoting correctly for a couple of weeks and then work on the disadvantages of not devoting correctly for a while, you know, and cycle through like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:16 Highlight the passage at 1:05:16

1:05:40 Then he said, for your other sessions, work your way through the other topics from the precious human rebirth up to bodhicitta. And cycle through working on each one until you get the realization. And this is when he says, and it may take months or years, but don't give up, okay? So it's like work on precious human rebirth for as long as it takes to get the uncontrived realization. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:40 Highlight the passage at 1:05:40

1:06:09 And he differentiates between contrived and uncontrived. And he says contrived is when you're thinking of the topic for a while and then you get that aha moment thing. And he says uncontrived is your mind just touches on it and immediately the feeling arises. And that's what we're going for if we do retreat on the Lamrim for the rest of our life, obviously. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:09 Highlight the passage at 1:06:09

1:06:29 We're going for uncontrived. So he says for that... As long as it takes, even if it's years. But he says don't beat yourself over the head. If you've got the uncontrived realization, he says for some of the topics it'll come a lot easier. Don't keep bludgeoning yourself with the same topic, go on to the next. You know, and in this instruction he gives sort of time frames for some of them. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:29 Highlight the passage at 1:06:29

1:06:53 He's like, this one should take about a week and then this one will take a little bit longer. And he kind of goes through details. And then he says, for the one session every day, meditate on the view, on emptiness. So one session a day, guru devotion, one session emptiness, all the sessions in between. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:53 Highlight the passage at 1:06:53

1:07:13 Keep cycling through until you get the realization and then move on to the next topic for as long as it takes. So this is Pobankar Rinpoche's perfect world, that all of us are going off into a cave. For the rest of our lives and meditating on the lamrim. Now, we probably don't have that kind of time. Most of you have maybe a couple of weeks to do a lamrim meditation if you're lucky. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:13 Highlight the passage at 1:07:13

1:07:38 So what do you do then? So there's a couple of things that you can do for shorter retreats. One thing that I found really useful that sort of approximates Povanka Rinpoche's advice about doing guru... Guru devotion meditation every day and also precious human rebirth which is something that he really emphasizes. There's this beautiful meditation in this book called A Meditation on Guru Devotion and a Precious Human Rebirth. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:38 Highlight the passage at 1:07:38

1:08:10 Okay, both together in this nice short meditation which is just incredibly beautiful. Total inspiration. It's really good to at least reflect on your precious human rebirth every day because that gets you motivated. It's really wonderful. And this is by a Spanish monk called Jampa Shenpen who studied for a long time in Sarah Monastery in South India. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:10 Highlight the passage at 1:08:10

1:08:35 I don't know if he's still there or not. I heard he was going to go into long retreat. Well, he created the cause by writing this meditation. I was meant to write him a fan letter about this meditation because I did this every morning in retreat for like years and years and it's just beautiful. So it would be great, you know, this is one that I highly recommend that sort of covers those bases of what Pabanka Rinpoche says, setting your motivation and doing that Guru Devotion meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:35 Highlight the passage at 1:08:35

1:09:02 Okay. Now, for the rest of your sessions, There are different ways that you can divide whatever time that you have among the lamrim topics. One way you can do it is just to devote a day each for each topic. Let's say you have two weeks. Devote one day to each of the lamrim topics. If you have a longer period of time, you can devote like a week or even a month to each topic. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:02 Highlight the passage at 1:09:02

1:09:32 When I was doing lamrim retreat for a while, Lama Zopa said spend a month on each topic. And a friend of mine who's going to go into a long retreat just got some advice from Lama Zopa saying a month on each topic. So you can do like that. For however much time you have, just divide up into however many chunks it'll take to cover the whole lamrim in bigger chunks. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:32 Highlight the passage at 1:09:32

1:09:59 Or you can do one day each and keep cycling through. You know, that's one way you can do it. Another way that a lot of people like to do it is to cycle through all the topics, which takes about three days, and just keep cycling through in like three days. Cycles for as long as you have. And then for sure, you're going to have some experience of the lamrim topic. You know, you're just going to have some sort of experiential, it's not going to be an uncontrived realization most probably, but at least you'll have some taste. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:59 Highlight the passage at 1:09:59

1:10:33 When I was doing lamrim retreat, at a certain point... Before this was at a different phase, before Lama Zopa said spend a month on each one, I found that three sessions at a time per topic really worked for me. You know, it was enough to really kind of get me in the groove of that topic, but it wasn't so long that I got bored. And it wasn't just one session that I wasn't getting much of an experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:33 Highlight the passage at 1:10:33

1:10:59 And I found that for me, three... You know, if I cycled through doing three sessions on each topic and kept cycling through, for me that really worked. So you may want to just experiment, like how many sessions does it take to really get you into the topic but without getting bored, you know, if you have a shorter amount of time. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:59 Highlight the passage at 1:10:59

1:11:22 Yeah. When you say three... Is it on? When you say three... it on? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:22 Highlight the passage at 1:11:22

1:11:36 That could be three days. No, three sessions. In one day. Yeah, yeah. On the same topic. Yeah. So like if you do your morning one is my favorite one, right? And then if you do like a six session day, that would mean then the two later morning sessions in the first afternoon session on the same topic. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:36 Highlight the passage at 1:11:36

1:11:58 Then you switch in your second afternoon session in your evening session on one and then you do that for the morning and, you know, just cycle through like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:58 Highlight the passage at 1:11:58

1:12:07 Any other questions about how to schedule? Do you have something, Chad? No. Okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:07 Highlight the passage at 1:12:07

1:12:19 Okay, so how do you set up the place? This is how, you know, we've just kind of gone through how you set up the schedule. Okay? And play around with it, like I said. See what works for you. You know, everybody's different. Figure out how much time you have and see what works for you. At this point, if you don't have years, if Lama Zopa is not telling you to go into retreat for the rest of your life, you're probably just going to be able to get a really good experience and familiarity with the topic. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:19 Highlight the passage at 1:12:19

