← B. Alan Wallace

Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 9)

B. Alan Wallace · 1 h 3 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 2:20

    And so to just draw in just a couple of very brief points from Dzogchen that pertain directly to the practice we just did. We can ask, in the Dzogchen tradition, from this view, this perspective on reality, what is the second noble truth? And those who have studied it well, you know exactly, karma and klesha, right? Second noble truth, there it is, karma and klesha, karma and mental afflictions. And in Dzogchen, that's never refuted, of course. You'd be refuting the words of the Buddha himself.

  • 2:49

    On that basis, then there's a unique Zopa Rinpoche perspective on the Second Noble Truth, the response to the question, why are we suffering, why are we vulnerable to suffering? And it's twofold, it has just two parts to it. One is that we're identifying as I and mine, that which is not I or mine, but we falsely mistake it as such. So such things as one's body, one's body is not a person. And this body, liver, skin, hair, all the internal organs,

  • 19:00

    or just be here now, not judgmentally. That's the essence of all of Buddhism. The amount of nonsense floating out there is staggering. And so the first one, first train in the preliminaries, that was it, we covered that yesterday. Really, it is, if you immerse yourself in this and it's worked, that is the practice has worked, that you don't need to keep on coming back to it again. This means that kind of like the axis of your whole perspective on your life has fundamentally shifted. And after a while you don't really need to reflect on it anymore, right?

  • 24:07

    There it is. Chiwe Midakpa. Chiwe Midakpa in Tibetan. Death and impermanence. Specifically, or most importantly, one's own. And it raises, we raise a simple question here. Because I don't want, this again could fill this for the whole week, but I want to go through it fairly quickly, but crisply. But this is mounting. That is a very important point. If you have not immersed yourself in this revolutionary way of viewing your own existence as a precious human rebirth of leisure and opportunity, which of course is couched within at least the working hypothesis, if not the knowledge or profound faith, that this is just but one in a sequence of lives.

  • 39:52

    And so insofar as one is coming back and really immersing oneself in the commitment to Dharma, the dedication to Dharma, then death is just bracing. The prospect of death is bracing. It's said in the classic lamrim teachings, if you really have a given-up attachment to this lifetime and really looking to your long-term future, then you die without regret.

0:26 Another statement of disclosure, and that is to make it very explicit, the view from which I will be interpreting and trying to explain, to clarify the seven-point mind training over these six days, will be from, actually very strongly informed by, from the perspective of the great perfection, Dzogchen. Report an error

0:47 Actually, out there on the table, there are two books, two commentaries that I've given. One that was based on teachings I gave in 1987. When I was making transition from a monastic way of life to try to figure out how to be a layperson. And that was, it used to be called a passage from solitude, and now they simply call it seven-point mind training. Report an error

1:08 And so that was after about 17 years of a lot of training, primarily in Galupa. Galupa, so it's very strongly informed by the Galupa view, which I still utterly embrace. And then, starting from 1990, then I was introduced to Dzogchen, which actually, that was my first hook. That drew me to Tibetan Buddhism was Dzogchen. But my karma, my prayers, my teachers let me wait 20 years before I could actually start getting teachings on Dzogchen. Report an error

1:38 Because they knew, I think they knew as soon as I went for that, I wouldn't look at anything else. They wanted to make sure I looked at some other things as well. And so from 1990 then, I was really, then I became a disciple of my primary Dzogchen Lama, Gyatru Rinpoche. Became his principal interpreter for seven years, lived with him for two years. Report an error

1:57 And ever since then, that's just basically all I've done. And so then in the 1990s, I gave another commentary. This one is the basis for the book, Buddhism with an Attitude, which has a fair amount of absorption in it. So that's just a bit of background of kind of the perspective, the perspective from which I'm looking at this text now. I can't help it. I mean, I could go back if I'd like to, but I don't like to. Report an error

2:20 And so to just draw in just a couple of very brief points from Dzogchen that pertain directly to the practice we just did. We can ask, in the Dzogchen tradition, from this view, this perspective on reality, what is the second noble truth? And those who have studied it well, you know exactly, karma and klesha, right? Second noble truth, there it is, karma and klesha, karma and mental afflictions. And in Dzogchen, that's never refuted, of course. Report an error

2:46 You'd be refuting the words of the Buddha himself. On that basis, then there's a unique Zopa Rinpoche perspective on the Second Noble Truth, the response to the question, why are we suffering, why are we vulnerable to suffering? And it's twofold, it has just two parts to it. One is that we're identifying as I and mine, that which is not I or mine, but we falsely mistake it as such. Report an error

3:10 So such things as one's body, one's body is not a person. And this body, liver, skin, hair, all the internal organs, They don't actually belong to anybody. Otherwise, we couldn't give them away. If you wanted to give a kidney transplant, even if it's transplanted, you'd say, you know, it's still mine. Report an error

3:29 No, it's not. If it took, then it's theirs. But if it's theirs, then it was never yours in the first place. It was just by mutual agreement. And that goes for blood transfusions, hair, skin, bone marrow, and so forth. They just happen to be located here, but they have no ownership. They don't belong to anyone. They are. Marrow is just marrow, not. Report an error

3:50 My marrow. It's just marrow. And so, a brain is just a brain. It's not a person. It's ridiculous to think a person is a brain. So a brain is just a brain. Bone marrow is just bone marrow. And it's not I. It's not mine. But also, then we look around. My ethnic group, my country, my friends, my family, my spouse, my grandson, and so forth and so on. Report an error

4:13 Mine only by mutual consent. And if we no longer have the mutual consent, then it's no longer mine. It's just a way of talking, a way of conceiving. But that's all. And that's for everything we identify with. As I or mine. It's just by mutual consent. Which means, take it lightly, because it's just a manner of speaking and nothing more. Then we come more intimately, we start attending to the mind. Report an error

4:39 And there the grasping onto that which is not I or mine comes quite ferociously. My emotions. I feel this. I'm thinking this. I can't stand this. I love this. I, I, I, I, I. And we're identifying with as I or mine. You know, all these internal processes and none of them are I or mine. They're just mental events arising with no owner. Even the flow of consciousness, the individual flow of consciousness that each of us has, the individual flow, you have your own continuum, right? Report an error

5:12 Individual flow. It's nobody else's. But then if you look into that individual continuum of mental awareness that carries on even in deep sleep, carries on in dream state, waking state, carries on from lifetime to lifetime, even that's not a person. And you look into that flow of awareness and it has no ownership either. But that one, I am aware, I know this, I, I, I. And so that grasping onto that which is not I or mine of anything. Report an error

5:43 Is itself a root of suffering? That's familiar. That's pan-Buddhist. But then that which is uniquely Dzogchen, maybe Dzogchen Mahamudra, since that's only half the equation. Why do we suffer? Because we identify with, we grasp onto and identify with that which is not by its own nature, I or mine, as being I or mine. Report an error