1:12:47 And that's excellent. Pabanka Rinpoche says even just to get familiar with the lamrim is more important than all these psychic powers. So even to get familiar with the topic enough that then it's in your mind. Really clearly. Oh, and it's also really, really good. Whatever topic you're working on for however much of a period of time, in your break times, read about that topic. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:47 Highlight the passage at 1:12:47

1:13:14 There's so many good lamrim books around. There's Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. There's Yangtze Rinpoche's Practicing the Path. Now all three volumes of the lamrim temo have been translated. You know, there's... Great Lamrim books by His Holiness. It's really great to just absorb your mind in that topic for as long as you're focusing on that topic. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:14 Highlight the passage at 1:13:14

1:13:40 And it really reinforces your meditation. Okay, I wanted to go through really quickly there are six traditional qualities of a good retreat place and then we're going to go through general guidelines for doing retreat. I'm not giving you guys a break. Is that all right? We just have so much to do. You can handle two hours, right? We'll do more questions at the end. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:40 Highlight the passage at 1:13:40

1:14:07 Yes, which? You can handle? No break? Okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:07 Highlight the passage at 1:14:07

1:14:15 I'm not allowed to do that. Okay, Report an error in the passage at 1:14:15 Highlight the passage at 1:14:15

1:14:22 the qualities of a good place to meditate and the scriptural reference for this is... Called dodekyen is the Tibetan word. It's the Sūtra Alamkara, ornament of the sutras by Maitreya. This is one of the five great texts that's studied in the Tibetan monasteries. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:22 Highlight the passage at 1:14:22

1:14:41 So the first quality is the qualities of the place, which has five subsections. This is a very Galupa list, right? It's like the five of this and the ten of that and the subsections of the other thing. Okay. Qualities of the place. The things you need should be easy to find. Groceries, clothes should be warm enough. Basically, you should be comfortable. We're not Melarepa. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:41 Highlight the passage at 1:14:41

1:15:07 Don't go to a cave. I have a friend who went off to a cave to do retreat. He thought he was going to be some great yogi. He was in southern Arizona and he found this cave and he went in and he was like, yeah, okay, great. He had to climb up sort of this cliff face to this hall that he saw. So then the sun came down and about 85 gazillion daddy long legs start crawling out of the mouth of the cave. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:07 Highlight the passage at 1:15:07

1:15:35 He completely freaked out. He stayed in the cave. Luckily he had a tent with him and so he put up his tent inside the cave and then he's like, that's the last time I'm going to try and meditate in a cave. So we should be comfortable. You know, you shouldn't be, it shouldn't be excessive but you should be comfortable, warm enough. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:35 Highlight the passage at 1:15:35

1:15:54 That was creepy, yeah, he was pretty creeped out, yeah. So, you know, good food should be available, you should be warm enough, you know, just be comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:54 Highlight the passage at 1:15:54

1:16:07 It should be a safe place, and the traditional text says free of robbers and wild animals and things like that, okay? At Shiné Land, this place that I had done. Done retreat for several years in the central California coast, this bear decided to move in. And when people were gone from their cabins, the bear would rip the door off and eat their winter's worth of groceries. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:07 Highlight the passage at 1:16:07

1:16:29 Down there, the road washes out in the wintertime and you need to get all your food a year in advance. And this one friend of mine came back, he was out at a teaching with His Holiness and he came back and his screen door was ripped off and all his granola and rice and beans were like all over the floor and mostly eaten, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:29 Highlight the passage at 1:16:29

1:16:46 It's like $800 worth of food. And he said the thing that freaked him out the most was he had a porch with a sliding glass door and there were these two big paw prints about five feet up on the door. So he just kept having this vision of the bear. And even though it was just a black bear and it wouldn't have hurt him, still, after he came back, every time he heard a noise outside, he'd be like, you know, completely freaked out. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:46 Highlight the passage at 1:16:46

1:17:10 So it's good not to have a place like that where, you know, you have fear of animals. Intruders, things like that. It should be a good location in terms of not being too hot, not being too cold, nothing that will make you sick. That's why a lot of the lamas are really trying to start these retreat places in the West because you do long retreat in India, you'll get giardia, the water's bad, you know, you get hepatitis, all of this stuff, which is really hard to meditate when you're sick. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:10 Highlight the passage at 1:17:10

1:17:42 So it should be a place where you can stay healthy. You know that the weather's not too extreme and the food and water are good. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:42 Highlight the passage at 1:17:42

1:17:51 The next quality, you should have a good support staff, people who understand what you're doing and are really supportive of you. And this is so super important. You get really sensitive to things like energy when you're in a long, especially a long meditation retreat, and you can really feel like the energy of the people taking care of you, even if you don't see them at all, which is something that we're going to get into in a second. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:51 Highlight the passage at 1:17:51

1:18:15 You know, you just... It's really important to have people who understand what you're doing. I had a friend who went off to do retreat. She found this place in New Mexico, and she arranged with this woman to use the cabin on the woman's property, and she said she was doing a meditation retreat. The woman would just show up and visit her. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:15 Highlight the passage at 1:18:15

1:18:33 Like all the time, you know, just unannounced. And she was just thinking she was just sort of hanging out in the hammock and having a break. And then she was like, what do I do? You know, this is this lady and she just didn't understand what she was doing at all. So that's really difficult. It's really important to have people who understand and respect what you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:33 Highlight the passage at 1:18:33

1:18:53 The next two, oh, the last quality, it should be a quiet place with no interruptions from other people. No telephones ringing, you know, no dogs barking. That's really important. Also water running. Like there was this one guy I heard of, this Zen practitioner, who found this beautiful cabin next to this sort of babbling brook. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:53 Highlight the passage at 1:18:53