6:03 But then the other half of the equation is, and we fail to recognize who we really are. That's Dzogchen. And we fail to recognize who we really are. So it's like identifying with something that we're not and then failing to recognize who we actually are. That's it. Well then who are we? Who are we? What is the referent of the word I? And there again Dzogchen comes in. Very simply. And then we'll get back to the text. And it's something very short. Report an error

6:33 Again Dzogchen is actually fundamentally very simple. It can be complicated when complicated minds get involved with it. But its very nature is utterly simple. And that is, it's said that there's just one difference between sentient beings who are roaming about in saṃsāra, you know, subject to suffering, mental illness and so on. Report an error

6:52 There's only one, there's just one fundamental difference between sentient beings and Buddhas, awakened beings. So by definition, sentient beings are not Buddhas, they are free of saṃsāra. We sentient beings are enmeshed in saṃsāra. So what's the difference between a Buddha and a sentient being? Sentient beings don't know who they are. Report an error

7:12 Buddha's Do. Report an error

7:16 That was a little preface for today. So we began the text last night, but I was remiss in not beginning to give the oral transmission. And so for these six days, I'll do my best to at least give the oral transmission. That's what I received from Kumobarshi, as I explained in some detail yesterday. And that lineage was back. It wasn't just that he had it. But what Kumobarshi received, of course, he received from his teacher, his teacher, and that goes in an unbroken stream back to Atisha himself. Report an error

7:45 And then we can see in the notes here, I have the notes, you'll have them soon by the end of this retreat. Then where did Atisha, because Atisha didn't just dream this up on his own, he was a brilliant teacher. But he had about 60 gurus, lamans himself, and he drew from the wisdom of these multiple strands to then synthesize these quintessential teachings into the seven-point mind training. Report an error

8:08 And so the oral transmission is something, it's kind of like a living current, and it passes on from a teacher through all these extraordinary teachers, through my extraordinary teacher, Kungabashi, and I told something of his life story yesterday. And then you just have, I'm basically like DHL, or I'm just kind of like a messenger service here. So look through this one, because there's nothing to look at here. Report an error

8:31 But the lineage is quite extraordinary, until it got to me, sorry. So there it is. So, Oral Transmission, the seven-point mind training. That's what it is. The seven-point mind training. Very simple, right to the point. And then, as I mentioned yesterday, there were seven points of mind training. I have these in my notes, you'll get them. And then we go to the first one. And the first one is the preliminary. Report an error

8:59 The first out of seven points is the mundo, or the preliminary practices, of which there are four. And to give the root text now, to give the transmission, the first aphorism out of all these aphorisms of the text, which you have. Let me just see what you have. Make sure they work. Report an error

9:19 Oh, you do have it. Son of a gun. Okay, you have the older version, but that's not bad. Oh, I wasn't aware that was printed. That's nice. Good. I'm adding to this and subtracting. So by the time we're finished, there'll be a new addition. So you get that email. Oh, I'm glad. That's very good. Then, okay, excellent. Alrighty, so you do have all of that. Report an error

9:14 We'll just put it on the same page. Report an error

9:38 So you can see the lineage. I'm not going to read it right now. But then in preliminaries, we have first train in the preliminaries. Very, very close. This is my translation. It's very close. It's very literal. First, train in the preliminaries. And as I mentioned before, Dujjom Rinpoche commented in one root text that he wrote on Dzogchen that while... Report an error

10:01 It is widely held that the preliminaries are secondary and the main practice is primary. We old ones, we regard the preliminaries as primary and the main practice as secondary. Because if you don't, and my own teacher, I mean all my teachers, but especially Gattu Rinpoche, is always, I mean always, always, always coming back to the preliminaries. Report an error

10:21 This is where the Dharma takes deep root. And once it's taken deep root, then you go to the main practice. And the main practice then really takes off. But if you don't deeply root your practice in the preliminaries, then you can receive all kinds of empowerments and transmissions and esoteric teachings. You can say, this is my Lama, this is my Lama, this is His Holiness and Eminence and so forth and so on. Report an error

10:44 But if you've not done the preliminaries, and not just done them, but deeply immerse yourself in them, so that they bring about literally a revolution in the way you view yourself and reality. If that doesn't happen... Then the main practices will simply be a series of techniques that you pick up and put down when you find time. I know that. I've seen it happen so many, many times. Report an error

11:07 So if we gave an analogy, if we have this gravitational field of the Earth, and if you'd like to explore deep space, then you need to have, as you have liftoff, you have to have enough oomph there, enough power to escape. It's called escape velocity. That you need to have enough so that you're beyond being sucked back down. So if you jump up 10 feet in the air, well you just suck right back down again. Jump up 100 miles and then you can just drop right back down again. Report an error

11:37 But if the engines are powerful enough, they can send you beyond the suck, the vortex of this gravitational field, then you can go and then you can just keep on going. And of course we've done that many, many times. With a voyager and so forth, you know, going out. And then there's one that's going way off into deep space now. So what we're seeking to do here, these four measurables are like our four engines, like four massive engines, to generate enough momentum, enthusiasm, blessings, inspiration, aspiration, determination, to achieve, quite literally, escape velocity from the desire realm. Report an error

12:20 And you do that specifically with shamatha. You don't need Vipassanā, you don't need Vajrayana, Dzogchen, none of that. But to achieve escape velocity from the vortex, the suck, the pull of the so-called desire realm, then you need to have shamatha. Well, many people practice shamatha and many people dibble-dabble at it, try it for a month or 20 minutes or what have you. But relatively few people who practice shamatha achieve escape velocity. Report an error

12:48 This is according to Tsongkhapa, according to Jujum Lingpa, according to Lama Mipanamache. All of these great masters going way back to Tsongkhapa are saying, nowadays very few people achieve shamatha. Strange, huh? He was writing in the 15th century. Dujum Lingba, perhaps the greatest Dzogchen master of the 19th century, he said, nowadays most people are content to just achieve some modicum, some moderate degree of shamatha, but not fully achieve it. Report an error

13:14 We'll look into this a bit more in detail actually today, because we have a lot of territory to cover. But it's this shamatha, fully achieved shamatha, going through the nine stages. And what it means, in essence, is that your coarse mind, the mind that you're very familiar with, man's, woman's, Australian, American, and so forth, your mind that is configured by your brain, your personal history, and so forth, dissolves. Report an error

13:37 It melts, like a snowflake that is unique, melts into a simple water drop of the continuum of the subtle continuum of mental consciousness. Glupa terminology. Report an error