1:19:16 And after about three or four days of meditating, he was going out during his break times trying to rearrange the rocks in the stream so they made a different noise, you know. It was driving him crazy. Even the ocean. You know, if you're really sitting there completely quiet meditating, it's like Chinese water torture or something, like there's just this constant crashing of the surf. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:16 Highlight the passage at 1:19:16

1:19:38 It may seem really romantic, but after about four or five days of silent meditation, it's driving you nuts, okay? Okay, the second of the qualities of a good place to meditate, the second and the third are really related. The second is reducing your needs and wants to nothing. As few as possible. Not needing a lot. And this is all about, you know, don't send your caretakers these long notes about exactly the kind of fountain pens and chocolates and cereal and things that you need. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:38 Highlight the passage at 1:19:38

1:20:14 And, you know, your mind will just go crazy. When you're in retreat, you'll invent all kinds of distractions. Don't let lists of what you absolutely have. I went through this. My thing was Dharma books. At a certain point, you know, I would get the Snow Lion catalog, which was a big mistake. Then I was sure that if I got that book by next Tuesday afternoon, in fact, they needed to do a next day rush delivery, that then if I read that book, I would get enlightened immediately. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:14 Highlight the passage at 1:20:14

1:20:43 And I was completely convinced. And then finally I told my caretakers, you know, I can't. Don't send me these catalogs. It's no good. My mind just creates all kinds of distraction out of the catalogs and stuff. The next quality is satisfaction, contentment, just being satisfied with what you do get. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:43 Highlight the passage at 1:20:43

1:21:07 The next quality, give up your activities. Close up business before you go into retreat. Don't bring in a lot of stuff to read. Just bring reference books about your practice, okay? Don't bring magazines, don't bring your income taxes in because you think you're going to have time to do it. Don't bring those projects from work or the great American novel that you've always wanted to write. Just don't do all this extra business. Close up your activities before you go into retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:07 Highlight the passage at 1:21:07

1:21:42 The next quality... Very pure ethics leads to really good meditation. And the three higher trainings are ethics, concentration and wisdom. And they lead to each other. Really pure ethics leads to good concentration because you're not sitting around thinking about all those things you regret and what a jerk you are. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:42 Highlight the passage at 1:21:42

1:22:05 Believe me, I spent so much time in retreat really wishing that I'd cleaned up my ethics like years before. It's part of the reason I'm a nun now. I was a layperson when I went into retreat and then I'm just like, well this doesn't work, you know, so I'm going to try and clean up. Concentration leads to wisdom because it's only by good concentration that you can meditate and get the realizations of the past. So really good ethics. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:05 Highlight the passage at 1:22:05

1:22:32 This one Theravāda monk I know talks about the bliss of blamelessness. Isn't that nice? Like living with no regrets. Especially your bodhisattva vows. You treat people well. You're not going to be tormented by a bunch of remorse and regrets when you go into solitary confinement with your mind, which is not always the most fun, blissful experience, depending on your past. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:32 Highlight the passage at 1:22:32

1:22:57 It can make it worse. So very pure ethics is important. Give up objects of the senses. Don't have a lot of other thoughts. Don't be craving and grasping after especially sense objects when you go into retreat. This is really important. It also includes being involved in a lot of projects, thinking about a lot of other things. So these are the traditional qualities of a good place to meditate to set up a retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:57 Highlight the passage at 1:22:57

1:23:27 Are there any questions about this list? Report an error in the passage at 1:23:27 Highlight the passage at 1:23:27

1:23:33 Now we want to just, as sort of the last planned part of the program, and then we can have more questions, I wanted to just go through a list that I was given years and years ago of guidelines for retreat and talk about some of these things, and I'll just touch on these points briefly, and then if you have questions about any of them, we can also do that at the end. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:33 Highlight the passage at 1:23:33

1:23:55 Okay. Things to bring and not to bring. Don't bring books, magazines, newspapers or other reading materials except for the Dharma books, the reference books about the specific practices that you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:55 Highlight the passage at 1:23:55

1:24:10 Once again, your mind will search desperately for distraction. And any kind of books that you have or magazines or anything will just become, you know, you read that Time magazine over and over and over again to try and distract yourself from what's going on in your mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:10 Highlight the passage at 1:24:10

1:24:30 Loose baggy clothes are good and also lots of layers, you know. It's easier to just sort of strip off layers when the, you know, get dressed in the morning with a lot of layers and then strip them off and put them back on again. And loose baggy clothes. When I was a layperson during retreat, it sort of looked like I was always dressed in my pajamas for years, you know. It's sort of tight jeans and things like that just don't work at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:30 Highlight the passage at 1:24:30

1:24:56 It's good to create a little first aid kit for yourself to take into retreat with what you might need. Band-Aids, aspirin, things like that, Pepto-Bismol, things like that. It's really important to bring some kind of sleep tablets. Because in retreat, if you're doing a lot of meditation, it's very common to get some kind of inner wind imbalance. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:56 Highlight the passage at 1:24:56

1:25:23 It's called Lung. In Tibetan, which sometimes can cause you not to be able to sleep. And it's really important to cut this when it first begins. If you've gone two or three nights without sleep, you're starting to be in big trouble. So even if you never take any sleep... Aids at all. Bring them in. There's really good homeopathic and herbal ones. There's this one that I have insomnia. Part of it's menopause. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:23 Highlight the passage at 1:25:23

1:25:51 I'm not quite sure what's going on. There's this one called Tranquil Night Plus that's an herbal one that I like a lot. There's a homeopathic one called Coms Forte. So you don't have to take some heavy-duty Western medicine that's going to knock you out. There are a lot of really nice herbal sleep aids. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:51 Highlight the passage at 1:25:51

1:26:10 And if you start to get one of these wind imbalances, and we'll talk more about this later, it's really good to have something that'll just to help you sleep because sometimes that can cut the energy of the imbalance, okay? Bring a journal, a blank journal. Even though you're not supposed to be reading a lot of stuff, it's really good to record your thoughts. This is when your life changes. It's really nice to just record what's coming up. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:10 Highlight the passage at 1:26:10