13:48 Theravāda terminology, Bhavaṅga, the ground of becoming. Dzogchen terminology, the substrate consciousness. And that's the dimension that carries on from lifetime to lifetime. But it has no gender, no ethnicity, it's not by nature human or animal or anything else. It's a pure flow, a crystal clear flow of luminosity and cognizance, but it is on a subtle level conditioned by one's past karma, degree of spiritual maturation. Report an error

14:16 Memories and so forth. But when you're just resting in it, when you're just resting in it, having achieved shamatha, then it simply has three qualities to it. It's blissful, luminous and non-conceptual. And that is when you cross the threshold, when you cross the threshold beyond the desire realm into the form realm, that's when you experience this. Report an error

14:37 And the desire realm is just everything we know about. Scientists know about, psychologists and so forth. And it's called the desire realm because there's so many things out there we desire. That pull us. One of the words for sentient being in Tibetan is noah, which means go. So we see something. Oh, I want that. That will make me happy. Report an error

14:55 And then we, oh, that wasn't too happy. Maybe that'll be happy. And oh, this is suffering. I want to move away from that, but that looks happy. I think I'll go there. And so we're scurrying around the desire realm, in motion, in motion, looking for a way to get away from the suffering behind us and get towards the pleasure in front of us, like greyhounds running around a racetrack. Report an error

15:16 Chasing an iron bunny, always in motion, never quite getting there. Report an error

15:25 So, having taught shamatha for 35 years now, not 40, I began teaching from the very beginning, it needs a lot of causing conditions. Not to practice, you can practice now. You know enough from yesterday, you can practice. You don't need anything more, we can stop. For shamatha, that was kind of a nut. But to practice shamatha and realize, achieve shamatha, that takes a lot of causing conditions coming together. Report an error

15:50 The outer ones are somewhat difficult. The inner ones is turning on these four engines. Turning on these four engines. That's exactly what he's saying here. That's not an interpretation. That's what he says. So the first engine, and I'll just now just refer to it, but I dwelt on it at some length yesterday, that we can take so much for granted after we've heard it 20 or 30 times. Report an error

16:11 The teachings on the precious human rebirth of leisure and opportunity. So I'm not going to give the whole teaching yesterday, but it is to immerse oneself in this view, It's not just a meditation you pick up and put down. It is fundamentally shifting your perspective on your own identity as a human being, which we ever so easily take for granted. Report an error

16:31 And then feel, well, killing time, let's just go out and have some kicks, let's shoot the breeze, let's kill some time, let's do this, let's go off, it's pointless, but it's kind of fun. And just kind of thinking, well, of course I'm a human being, what else would I be? And then especially the notion that, well, let's have as much fun as we can, because... Report an error

16:51 Tomorrow you may die, so eat, drink and be buried, because tomorrow you may die. And of course dying is considered to be by many people who don't know any better. Lights out. And so fundamentally shifting from common view, even kind of the, and I spoke at this on Link yesterday, now very briefly, dumbed down superficialized Christianity. Report an error

17:12 So I have very deep reverence for the teachings of Jesus. I really do. I have for a long time. And I'm following in the footsteps of my guru. His Holiness the Dalai Lama said he was a Buddha. There's not much higher praise than that. So I do indeed have reverence for the teachings of Jesus. But as things, you know, how do you say, get mundanized, then Christianity, as Alfred North Whitehead said yesterday, can become an ornament for an already comfortable life. Report an error

17:39 With no revolution. It's just, you know, I paid my dues. I go to church once in a while. I have the right beliefs, I checked them, yep, yep, yep, I'm in. It's kind of like you bought your ticket, so now you can just hang out and pursue hedonic well-being and get a big prize at the end and say thank you Jesus at the end as you set off to eternal bliss as a free gift in response to your living a life of utter mediocrity. Report an error

18:05 That actually never made any sense to me. And nor do I think it isn't remotely what Jesus had in mind. And so I'm just suggesting that that's one of the major options out there. Materialism is a major option. There's also very complacent, lackadaisical Buddhist practice that follows the same vein. I met a Tibetan years ago that said, I'm Buddhist, but I don't let that interfere with my professional life. All this bracketing. People find so ingenious ways to completely trivialize the deepest teachings on the planet. Report an error

18:26 don't know. Report an error

18:38 Or all the emphasis nowadays on secular Buddhism. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Oh, isn't it great that we've eviscerated the Buddha Dharma, taken out all the guts, and we've homogenized it, commodified it, commercialized it, and so it's kind of like pablum. And just open up and say, Report an error

19:00 or just be here now, not judgmentally. That's the essence of all of Buddhism. The amount of nonsense floating out there is staggering. Report an error

19:08 And so the first one, first train in the preliminaries, that was it, we covered that yesterday. Really, it is, if you immerse yourself in this and it's worked, that is the practice has worked, that you don't need to keep on coming back to it again. This means that kind of like the axis of your whole perspective on your life has fundamentally shifted. And after a while you don't really need to reflect on it anymore, right? Report an error

19:32 So for example, I think most of us, probably everybody in this room, is aware that the earth goes around the sun. There's pretty strong, very compelling evidence of that fact. But the time of Galileo, the time of Copernicus, Kepler, that was very controversial. Evidence came in, evidence came in, intelligent, educated people recognized what the evidence was. Report an error

19:52 They saw it, they looked again, and it was corroborated, corroborated, massively corroborated. Then they didn't think about it anymore. That, of course, the Earth and all the planets go around the Sun, and then we learn that the Sun goes around the galaxy, and the galaxies... Moving about three universes among galactic clusters and so forth. And so we don't need to keep on meditating. And the earth goes around the sun. Report an error

20:13 The earth goes around the sun. Once you've shifted perspective, give it a rest and move on. So we shouldn't really need to meditate on this for a long time. Or if you do, it's just not working. This is a precious universe of earth. Yeah, got it. But if you don't got it, then okay. Try to figure it out. Report an error

20:34 So it's the first revolution. You've just turned on one engine. You need four engines for escape velocity here in these teachings. These teachings for people of sharp faculties who are profoundly dedicated to Dharma that are really thinking seriously about achieving enlightenment in one lifetime. That's the intended audience for this teaching. Whereas the Lamrim was much more general. But this one for people who are really considering enlightenment this lifetime. Report an error

21:00 So that's the first of four. These are called, the general term in the Nyingma Kagyu, these are called the Lodok Namji. Lodok Namji. Often translated as the four thoughts that turn the mind. But bear in mind, Loh doesn't mean thought. It doesn't mean mind, it means attitude. And dok means to bring 180 degrees. Report an error

21:21 Dok means to completely reverse. If you're going left, you go right. If you're going forward, you go backward. It's complete reversal. Four attitude reversals. Those are the four thoughts that turn the mind. And so it's a complete reversal of taking one's own life for granted. Well, I am who I am. Well, who else would I be? And, you know, I've got plenty of time. I'm not that old yet. I'm pretty healthy. So let's go off and let's have fun. Let's have fun. After all, you only live once. Report an error