1:26:37 For me, a lot of my retreat was extremely psychological. It's just working through all of these issues and working through all this stuff. And I have about seven or eight journals. Because part of how I process is verbally. And if you don't have somebody to talk to, it's really good to just write about what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:37 Highlight the passage at 1:26:37

1:26:56 And then you can review it later on and just sort of refresh whatever realizations you had. In terms of food, it's really good to avoid caffeine and sugar. These will kill any meditation that you have. Even if you're really dependent on caffeine and sugar to get you through your busy work day. If you've had your double mocha latte with extra turbinado sugar and you sit down on your meditation cushion, you're just going to go ballistic. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:56 Highlight the passage at 1:26:56

1:27:29 It's not going to work at all. Lynn and I were just talking about this this afternoon because I started drinking coffee again and I said, for seven years I didn't have any caffeine at all and sugar too. It really amps you up and you can really tell if you're sitting and trying to get your mind quiet. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:29 Highlight the passage at 1:27:29

1:27:46 okay? Also Fruit juice that has a lot of sugar in it. Sometimes you think you're not eating anything with sugar, but a really sweetened fruit juice will have tons and tons of sugar in it. So be careful even about fruit juice. It's important to eat a lot of protein. If you're starting to feel one of these wind imbalances coming on, fatty food really helps ground the energy, like high protein and high fat. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:46 Highlight the passage at 1:27:46

1:28:14 Peanut butter is great. It really grounds the energy when you start to feel one of these. Wind imbalances. And some of the symptoms of these wind imbalances, there's different kinds. Some people have what feels like heart palpitations. Their heart starts pounding or they have pain in their chest. If you're not sleeping, this is a sign. I have this one that's like shortness of breath that I just have no, like, even walking up a slight incline, I'll start panting, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:14 Highlight the passage at 1:28:14

1:28:46 And sometimes you just feel off, you feel jittery. There's one that, like, as you're tracking with your eyes, you feel like your eyes are kind of going like that. I don't know how to describe it, it's sort of like you're like... So all of these are sort of symptoms of your subtle winds just getting a little out of balance because of all the sitting. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:46 Highlight the passage at 1:28:46

1:29:07 And so one of the things that you could do is eat fattier foods, heavier foods, protein. One of my teachers said, rub butter on your chest. Like actually rub, you know, some sort. I know. But it works. It really works. Just rub butter on your chest. Yeah, right. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:07 Highlight the passage at 1:29:07

1:29:33 Rub butter on your chest and play Metallica on the radio really loud so the bear goes away. Okay, and protein, you know. It's really good. Also when you're sitting, a lot of times people have trouble with constipation, so eat a lot of fiber. Eat that perfect high fiber, whole grain, lots of fresh vegetables, especially greens. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:33 Highlight the passage at 1:29:33

1:29:58 Greens are really good. When I'm in retreat, I eat tons and tons of kale. I love kale, and it's like I can't get enough, so lots of greens. Now, the precept diet. Avoids what's called the black foods, and that's meat, eggs, onions, garlic and radishes. So if you're taking precepts every day, you're going to be avoiding these foods anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:58 Highlight the passage at 1:29:58

1:30:25 Onions, garlic, radishes, leeks, everything from that family of vegetables tends to make your wins just go haywire, especially garlic. It increases your sexual desire. So you're meant to be celibate while you're in retreat because you're supposed to be alone. It's good to keep pure celibacy. If you're eating a lot of garlic, it's no kidding that the Italians are passionate with all that garlic. You can really notice if you eat those things, the winds start to really move in your body. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:25 Highlight the passage at 1:30:25

1:30:57 So it's good, whether you're taking precepts or not, to avoid onions, garlic, leeks, things like that. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:57 Highlight the passage at 1:30:57

1:31:07 I think I know the answer. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:07 Highlight the passage at 1:31:07

1:31:12 Chives count as onions, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because I finally hit chives. I finally found a store-bought salad dressing that doesn't have onions or garlic, but at the very, very end... Oh, those chives, yeah. It's really hard to... It's good to make your own salad dressing. Just do oil and vinegar. Oh, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:12 Highlight the passage at 1:31:12

1:31:33 You know there's some Annie's, because I really researched, there's an Annie's Sesame Shiitake that doesn't have any of those things in it all, and it's good, yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:33 Highlight the passage at 1:31:33

1:31:44 Anything else about food while we're on the subject? I was also going to say, for me, I'm really prone to lung as well, and exercise, so the prostrations every session, and then a walk every day really makes a difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:44 Highlight the passage at 1:31:44

1:32:02 I just wanted to give an... And in addition to help people sleep, foot massages help induce sleep. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, great. Good. This is probably an ESL question. Is meat, is chicken and fish considered meat too? Yeah, if you're taking precepts, you're not supposed to be eating that at all. Now, some people feel that they need meat, you know, for... Report an error in the passage at 1:32:02 Highlight the passage at 1:32:02

1:32:32 Just their physiology. I have a friend who just was in long retreat and she finally just started to eat chicken because she felt like she wasn't getting the right nutrition in her body. It just didn't suit. So it depends on your body type if you really need meat. You know, I think especially for those of us that live in California, like there's so many meat alternatives that you'd, you know, I don't know that you'd really... Report an error in the passage at 1:32:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32:32

1:33:00 I have to eat meat, but it just depends. I don't have one of those kind of bodies that needs meat. You know, I need a lot of protein, but I have, you know, soy and beans and things are fine. Ricardo, I was writing a note at the same time you asked this question, so maybe this has been already answered by what you said. That's the other reason I don't do precepts every day, because at least some of the highest yoga tantra retreats you can have meat, and I've stopped being a vegetarian because... Report an error in the passage at 1:33:00 Highlight the passage at 1:33:00