21:49 And let's have as much fun as we can. That view. Okay, now just turn that all the way around because that is complete fixation, attachment to the allures of this life, the desire realm of this life. Total fixation, that is equivalent to the good life. Having as much fun as we possibly can. And then turning it around, it's not how little fun can we have, it's rather simply shifting fundamentally the perspective on the life. Report an error

22:15 And joy still arises, but the attachment, the clinging, the identification with the hedonia that life presents, that we receive it like this, rather than going through life like, what did they call, what's that, Pac-Man? Report an error

22:31 Or hunting and gathering, you know, just seeing how much we can devour, how much we can hold on to, pull in and hold on for dear life. It's this rather than this. It's a fundamental shift. It's revolutionary. And venturing into an experience that revolution has a much greater impact on your life than believing that the earth goes around the sun rather than vice versa. Report an error

22:53 Or believing that species mutate over time. Human beings are primates. We have a part of a larger family. There's genetic mutation and so forth. I mean, that's a brilliant revolution, a brilliant theory. I think it has tremendous explanatory power. But if I look at these two, the revolution in physics out of Galileo, the revolution in the life sciences under Darwin, and I think, okay, I embrace those. Report an error

23:16 I mean, my view has shifted. They got me. And then I can say, okay, from day to day as I live my life, What choices have I made over the course of my life that are different because the Earth goes around the Sun and not vice versa, and because species are not static but evolve over time? I can't think of one. So it is a revolution, but it actually hasn't touched me at all. At all, really. Whereas this one will change your whole life. Report an error

23:42 One revolution, but three more to come. And you need all four. You need all four engines. If there was a car, it would be all four cylinders pounding. If you're going to get escape velocity when you go to the very next practice. Okay? So the second one, so familiar. Let's look at it as if for the first time. Report an error

24:07 There it is. Chiwe Midakpa. Chiwe Midakpa in Tibetan. Death and impermanence. Specifically, or most importantly, one's own. Report an error

24:18 And it raises, we raise a simple question here. Because I don't want, this again could fill this for the whole week, but I want to go through it fairly quickly, but crisply. Report an error

24:28 But this is mounting. That is a very important point. If you have not immersed yourself in this revolutionary way of viewing your own existence as a precious human rebirth of leisure and opportunity, which of course is couched within at least the working hypothesis, if not the knowledge or profound faith, that this is just but one in a sequence of lives. Report an error

24:50 There's a continuity. I've had past lives. There's more to come. If one doesn't have that view, If one kind of rejects it or kind of says, well, my working assumption is, well, after all, death is end, then this whole phrase, precious human birth, doesn't mean much at all. The revolution won't take place. Because you say, well, this is what I am, and I'll be dead, so what's the big deal? The chances of enlightenment are really small, but at least I get out. Report an error

25:15 I don't get enlightenment, but at least I get to not suffer anymore. And it's free. So if that's the working hypothesis, then there's no point to going any further. Because the first one won't happen. That engine will not fire. If one is already operating under the sense of the enormous inexpressible preciousness of every day of one's life, every moment, every day is an opportunity to move along the path of irreversible freedom to enlightenment itself. Report an error

25:43 If that's sunken and that is your view, not something you've learned or you believe, Because this is the deal. This is not just acquiring a belief system. We're not moving towards an apostolic creed. Do you have all the right answers? Okay, then you're lying in a Buddhist. That's cheap. Beliefs are cheap. Really cheap. Shifting a whole view on reality, that's not cheap at all. It's fundamentally transformative. Report an error

26:07 But if you're operating out of this altered state of consciousness, this altered perspective, and then you add the ingredient, oh, by the way, this precious human life of living opportunity, That is rare and precious. This is going to end. That's for certain. It's finite. And we're moving inexorably towards that end, the termination of this particular life with its opportunities. Report an error

26:31 That is absolutely going to come. There's no doubt about it. But also, is it 20 years away, 40 years away, or is it one breath away? And those two, it's a double whammy. Just to recognize that everything I've acquired, all these mundane pursuits, All the attachment to this life, of the allures, the hedone of this life, that there's one thing certain, and that is we'll lose it all. Report an error

27:00 We'll lose it all. So whatever we acquired, whether you're a dead Steve Jobs or you're a dead street person, the amount of wealth you bring with you is exactly the same. The amount of reputation and fame and notoriety you bring with you, you won't even recall you're a Steve Jobs in a few weeks. So all that... Report an error

27:21 Wow, I'm Steve Jobs. Whoa, I'm Steve Jobs. Who's Steve Jobs? And then you can be born, you know, maybe as another human being, and then you'll learn in school about Steve Jobs and say, wow, he was cool. Report an error

27:34 I wish I was creative like him. He'll be somebody else as far as your person. So whoever you are, high or low, it all comes to an end. It's just facing that. Facing that. Everything I'm identifying with. My body, reputation, wealth, family, friends, students, blah, blah, blah. Oh, it's like a guillotine coming down. And all that carries on is that slender flow, that little current with a lot of imprints on it. Report an error

28:04 And whatever virtues we've cultivated, whatever mental afflictions we've attenuated, that carries on. But everything else, all the hedonic, without exception, everything we acquire, all guillotine coming down. You're on one side, it's on the other side. Report an error

28:22 And then to consider, with all of our plans, anticipations, I'm filling in my itinerary for next year as if I'm going to be alive. And I'm going to do this in the spring, and I'm going to do that in the fall. I remember reading the Asian journals of Thomas Merton. Asian journals. Anybody read them, you come to the last chapter, and he's planning what to do when he comes back from Asia. And there it is, the timeline, his continuum, his sense of identity. Report an error

28:52 He's flowing right into the future when he comes back. He was on his way home when he was in Bangkok. And when I come back, he definitely wanted to come back and train under this great Lama, Gangya Rinpoche. He met him, the Dzogchen master was deeply moved by him. He wanted to come back and receive further guidance from him. And he's planning, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. Report an error

29:11 He gets into the bathtub, into the bathtub in Bangkok, and the guillotine came down. And you see, his timeline went on, but he didn't. I mean, it was really quite striking. Happily, he was a very good man, so I don't think there was any real tragedy for him. But just seeing, you know, that he was only like 50, 55, you know, relatively young man. Report an error

29:30 Certainly he didn't die of old age. But the continuum saying, yes, I'll do that next year. Whereas we never know whether it's going to be tonight, a year, two years. At any moment, the guillotine comes down and that lifeline has just terminated. Report an error