1:33:30 I can't process beans anymore. But you don't add meat on a precepts day, do you? I mean, if you do better? You're not supposed to have meat if you're doing precepts, yeah. Okay, so that would be one reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are enzymes and things that you can get that help you digest beans. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:30 Highlight the passage at 1:33:30

1:33:51 It doesn't work. Yeah, okay. Yeah, protein is an issue. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:51 Highlight the passage at 1:33:51

1:33:59 Okay. Okay. Okay, now things about how to create the right space for your retreat. Boundaries are really important. Okay, boundaries are super important. It's really good to set up a physical boundary. And there's a ritual that you're meant to do if you have a tantric or... If you do a tantric deity retreat and I would recommend it even for a lamrim retreat and unfortunately it's not in this book but there's a book about how to do retreat on Vajrasattva that has that ritual in the back of it and Chogky may be able to make a photocopy for you if you want to do that because it's actually a ritual. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:59 Highlight the passage at 1:33:59

1:34:41 One of the main important things is the physical boundary and in that ritual you determine the space You know, the physical boundary that you will not go beyond. And you walk around it and you actually put up boundary markers on trees, fences, rocks, things like that, delineating. The physical boundary of your retreat, which is super important. Like I've said, retreat can be really difficult. You're looking for distraction. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:41 Highlight the passage at 1:34:41

1:35:10 This creates a psychological barrier that keeps you from jumping in the car and going down and going to the movies when it gets hard. Because believe you me, you're going to want to. And if you're stubborn like me and you've set up a boundary that you won't... Go past, unless you've been bitten by a rattlesnake, which did happen to me when I was in retreat, and then I did have to go to intensive care. But, you know, it had to be that serious. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:10 Highlight the passage at 1:35:10

1:35:35 Because otherwise, you're just going to want out. You know, it's not so much fun to be in solitary confinement with your mind. It's the most useful thing you can do, and it's one of the hardest, you know. So set up one of these physical boundaries. It's good to put boundary markers, you know, on trees, on fences, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:35 Highlight the passage at 1:35:35

1:35:56 Set up a boundary in terms of not seeing people and not talking. Try to set up a situation where you don't have to have any interaction at all with people and you can stay in silence. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:56 Highlight the passage at 1:35:56

1:36:12 Another thing that you do for this ritual that you'll see when you read it, you make a list of the people that you might have to see during the course of your retreat. Who's taking care of you? You know, a doctor, a massage therapist, especially if it's a long retreat, you include the people who may come in to your boundary on a piece of paper. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:12 Highlight the passage at 1:36:12

1:36:35 And as part of this opening ritual, you kind of meditate and include them in the circle in case they need to come in. You know, in case something happens and they need to come in. But apart from that, it's really good. In general, not to see and not to interact. Because again, you just want to get distracted. I remember living at this retreat place in India. And this guy was doing Vajrasattva retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:35 Highlight the passage at 1:36:35

1:36:58 And he'd come from England to do this three-month Vajrasattva retreat. And he got in a cabin in one part of this retreat place. Well, every day after lunch, he would come and just yak his head off with all of us who were working at the center for his three-hour break. Like he spent his 12 to 3 break. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:58 Highlight the passage at 1:36:58

1:37:17 Talking his head off. Unbelievable. Like obsessive chattering. Until the resident Lama that was living there at about day ten came to him and said, You! You're supposed to be in retreat! All the time talking! Every day, three hours talking! Get back in your... The guy was cowed. He just shouted at him. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:17 Highlight the passage at 1:37:17

1:37:38 He's like, What the hell do you think you're doing? You're just chattering every day. We never saw him again. He had a great retreat. He was dissipating all of his energy. You know, by chattering. So, you'll do this. You want out, you know, so desperately. That's me. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:38 Highlight the passage at 1:37:38

1:37:57 No telephone calls either. Okay? No email. Yeah, yeah, no email, no phone calls, no letters. You know, if you're in a retreat... Deal with all of your business and all of your correspondence. You're allowed to write in your journal. You're not allowed to write letters. You're not allowed to make phone calls or do emails. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:57 Highlight the passage at 1:37:57

1:38:19 Just don't do it. Just don't do it. This is your big chance, y 'all. You know, just don't distract yourself. Yeah, I was being a real good girl and thought, no, I'll just do, because I had this team of women, Chogky was among them, who were bringing me food and dropping it off in my blue recycle box. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:19 Highlight the passage at 1:38:19

1:38:37 I never saw them, actually. And so I thought, well, I'll just leave notes for them to take back to the woman who was coordinating everything. And then I thought, man, that's a lot of work for all of them to do. Why don't I just email Janice and then promise myself, no, this worked, promise myself not to look, to blur my eyes so I would not look to see what else came up. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:37 Highlight the passage at 1:38:37

1:39:04 Well, uh... And I trained myself to do it. Only one day did I slip. And I have to tell you, I felt like hell. It was immediate. It was immediate. I was wiped out. And I thought, oh gosh, look, there's 700 emails here. Oh, I can't learn that much about Viagra. So why don't I just get rid of them all? And I'll just click, click, click. So all I was doing was deleting. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:04 Highlight the passage at 1:39:04

1:39:33 But I saw enough. Yeah, to totally disturb your mind. You can't believe your mind gets in such a subtle place that the slightest bit of news, input of any kind will throw you off for days and days and days. Something that wouldn't make any difference at all when you're out in the world will just totally throw you off. So just don't torture yourself like that. Yeah. So again, I'm trying to do this thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:33 Highlight the passage at 1:39:33

1:40:05 Because I do have that psychological thing, you know, like procrastination and then I get bored and I just go and walk around. Yeah. So I was thinking, I mean, should I like really structure this? Because what I want to do is now that I'm going to be there, like I'm going to do a lot of these mandala frustrations. Yeah. And they're offering same frustrations, which are part of some of my neutrals. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:05 Highlight the passage at 1:40:05

1:40:28 And so, but I was thinking maybe just. Do, you know, like, I don't know, like, be like really relaxed about it. But then now that you're telling me all the things, I'm thinking, well, maybe I'm just going to be like, oh, no, I'm just going to go and travel here and there and and then end up not doing much. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:28 Highlight the passage at 1:40:28

1:40:46 So I think it's really like, you know, you know your mind best, but for me. I had to really set strict parameters for myself and be stubborn about it. So with the boundary, with my daily schedule, that's another thing that set up your schedule and be as strict about it as if the bell was ringing and you had to walk into the room with ten other people. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:46 Highlight the passage at 1:40:46

1:41:09 You know, don't do this thing of like, oh... As long as I do these five practices in a day, it doesn't matter when and I'll do them when I feel like it because then you'll never do them. Like really set up a realistic schedule but stick to it. It's really important because otherwise you're just going to fritter away your time and, you know, after three months you won't have made any progress at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:09 Highlight the passage at 1:41:09

1:41:33 So I think it's really important to just... Set up a schedule and stick to it. Now, if something is seriously changing in your practice and you want to change the timing of your sessions based on some real, you know, feedback that you're getting about this time of day doesn't work as well, that's one thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:33 Highlight the passage at 1:41:33

1:41:51 But it's not like every day just do what you're in the mood to do because that's what we've been doing since beginningless time and it's why we're still here. You know, like we've been following our own delusions and our own moods. Since beginning this time. And I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it, you know. I'm sick of being reborn in suffering. And I'm ready to apply a little discipline to get the hell out of here, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:51 Highlight the passage at 1:41:51

1:42:15 Because if it's up to what we feel like, we're always going to follow delusion. And then you just travel around and see this place and that place and sit in that chai shop. And three months later, what practice have you done? I mean, sorry to be so brutally honest, but really, yeah, it's like that. Are you including talking to a person who's mentoring the retreat? No, if you're in a place where you have a retreat guide, that's really different because they're not going to let you chat to them. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:15 Highlight the passage at 1:42:15

1:42:49 You go to them with specific questions and they'll answer you and they won't let you do this thing. They know when you're just blowing off steam and they'll tell you to get your rear end. So that's fine. If you have something like that, that you have a guide that you're checking in with, that's different. Yeah, Peter. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:49 Highlight the passage at 1:42:49

1:43:16 So am I correct in thinking that the parameters of your retreat area would include, say, all the grounds at L &B if you're going to be walking on your three-hour breaks around there? You know that's different, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:16 Highlight the passage at 1:43:16

1:43:26 How does that work? I think it's really good. And what I've done in my retreat places is I've chosen, like for example, in long retreats there have been times that I've needed to take a walk every day. And then I'll pick one path. That's not distracting because I do the same thing every day and it's not about looking at the view. It's just about, and I've picked, at both places I'm thinking of, I've picked a place where there's no chance I'm going to run into anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:26 Highlight the passage at 1:43:26

1:43:56 And then I've had my boundary include just that one path. So that I don't go wandering all over the place. Like at times, you know, you will want to take a walk. And then I've had like one retreat boundary at sort of the tree right in front of my house, the other one right there, and then the one at the end of the path. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:56 Highlight the passage at 1:43:56

1:44:15 So it was only there that I was allowed to go. And then the walk doesn't become exploring and hiking and, you know, all of this kind of stuff. It's just all about exercise. Yeah. Now one thing that's really good is if you can and if it's a short enough retreat that you can just stay indoors of wherever you are or just one year I just stayed in my yard and the only reason I didn't stay indoors is because I had an outhouse. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:15 Highlight the passage at 1:44:15

1:44:47 But apart from that my boundary was just the perimeter of my cabin and I didn't leave. The perimeter of my yard, which was very small. And it got very intense, you know, which is what you want. So the more parameters you set up, the more intensive an experience you're going to have, you know, which I, like, highly recommend. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:47 Highlight the passage at 1:44:47

1:45:12 If you can get enough exercise, and like Chogky said, you know, it's really good to do prostrations every day. That's a really good aerobic exercise. I mean, forget it. Prostrations are about the... Best all-around exercise you can do. Yoga is really good to do if you do yoga, like Tai Chi, Qigong, energy work, things like that are really good to do. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:12 Highlight the passage at 1:45:12

1:45:33 And if you do all those things, you don't need to take long walks. Personally, I really like to take walks, so I would do that thing of just picking one kind of walking trail and do it. But it depends on the length of the retreat. If you only have two or three weeks, and you could just stay inside and make it really intense. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:33 Highlight the passage at 1:45:33

1:45:52 That would be great. You know, they say some people even suggest kind of covering up the windows so you can't even see outside, you know, because then you're not sitting there getting distracted by the birds and the this and the that and the planes going overhead. Like, you know, cover up the windows and just make it intense, especially for a short retreat. That can be really good. It's really good to set up your cushion really properly for yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:52 Highlight the passage at 1:45:52

1:46:21 You know, make sure that you're comfortable and you... Have a seat that works for you. For longer retreats, having some kind of back support can sometimes be good, even though the proper posture is sitting unsupported with... Especially support right under the small of your back. Sometimes if you're doing like a very long mantra retreat, to have something where you can just lean back during the longer sessions and just rest your back briefly can be good. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:21 Highlight the passage at 1:46:21

1:46:51 So a lot of times you'll see these meditation boxes. I had one of these for all my years of retreat, this really nice. Meditation box with a back that I almost never lean back on, but every once in a while I would rest for like 10 minutes or so for a long retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:51 Highlight the passage at 1:46:51