29:49 So insofar as... It's a gradient, not a yes or no, so far as our aspirations, our views, our yearnings, our goals and ideals are wrapped up in the pursuit of hedonia, the joy that we can get from the world. If one really, if that's insofar as one is really attached there, focused there, I think, from my perspective, unless one is in a severe case of denial, the very fact that this is where one's priorities lie. Report an error

30:23 Guarantees, if you're paying attention. You should be depressed and you should be anxious. This is the realistic response to life as you're living it. Because you should be anxious. You have probably a family. They may be relying upon you. You have friends. You have a career. You have all of these things. And you never know if you're going to wake up tomorrow morning. Report an error

30:42 So be anxious. That's a reality response. You have no idea whether you're going to be diagnosed with cancer next week. It doesn't matter what your age is, right? Kids, adolescents, adults. They have no idea. And they'll say, oh, I'm sorry we got it so late. Who can say, oh, not me though, I'm one of the health people. And it's cancer, it's accidents, it's kind of just stuff that happens. Report an error

31:06 And so if you're not anxious, you're not paying attention. But it's not only anxiety, that's where the death could come at any point. Death, catastrophe, misfortune, injury, at any point, just one drunk driver can really ruin your day. And many days following it. And you have no control over that. That's it. And the older I get, the more I'm aware of it, that I'm in control of almost nothing around me, not even my own body. Report an error

31:33 Not even my own body. Otherwise I'd still look 20. That didn't work out too well. Report an error

31:42 Don't want to be 20. I wouldn't mind looking 20. Report an error

31:48 So that's where the anxiety comes in. That just everything's in a state of uncertainty and we have control over almost nothing. So insofar as I'm looking outwards for my happiness, general anxiety disorder should be the norm, and to a large extent it is. But it's not just anxiety, because anxiety says, well, maybe it will happen, maybe I won't, maybe I'll live a long life. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, but maybe I will. So I hope, I hope, hope. Report an error

32:15 But then we kind of look ahead and say, well, okay, but if things turn out really well, what lies ahead? I'm going to get old, sick and die. That's when it turns out really well. You don't get sick first and then die. You get old and then you get sick and you die. That's when things turn out well. Oh, he lives so old. Then he got sick and then he dead. And that's how the story always turns out. Report an error

32:45 So why not save yourself some time? Be depressed right now. Because this doesn't turn out well at all. It totally sucks. And so the pursuit of hedonia is really like going into a casino. And if you play long enough, you know what they say in Las Vegas, not only what happens in Las Vegas, I wasn't referring to that, but rather the house always wins. Report an error

33:08 You can come in with $10 million or $10 whatever, just play long enough. They're not charitable organizations. They're for profit and their profit and your loss. Play long enough and you'll lose everything. And that's guaranteed. Just play long enough. Live long enough and you will lose everything. So all the house wins. The house is called saṃsāra. It's a really lousy casino because they always win, we always lose. Report an error

33:34 And there's nobody over there who's winning, we just lose. And so to be aware of that is either you kind of mesmerize yourself with being a workaholic, entertainmentaholic. Holick, holick, holick of one sort or another, just, you know, immersing yourself in a frenzy of activity, which we're better at now than any point of human civilization. The amount of stimulation with work, with play, with entertainment, drugs, all kinds of stuff. Report an error

34:05 To get our minds off, I think, of the reality of our lives, which if we got off all of the entertainment, all of the addictions, we'd come back and be just as depressed and anxious as hell. And who wants that? So, you know, pass the martini. It's happy hour. Isn't that what they call it? Happy hour. You know, I was working this dismal job all day, wishing just waiting for five o 'clock, and then it's happy hour. Report an error

34:28 And it comes from, you know, pickling my brain. It's quite sad, really. And so in the face of such radical uncertainty, not only one's own death, and mortality and impermanence, but just the overall impermanence of everything, human civilization. I think it's quite obvious that the American civilization, number one from right after the Second World War, it's kind of clear it's not going to remain, it's not going to hold its status, like it's the champ, right? Report an error

34:57 Right now it's still the champ. Any betting how long it's going to be the champ before somebody else, whether it's the EU or China or India, comes in and gives the old elbow to Uncle Sam and says, you're now number two, and then number three, number four, and after a while, you know, we're like the UK. Report an error

35:19 You should have been there, you know, when the sun never set on our empire, you know. And now the sun can hardly even find your empire. Report an error

35:29 Don't worry, America's following fast in your footsteps. Rome, you know, and all of the great ones. Adolf Hitler's thousand-year Reich, which lasted about nine years or so. I mean, there it is, you know. It all crumbles. It all crumbles. So the bigger picture, I mean the universe itself, it's going to go out with a whimper or collapse in upon itself with a big crunch. But it all withers. And so we look externally. Report an error

35:55 It's just bleak. It's just bleak. One famous astrophysicist said, and what it got a Nobel Prize, he said, the more we understand the universe, the more we find the universe comprehensible, the more meaningless it appears. And Stephen Jay Gould, an eminent evolutionary biologist, said the whole course of evolutionary biology is pointless and meaningless. Report an error

36:13 Because we're not progressing towards something. We're not becoming smarter, better. We're just adapting so we can continue the same old, same old. Surviving and procreating, surviving and procreating, but each generation gets old, sick and die. And we're just making it possible for another generation to suffer. So it's really bleak. This is why they call this ocean of saṃsāra, right? If, or insofar as we're focused on the hedonia, on the other hand, we can ask this question. Report an error

36:40 And that is, when you're facing death, and I have had that wonderful opportunity. Age 23, third case of hepatitis, down to 139 pounds, and my urine was the color of Coca-Cola. And they were doing death puja for me just across the hall. I thought they were a bit snappy there. Like, could you wait a little bit? You know, like Winston Churchill, rumors of my death have been grossly exaggerated. Report an error

37:04 But they were, they kind of like figured, you know, we're going to have an empty bed here pretty quickly. And so when you have death that close, and for me it was three or four nights, I thought I had a 50-50 chance of getting through the night at the age of 23. When you get death that close, I mean, it really is like I can reach out and touch it. It's so close. And it's very serious. I mean, when you look at your body, you say, this body's dying. Report an error

37:28 To get it that close, then a question looms very, very large. All of hedonia has vanished. Your friends, your loved ones, your parents, anything required. It all is vanishing. You won't have parents anymore. They will have one less child. We used to have a child, but he died when he was 23. And so forth. You're nobodies. Report an error

37:48 Nobody is yours. You're nobodies. You'll just be off on the bardo by yourself. In the face of death, when you're right there at the portal, about to enter and across the threshold, is anything of still of value? Report an error

38:03 And from the materialist, the answer is no, because you're about to become a non-entity. There's nothing of value for you. But from the perspective of Dharma, you just missed the whole point of existence, the whole point of human existence. You've just missed the whole point of reality. You've completely missed the point. Report an error

38:19 And that is, yes, all of hedonia now is vanishing into thin air. And the one thing that still is of value is whatever Dharma you've practiced. That's what you carry with you. Report an error

38:31 And that's the message. And if one is dwelling in that, if one places a massive prioritization on the cultivation of yudamonia, devotion to the path, Report an error

38:42 Motivation, renunciation, the bodhicitta. And this is kind of like carrying you like a surfer's carry by a wave. It's just kind of like that which is moving you forward is your dedication to your devotion to Dharma. Then aging, sickness and death, no big deal. It's just what happens. But your Dharma is carrying you right through the aging. Report an error

39:04 And I've known a number of people that age so incredibly well. They're just wiser and wiser, more content, more compassionate. More wise, more contentment, more compassion. And then finally the farewell gesture, and they die splendidly. I've met so many people, I know this is true, but these are not people, not one of them, who placed a big priority on the Pac-Man, you know, the Edonia. Report an error

39:30 And so the sting can be taken entirely out. There is no defeat, there is no loss. One simply lightly releases all the lingering connections to this life and moves forward constantly. Confidently. And that is then a life well lived and a death well experienced. Smooth transition. So that's the point. And so insofar as one is coming back and really immersing oneself in the commitment to Dharma, the dedication to Dharma, then death is just bracing. Report an error

40:04 The prospect of death is bracing. It's said in the classic lamrim teachings, if you really have a given-up attachment to this lifetime and really looking to your long-term future, then you die without regret. And Melarepa said, that's the point of my practice, to die without regret. He had a lot of things to regret. He purified it all. If you've really so focused your aspirations that you're single-pointedly focused with intense, just that, focus on the pursuit of liberation, total irreversible freedom, and that's been your fundamental drive for your practice, Then you die fearlessly. Decisions of fear. You just kind of move through it like walking through a door. Fearlessly. Whereas if one's motivation is bodhicitta and your body is either old or it's broken or maybe both and you're on the verge of death, you die joyfully. Report an error

41:00 It's like having an old beat-up car that just doesn't run anymore and you're just about to have a great trade-in. You're about to get a much better vehicle. So who needs that? You're on. Joyfully. Joyful transition. So whether that happens or not, that's entirely in our hands. And this is the second engine. This is the second revolution. Report an error

41:26 That death is not the enemy. Impermanence is not the enemy. But it radically shifts the perspective on life and its termination. That death is not something to fear. Not something to avoid at all costs. There's no death wish here. But if one takes it with equanimity and even with joy, it gives that lightness. Report an error

41:45 It is said that, you know, the awareness of death and impermanence is that which arouses us to practice Dharma. Because by definition, Dharma is the only thing that's useful in the face of death. Nothing else is. And that's why I emphasize again, Dharma is not religion. So I commented yesterday that someone I just recently met, met a Lama in Bhutan, he said you need to find a religion, so I was told. Report an error

42:08 And it's not a good translation, as I said yesterday. What he actually said, because there is no word for religion in Tibetan. Is you need to find a Dharma. Now whether it's Christian Dharma, Hindu, Mahāyāna, Vajrayana, Zen, Chan, Dzogchen, whatever, you need to find a Dharma. Report an error

42:26 Didn't say religion. There's no such word. But you need to find a Dharma. A Dharma that is suitable for you. A Dharma where you can take refuge, where you feel at home and apply yourself with a whole heart. Dharma. And this morning I got curious. Just to check again. Etymology? A religion? It's to bind. Report an error

42:46 To bind. I thought about Tibetan, and it's exactly, it has the same connotation of domba, which is vow. A domba is to, you bound yourself, I will not engage, I will not drink alcohol, I will not kill, I will not, you take precepts like that, right? It's called domba, which means to bind, I'm binding myself to, voluntarily, happily, it's a kind of restraint or a commitment, a binding myself to, like until death do us part, that's monastic bond, unless you... Report an error

43:16 Formally offer them back. That's religion. But you find your Dharma first. Within the Dharma there may be some things you bind yourself to, like the Bodhisattva ideal. Then you bind yourself, then you have the Bodhisattva bond. And there's the Bodhisattva precept, Domba. Monastic precept, Domba. Then your religion within the Dharma is monastic religion. Bodhisattva religion. But that's within the context of your Dharma. Report an error

43:45 And of course all of this is voluntary. It's not a bondage that enslaves. It's a bond that frees and liberates. Because it's this profound commitment. Report an error

43:55 And so that's what is really meant by the implication, the power of this meditation. It doesn't focus you necessarily on religion as such. It focuses you on Dharma, which whether it's Christian Dharma, Hindu, Buddhism, so forth, there's a lot of good Dharma out there. But it's only Dharma that is of value. Report an error

44:14 And nothing else. And kind of by definition, it's almost a priori. That if it's something that actually does help you, still a benefit beyond death, we're just going to call that Dharma. Report an error

44:26 Well, are there people who practice Krishna Dharma who derive such benefit from that that that helps them with the dying process and helps them beyond? Yeah. And Hindu and Taoist and so forth and so on. So that's Dharma. And that's what this second one is all about. I'm going to do just one more if we can move on heavily because we have to... Report an error

44:45 Read more than one or two aphorisms in six days. So there's a lot of notes here. What you're seeing are my notes that I wrote up when I was teaching this over a period of eight weeks, right? So it's maybe a bit more than we can cover in six days. So, where is C? Report an error

45:10 Dukkha. There it is. The miseries of the cycle of existence. The Buddha said with regard to the first noble truth, this is a reality of suffering. We recognize it. And very, very few people do want to understand it. We don't want to face it. We just want to avoid it or have it go away. That's our automatic response to suffering. Please go away. If I can take an anesthetic or get drunk or run away, who wants to face suffering when you try to make it go away? Report an error

45:42 That's our first impulse, is not worry about the causes of it, just want to anesthetize it. And that is where psychopharmacology comes in and just, you know, makes billions. Report an error

45:54 Of responding to people's wish when it comes to mental suffering, just give me something that makes it go away. And let's not worry about the underlying causes or side effects, just mute it. Kill the messenger, please. And the Buddha does, in his first teaching on the First Noble Truth, he does Jesse Egan, roundabout. Report an error

46:12 Just like with the second one, the death and impermanence, the notion that, well, for all practical purposes, I'm immortal, death is distant in the future, so far ahead that I don't need to worry about it. It probably doesn't mean anything anyway because I just stopped breathing, no big deal. And taking that at just 180 degrees, revolution, complete reversal, the attitudinal, complete reversal of attitude with regards to, first, one's life, that was the first point, secondly, one's death. Report an error