1:47:11 Okay. What's that? Oh, do they? Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Don't get too warm or too cold. You know, like I said, dress in layers so you can regulate your temperature. If you get too warm, you're likely to get really sleepy and not off during your session. You know, don't get too cold and make yourself sick. Just take care of yourself, okay? Just kind of take care of yourself physically. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:11 Highlight the passage at 1:47:11

1:47:43 Let's see, we went over that one. Let's see. Okay, now it's really important. At the beginning and the end of your retreat, to be really careful about how you go in and come out of a retreat. They say a retreat should be like a sesame seed. It starts out really narrow, it builds up in the middle and then tapers off again at the end. Meaning, you know, shorter sessions at the beginning until you build up, then you build up to a certain amount of intensity and then you taper off again at the end. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:43 Highlight the passage at 1:47:43

1:48:18 Give yourself a day or two at the beginning of a retreat to sort of get in the groove, you know. Don't go straight from a 15 hour work day and expect to hit the cushion at 3.30 the very next morning and meditate for 15 hours, you know, from that point on, you know. It's really good to give yourself a day or two if you can. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:18 Highlight the passage at 1:48:18

1:48:40 Before your retreat even starts, to just slowly wind down, get your supplies together, get organized, you know, move into the place where you're going to do the retreat and get settled in, start doing your sessions, increase the intensity and then before you come out again, you know, decrease. The length of time of the sessions. You may want to start talking to someone for a little while. Especially if you've been in a long retreat. I was in this retreat for three and a half years with a group of people. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:40 Highlight the passage at 1:48:40

1:49:12 We didn't talk to each other the whole time we were in retreat. We only saw each other about every four months and we do Lama Tsongkhapa together. Like we do practice together but we didn't talk. Now I admit there's a fair amount of made up sign language and note writing went on but we didn't talk. And giggling. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:12 Highlight the passage at 1:49:12

1:49:30 Much giggling. Then about six weeks before the end, we started talking to each other to just practice talking again after three years. Like we couldn't just hit the streets without talking, you know? So especially if you've been in a long retreat, it's good to start talking. Don't... God... Please don't go to work the day after you come out of retreat. You know, don't have that big meeting. I remember I came home from a three-week retreat once. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:30 Highlight the passage at 1:49:30

1:50:00 I walked into the house. It was this incredible, I mean, it was only three weeks, but it was so incredible. I was totally blessed out. I walk in, I open the door. My housemate's on the phone. She goes like that to me. She goes, I'm not really sure when she's coming home. I think she finishes today, but I'm not sure. Yeah, okay, I'll give her the message. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:00 Highlight the passage at 1:50:00

1:50:23 And I walk in and like my job wanted me to give a presentation to the FPMT board of directors that afternoon if I got home in time or at the latest the very next morning. And I was like... Have they ever done retreat? Like, what are they, nuts? I'm like, you've got to be kidding. I could barely talk. Like, I can't give some big presentation with no notice. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:23 Highlight the passage at 1:50:23

1:50:44 It was just completely insane, you know? So I was just like, no, sorry. Like, I need notice. That's impossible. So don't jump right back in. Like, give yourself time to readjust. Just yesterday... At Land of Medicine Buddha, there's this friend of mine who's a Vipassanā teacher, was there with her students to do this, I think it was like four or five day Vipassanā retreat over whatever Memorial Day weekend, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:50:44 Highlight the passage at 1:50:44

1:51:13 So one of my good friends was in this retreat and I, you know, they lower their eyes and we couldn't even make eye contact for this four. So yesterday the retreat was finished and I saw him in the hallway and his wife had come to pick him up, who I hadn't met yet. So he introduces me to his wife and she and I are standing, she's pregnant, she's going to have a baby in like two months. I was just at my friend's birth so she and I are chatting about babies and all this stuff and oh do you need clothes and this kind of sling is the best and stuff. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:13 Highlight the passage at 1:51:13

1:51:45 And my friend is kind of standing there. And at one point she turns to him and she goes, oh, I'm chattering too much for you, right? Because he's been in silence and no interaction for only five days, but still. And he goes, oh, no, it's okay. I just don't feel like talking much, but it's fine. I'm really glad you finally met Tenzin Chogky. And then I said, so what are you guys doing today, like for the rest of the afternoon? Report an error in the passage at 1:51:45 Highlight the passage at 1:51:45

1:52:09 And she goes... I go, are you just going home and like kicking back? And he's kind of smiling beneficently and she goes, oh, it's Uncle Norm's 78th birthday party tonight and all the cousins are coming. And I look at him and he and I look at each other like, oh my God. And then we just crack up and I'm like, you're kidding, right? She wasn't kidding. It really was Uncle Norm. That's the last thing you want to do at the end of a silent retreat is go to Uncle Norm's 78th birthday morning with all of the cousins. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:09 Highlight the passage at 1:52:09

1:52:41 And then she immediately said, oh, I told them that you probably wouldn't come and you don't have to come. And then they did. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:41 Highlight the passage at 1:52:41

1:52:47 So just ease back in gradually without board meetings and Uncle Norm's birthday and things like that, like right at the end of your retreat. That's really important to kind of just give yourself that space. Also, don't have really high expectations. You know, don't go into retreat thinking that after two weeks you're going to become enlightened or even get a direct realization of emptiness or much is going to happen at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:47 Highlight the passage at 1:52:47

1:53:17 I guarantee you're going to lay a lot of good imprints and groundwork on the path. The chances are, you know, tantric dandies are not going to appear to you out of the sky and like give you blessings. And so it's better just not to have a lot of high expectation about what's going to happen. Just have faith in the path, you know, have faith in purification and accumulation of merit and imprints because you really will get all of those from your experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:17 Highlight the passage at 1:53:17

1:53:49 Okay, I know I've laid a lot of stuff on you. Believe me, there's more. I really cut it down. But does anybody have last questions? Yeah, Peter. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:49 Highlight the passage at 1:53:49