46:38 That is not trivial, it's actually the culmination of life, for better or worse, this is your launching pad to what follows this life. And there's hardly anything more important than that. But then where are we going since we don't have any choice in this matter? Again, whether you believe it or not, frankly, it doesn't matter, to be very blunt. Report an error

46:57 You can believe that death terminates. Lots of luck with that. You'll be the first one to be surprised when you stop breathing and then you say, ay caramba, if you can speak Spanish. Report an error

47:09 How do I just be groping for words? You know, because it didn't stop. You don't have to believe me, but if you don't, you'll find out anyway. And so, but what's coming next then? To live well with the first revolution, to die well with the second revolution, but what comes next? And what comes next is this just flow of consciousness that never terminates. Report an error

47:31 No matter what you believe about it, what you do to it, the flow of consciousness is conserved. It can fantastically mutate to the most miserable realms of existence, or it can be transformed into the most sublime states transcending all of samsata. But the one thing you can't do with your flow of consciousness is to make it stop, as much as many people wish that were true. And so, without going into all the details, but when the Buddha said this is the reality of suffering, he was in fact referring to the whole bandwidth, which hardly anybody, apart from some Buddhists and other people, Report an error

48:07 Even taking into account, the Dalai Lama was asked years ago whether he'd like to have a Mind and Life meeting focusing on suffering, so what is the Western scientific views of suffering and pain and the Buddhist views. And it was the only time I've ever heard him receive a proposal, how about this, and he said, no thanks, no thanks. Because when we in the West, including the scientific community, when we refer to suffering, misery and happiness and so forth, we're referring to pond scum, the most superficial level. Report an error

48:37 And think if we overcome that, then it's hunky-dory. We think we get over mental illness, and now we're normal, and now we think it's fine. And from the Buddha's perspective, you think this is fine? Report an error

48:48 You're subject to aging, sickness and death, and your consciousness continues on forever, and you think right now, because you have a modicum of mental health, everything is fine? Get real! Report an error

48:59 And so that's just, there are three dimensions of suffering, and this is just, the blatant is all that the modern West ever thinks about. And all the humanitarian aid, which is so wonderful. All the humanitarian aid, the philanthropy, the schools, the clinics, the help for impoverishness and so forth and so on, it's all wonderful. It's really, really important. Report an error

49:18 And yet it's addressing only the most superficial level. Extremely important. But what else? And what else is called an ocean of deeper dimensions of suffering in light of the fact that consciousness just cannot terminate. So recognizing this, and then you can take in the broader bandwidth, the whole scope of multiple states of existence, as the Buddha himself witnessed, and many, many great contemplatives have since then, the six realms of existence and so forth. Report an error

49:47 But what is crucial for all of this is continuity of consciousness. Again, if the Buddha himself, who claimed to have direct knowledge of countless past lives, he said through multiple cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe, so he's speaking of billions of years, Of expansion and contraction of the universe. Those are his words. Not just modern Big Bang theory, Big Crunch theory, but from the Buddha's lips himself. This is what he perceived. Report an error

50:11 And his own continual past lives beyond all reckoning. This is what he said. I see this with direct knowledge. But he wasn't simply like a messiah or god or a prophet. Report an error

50:22 He said, and this is how I found out. I achieved the fourth jhāna. If you want to check for yourself, achieve the fourth jhāna. Or I checked with... A man who has achieved shamatha and vipassanā with profound Dzogchen realization, a few of us had the good fortune to meet him, still alive, still teaching, young Thangarajaya. Report an error

50:40 He is a profoundly realized Dzogchen master and has achieved shamatha vipassanā much further. And I sat with him years ago and I simply asked him, if one has achieved just shamatha, let alone the fourth jama, just having achieved shamatha, your mind has slipped into the substrate consciousness, which is the repository of all your past life memories. Report an error

51:01 Is that sufficient for being able to accurately recall past life? He said, yeah. And then I asked him, well, for Westerners, nowadays Westerners, could Westerners, you know, people, he was teaching in the West at the time, could Westerners who've been brought up, raised here, educated here, brainwashed here, you know, could people, could people nowadays, could they achieve shamatha? Report an error

51:24 And he said, we'll see. Report an error

51:31 I love that answer. He didn't give me the gap. And he didn't say, oh, forget about it. Are you kidding? Neither one. He said, well, that's to be seen. Right on the cusp. Right on the knife edge. So there's a lot here. Report an error

51:46 The simple point here, because I've spent a lot of time with neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers of mine, and I've read a lot of this stuff. And what's remarkable about the materialistic, reductionistic view of consciousness is they don't know what they're talking about. I mean, literally, they do not know what the causes of consciousness are, and that's widely accepted. Report an error

52:04 They look for and they have not been able to find the causes of consciousness, what are the necessary and sufficient. They can't measure it, they can't define it, they don't know how it interacts with the brain. And therefore to presume on this ocean of ignorance about nature and origins of consciousness, with that massiveness of ignorance, to assume that somehow scientifically we know that consciousness terminates at death, it's all I can see is flat out silly. Report an error

52:31 I mean, you don't know what you're talking about, so why do you think you know that consciousness terminates at death when all you really know is the brain goes dead and dead people don't behave? That's not breaking news. We knew that already. So to think that science has some special insight into what happens at death is a complete fiction. Report an error

52:49 Complete fiction which many people in that field are promoting because it helps them empower their own disciplines. The people who know about consciousness are the ones who have been looking at it deeply for centuries. And in terms of this simple fact, which I think is one of the most well-established facts, corroborated, multiple times corroborated, the continuity of consciousness from life to life. Report an error

53:12 Hindus first. They were the first ones to develop samādhi. And with samādhi, you break through the limitations of your psyche that arises, independence upon your brain, and you break through to this underlying continuum. And you see it for yourself. And you see for yourself past life memories. You don't have to believe any religion or any ideology, but if you achieve samādhi and use that knife to cut through the limitations of your psyche, then you see it for yourself. Report an error

53:38 Hindus first. Then the Buddha, following the samādhi methods of his predecessors for hundreds if not thousands of years, he ascertained it. But then he said, this is how you do it. He taught for 45 years, strongly emphasized the practice of shama to the achievement of the different jhānas, at least the first. Report an error

53:55 And that's sufficient to break through into the form realm beyond the confines of your psyche. And then we find Pythagoras could recall 20 of his past lifetimes, so he said. And he went to Egypt, I think very likely, very plausible that he picked up samādhi there. Because there were Hindu yogis in Alexandria in Egypt at the time of Pythagoras. Report an error

54:15 That's clearly documented. And they would travel and they'd talk about what they knew. And that was especially Samādhi. And Pythagoras went to Egypt, came back, and then after some time reported, number one, having paranormal abilities, siddhis. He was renowned for that. And said he could recall 20 of his own past lives. And actually recognized the reincarnation of a friend of his from a previous life. Report an error

54:35 That's Pythagoras. Socrates fell right and followed that current. So did Plato. This is mainstream Western philosophy. So we have early Western philosophers. Philosophy really meant love of wisdom, rather than getting tenure. So we have the Hindus, we have the Buddhists, we have the Pythagoreans, Daoist contemplatives have been affirming this for centuries, and Sufi for centuries, and Jewish is mainstream, Kabbalah, it's right there, very mainstream. Report an error

55:05 And then early Christianity, going back to Oregon, the Church Fathers, first four centuries, widely accepted, that you become perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. You'll need more than one lifetime. And so Oregon, a church father, not a heretic, but a church father said, there has to be continuity from lifetime to lifetime, otherwise we can never do what Jesus said. Report an error

55:26 Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. That's a big, big job. And so, I think I just covered all the world's religions and shamanic traditions around the world. So the only people, the odd men out of the materialist, and they're the people who professionally make a point of not looking at the mind. Report an error

55:44 So why on earth look to them as an authority? It's ridiculous. If you're wondering about the brain or behavior, ask them. Mind, they'll be the last people to know. It's kind of looking due west and wondering, when's the sun going to rise? I'm looking, I'm looking. Looking in the wrong direction. Reversal. Revolution. That's the revolution of mind sciences. Report an error

56:05 Quit, for heaven's sakes, looking outwards. You really think you're going to find the mind there? Turn your head around. And turn inwards, you might actually learn something about the nature of consciousness. So that's the third one. Without belaboring it, Moving on, I'm going to read one more and then we can take our break. Karma, actions and their consequences. These are laws of nature. Report an error

56:25 They're not Buddhist truths, they're not Hindu truths. Sanskrit, yes, but that's the language they wrote. But the actions, all of our actions have consequences not only in this lifetime, but we're not off the hook, that we are sowing seeds. For how our lives play out, what kind of opportunities, what kind of life form we take on, who we meet, what opportunities arise. We are sowing the seeds for that. Report an error

56:50 Every moment, every time we have an intention, we engage in some deliberate or voluntary act. We are sowing the seeds of our future. As we sow, so shall we reap. This is not uniquely a Buddhist view. And there's one aphorism from Tibetan. You can see the material there. We don't have time. But there's one aphorism from Tibetan Buddhism that really stuck with me. If you want to know the nature of your past lives, look at your body. Report an error

57:20 Because your body, whether it's healthy, attractive, unattractive and so forth, disease-ridden and so forth and so on, you want to check, okay, this is the fruition of your past karma right here. You're looking at it. It's running out, by the way. You're not going to have this indefinitely. For a while, though, this is the fruition of past karma. So if you want to know your past life, look at your current body. If you want to know your future lives, How's it going to turn out? What's going to happen after I'm dead? Look at your mind. You want to know your past? Look at your body. You want to know your future? Look at your mind. Because you're the sower. Report an error

57:50 You're the farmer. You're cultivating your field. So drench in that one. Drench in that one. The reality of suffering that no matter where we scurry about, even from lifetime to lifetime, trying to find some pleasant play to go, you know, some ultimate vacation lands, you know, some Deva realm, something really pleasant. Report an error

58:13 That it all fades out. It's all hedonic from start to finish throughout the whole of saṃsāra. Even into the form and formless realms. You're there for a while and then you descend. Whatever goes up comes down. And so it just takes all the fun out of saṃsāra. It calls for radical disillusionment. That wherever you go, whatever kind of birth you take, whatever, wherever you go, it always just turns out with four inconvenient truths. Report an error

58:39 Four. Al Goreyad only had one. The Buddha had four. And that is whatever is born dies. So you take some really cool rebirth, good, watch the clock. It's only a matter of time, wait, it's finished. You're born, okay, you're going to die. That's already a given. Whatever, wherever you are. That's the first one. Whatever born dies. You, your children, your friends, teachers, everybody. Report an error

59:03 And then whatever is acquired that you get from the world around you, you'll lose it. As Goenka says, whenever we're attached to Goenka, the Burmese meditation teacher, the late Goenka, he said, whenever we reach out and grasp onto anything, tangible or intangible, reputation, a friend, a lover, a teacher, anything, even our own bodies, if we grasp onto something with attachment, thinking, here's what makes me happy, and we're holding on to your life, this makes me happy. Report an error

59:29 Now, one of two things will certainly happen. As you're holding on to it, it will disappear. Or, you're holding on to it, and you will disappear. That's it. There's no third door. That's it. And so whatever is acquired will be lost. And then wherever there's meeting, there will be parting. Report an error

59:49 And wherever we elevate, in terms of wealth, status, prestige, power, high status, even as a Lama, unless we get the point of escape velocity, then whatever goes up comes down. So is it possible then, these are the four engines, to really fundamentally reverse Our attitude upon our lives, our deaths, what happens after this life and what's the big picture within saṃsāra. And it is so profoundly diametrically opposed to the materialistic worldview that you can almost take any statement from materialism and say the opposite. Report an error

1:00:28 That's much more likely to be in accord with Buddha teachings. There's hardly anything more diametrically opposed to the Buddha's insights, his discoveries and wisdom than this reductionistic, life-defeating, dismal view of materialism. And in the midst of all of this, these four reversals of attitude, each of them transforms the view in a way that throws off the shackles of suffering and the causes of suffering. Report an error

1:00:57 So people I've known who have immersed themselves where they've got all the four engines running so they don't need to meditate on this anymore because the shift has taken place. Report an error

1:01:07 These are the lightest. The lightest, the most cheerful, the most buoyant, the most resilient people I've ever met. Because they've shifted fundamentally their whole view and existence. Their own and existence at large. They're living in a flow of eudaimonia. And that is what comes from taking the precious human birth and milking it for all it's worth. Report an error

1:01:30 Transforms death. Transforms what follows death. And transforms all of our actions so that it's a bountiful harvest. So these four. These four are the necessary preparation, the warm-up, turning on all four engines so we can go into the second point of the seven-point mind training. And there's one verse, one aphorism we'll come to right after the break that's often somehow got deleted from a lot of later versions of the text. Report an error

1:02:00 But it was there. We should put it right back in because it belongs there. It was there in the earliest versions. And that's what we'll look at after the break. So right now it's 10 till. So I offered 20 minutes, yeah? That was hopefully a little compromise. But long enough that you feel a sense of leisure. You're not rushing back. But let's do drop back into the baseline of speech in its natural state, effortlessly silent. Report an error

1:02:23 For 20 minutes, we'll come back and go right back to meditation. Okay? Good. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/retreatmindtraining. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Recorded at Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, and archived by the institute on Internet Archive. More from Vajrayana Institute

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