1:54:02 For those of us who want to do longer retreat, but we haven't really developed our meditation muscle, we're not quite ready for three months or three years, what would you recommend as far as almost like a retreat schedule of preparing ourselves? Yeah, for that. Well, for one thing, there really is no way to prepare yourself gradually for long retreat. You just need to do it. I mean, there isn't this thing like, you know, one year I'll do two weeks and the next year I'll do a month and the next year I'll do... Report an error in the passage at 1:54:02 Highlight the passage at 1:54:02

1:54:31 I went into what turned out to be a six and a half years of retreat and the longest retreat I'd ever done before then had been a months-long group retreat and a three-week individual retreat. I mean, what's going to happen is just going to happen and there's sort of no way to really build up to it. However, I will say, at one point, one of my teachers insisted and I made a commitment to him to do at least two weeks of retreat twice a year. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:31 Highlight the passage at 1:54:31

1:55:03 And that's great. If there's a way that you can pull that off. I hadn't done retreat for years and years and years. I worked for Lama Zopa and I had this thing of like, Oh, I'm just serving the guru and I'll get some kind of karmic brownie points by doing that. And then maybe in my next rebirth, and this one teacher that I had was really heavy with me and he just said, I don't ever want to hear you say that. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:03 Highlight the passage at 1:55:03

1:55:27 Like you have the capacity to have realizations. You need to do retreat at least twice a year for two weeks. I didn't think I could do it and I just did it. I just created the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:27 Highlight the passage at 1:55:27

1:55:39 And everything changed in my life when I started doing that. You know, it was just incredible. I mean, because he just like yelled at me and made me is why I did it. But it really just made a huge, huge, huge difference in my life when I started doing that. And about four years later, like the causes were created to do really long. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:39 Highlight the passage at 1:55:39

1:56:02 And I did. I just had this attitude of like, oh, I can't get the time off work and whatever, and I'm just kind of trying to get some good karma. And he's like, forget it. Then you're just going to take this deluded mind into your next rebirth. You've got to really work hard at getting realization. So even though you shouldn't expect miracles in a short period of time, you should definitely try. And things change. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:02 Highlight the passage at 1:56:02

1:56:28 In one, you know, I can think of the, when I decided to get ordained, the karma for ordination ripened in one meditation session on the lamrim, on karma. I sat down, getting ordained was the last thing on my mind, I stood up, 45 minutes later, I had 100 % decided. It's like even within a single session, Things can really change, you know, even though you don't have maybe an undrived permanent realization of something, still things can happen. So it's really important to try hard, you know, really strive in the lamrim and really try and do retreat as much as you possibly can. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:28 Highlight the passage at 1:56:28

1:57:07 Even if you have to take unpaid leave, do it. You know, who cares? You know, even if your job only gives you two or three weeks of vacation time, take an extra week without pay or two. It's fine, you know. So like that, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:07 Highlight the passage at 1:57:07

1:57:26 Is all retreat on the cushion? What about walking meditation? Yeah, you can do that too. You can do that too. It's not just sitting. And in fact, retreat is most effective when you're sort of in retreat. mind all the time. Like I said, even during the break times to really absorb yourself in the topic and study the topic you're Think about it as much as possible. In fact, Lama Zopa says there shouldn't even be that big of a difference between when you're on your cushion and off your cushion. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:26 Highlight the passage at 1:57:26

1:57:58 Your mind should just be absorbed as much as possible. So, yeah, yeah, that's good. Anything else? Last call. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:58 Highlight the passage at 1:57:58

1:58:11 Any final questions? Do you have? Report an error in the passage at 1:58:11 Highlight the passage at 1:58:11

1:58:17 All right. Well, let's do a dedication. So, it's said in the scripture that even taking one step towards the retreat place with a thought to get realizations of the past is even more merit than offering to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the three times and ten directions. Even just turning towards... Report an error in the passage at 1:58:17 Highlight the passage at 1:58:17

1:58:48 The retreat place. So let's just think of that and let's just mentally take that step. Turn towards that. Turn towards that place where you're going to get all of the realizations and take that one step in your mind. Think Report an error in the passage at 1:58:48 Highlight the passage at 1:58:48

1:59:13 of all of the merit that we've accumulated from spending this time thinking about retreat, creating the causes by really thinking about it deeply. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:13 Highlight the passage at 1:59:13

1:59:27 Going over the conditions, especially taking that one step towards the place. Let's put all of that positive energy into the karmic bank account towards our future enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. I Report an error in the passage at 1:59:27 Highlight the passage at 1:59:27

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:00:30 just wanted to say thank you. And also I wanted to announce that Tenzin Chogky is coming back up twice in one week, Saturday, and leading an all-day... Look at dying well, learning how to prepare our own minds for our own deaths, meditations and practical preparations. And it's going to be super. I went and did the longer version this past weekend at Land of Medicine Buddha and it's shifted me through a lot of stuff really fast. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:30 Highlight the passage at 2:00:30

2:01:03 So there's nothing like looking at your own death, is there? How long time is it? 10.30 to 5.30 with lunch included. But wait, your morning meditation. And... Recommend that. Yes, my morning meditation that morning I'm leading the Saturday morning meditation will be on impermanence and death as well. Taken from the book, highly recommended by Tenzin Chogky. That'll be nine. So it'll go nine to ten meditation break and then the day will start. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:03 Highlight the passage at 2:01:03

2:01:32 And then it'll be great. So please come. And that meditation was one of the ones we did for the longer. and he's at it Report an error in the passage at 2:01:32 Highlight the passage at 2:01:32

2:01:39 So if you're thinking to come that day, it would be great to come for that 9 o 'clock meditation too because that was part of the bigger picture. So we're kind of sneakily sliding it in. By sneaking it in. Great. Thank you very much. That was great. Oh. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:39 Highlight the passage at 2:01:39

2:02:00 Oh my goodness. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:00 Highlight the passage at 2:02:00

2:02:08 My pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:08 Highlight the passage at 2:02:08