Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 23)

0:15 I'd like to make a very brief referral back to the practices we were doing in the last couple of days of these two modes of mindfulness of breathing. Remember the Dzogchen approach where primarily you're simply resting in awareness and only peripherally, simply noting, almost like out of the corner of your eye, just the rhythm. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:36 But you may at any point just kind of release that and just go right into awareness itself and then achieve Shama that way. So there's one method. And the other one, the Asangha method, is again viewing But now you're actually directing your attention to the tactile sensations of the breath throughout the body, noting the rhythm. But you're clearly, as I'm looking at you right now, really giving your attention, focusing your attention very strongly on the whole field and the tactile sensations throughout the field that are correlated with respiration. Report an error in the passage at 0:36 Highlight the passage at 0:36

1:06 So one's quite clear, right? They're complementary to each other. One is primarily here and peripherally there. The other one's primarily here, but peripherally, still maintaining a little sense of that awareness, the stillness of your awareness, the stillness of the awareness in the midst of the motions within the body. Report an error in the passage at 1:06 Highlight the passage at 1:06

1:22 That theme keeps on coming up again and again. So those two are not the same method, but they're both approaches to or interpretations of mindfulness or breathing. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:32 And what I would suggest, during this retreat, but then this is kind of like this life and then future lifetimes, this retreat's very short, what comes after is very long. That on occasions, when you find that your body-mind, the whole system, is either a bit tense, stressed or tight, and or agitated, if it's agitated, it's probably tight too, that if you're in kind of that bandwidth, kind of tight and agitated, if that's kind of what you see when you observe your body and the mind, then what I would suggest would be go to the Asangha method. Report an error in the passage at 1:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32

2:07 And that is, give yourself a bit of traction. Really observe, attend to this non-conceptual space. Because when you're attending to the body, you're not looking at thoughts. There are no thoughts in there. No mental images. It's a non-conceptual space in which non-conceptual appearances are arising. And you direct your attention there. Report an error in the passage at 2:07 Highlight the passage at 2:07

2:26 And also within that, just grounding awareness. And that relaxation with every out-breath. And that will help to release the tension, release tightness and calm and generally quiet the mind and enhance relaxation and stability. So that's a very good technique. And moreover, especially at the end of the day, consider long days when you've been working very hard. Report an error in the passage at 2:26 Highlight the passage at 2:26

2:51 There's been a lot of stress, a lot of stuff coming up. And it's only 8 o 'clock and you're really not sleepy yet, but you're tired. It's been a long, tough day. And I have this image coming up. That now I'll sit in meditation like this. And the Dalai said, are you kidding? Go away. Don't beat me up. I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. I'm drained. And the very notion of just sitting up my meditation said, forget it. I'm going to watch television. Report an error in the passage at 2:51 Highlight the passage at 2:51

3:21 It's between those two. I'm watching TV. I'm watching the infomercials. I mean, I'm desperate here, but I can't. I'm just not up to that, you know. And so I totally get that. There are times when you just don't have the psychological oomph to even consider sitting like that. But now consider one of those days. Report an error in the passage at 3:21 Highlight the passage at 3:21

3:43 Just imagine it. You may have one of those days, yeah? Could happen. Okay. So imagine that in anticipation. One of those days. You've had dinner, everything's done, but you're not going to go to bed for another hour, two hours, three hours, because you're not sleepy yet, but you are. So you understand. Report an error in the passage at 3:43 Highlight the passage at 3:43

4:01 So imagine that. And now imagine when you're in that state, you've got various things to do to kill time. Which is basically, because you're not really ready to use it in a really productive way, get something done because you're tired. But now consider this. I'm going to go into my bedroom. I'm going to have a really soft lighting. And I'm going to lie on top of my bed with a pillow under my head. Even Report an error in the passage at 4:01 Highlight the passage at 4:01

4:41 if you're very tired. That image. And then actually doing it. Just going into a softly bedroom. Be nice and warm. And then just relaxing, relaxing, releasing. And just... Report an error in the passage at 4:41 Highlight the passage at 4:41

4:56 And go into relaxation without losing clarity. And doing that asangha method, just observing the ebb and flow, like kind of the ambience as sitting on a beach on a warm Sunday afternoon and just watching the waves come up. Report an error in the passage at 4:56 Highlight the passage at 4:56

5:11 Nothing stressful about that. You don't say, I'm sorry, I'm too tired to watch the waves. Nobody thinks that. And so on those occasions, either not relaxed or not calm. So stressed out or agitated. Supine position is fantastic. Really, really good. You may very well be able to entice yourself to do that rather than just killing time with stuff that doesn't really relax the mind, like watching television or just other ways to kill time. Report an error in the passage at 5:11 Highlight the passage at 5:11

5:41 It doesn't really relax the mind at all. It just gets you by until you actually go comatose and fall asleep. On other occasions, though, during this retreat and after, when you don't feel that drained or that exhausted, you don't feel particularly tense or agitated. If you feel pretty normal and you have some energy, then again, sitting position or supine, either way, they both are perfectly good postures for proceeding very far along the way to shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

6:09 In fact, all the way. And on those occasions, when you feel pretty balanced, pretty relaxed, pretty composed, then go for the Dzogchen approach. It's subtler, but it's also very deep. And then primarily just rest in that stillness. But sustain the flow of cognizance. That's a really crucial thing. What it's not is simply sitting there with a blank mind. That's just pointless. There's no reason to cultivate that. It's called cultivating stupor. And do it long enough and you go from the noun to the adjective. Report an error in the passage at 6:09 Highlight the passage at 6:09

6:38 Stupid. So we don't need that. But maintain the flow of cognizance and just resting that stillness and peripherally, like with your pinky, just staying in touch with the rhythm of the breath. It hardly needs any attention at all. It's so easy to be aware of. And then that can take you very deep. So that was just a brief recap, but in anticipation, those three qualities, if you're missing the first two, then I would suggest Asanga method and preferably Supayin. Report an error in the passage at 6:38 Highlight the passage at 6:38

7:04 If the first two are pretty good and you're really ready to go for clarity, when you're resting primarily in the very nature of awareness itself, you're resting primarily in the very nature of luminosity itself. So you've gone right to the mother load. What is the origin? Whence arises? The clarity of your awareness, that which, as I attend to you, illuminates your face. Something is illuminating, and it's not the photons, and it's not the molecules, and not brain cells. Report an error in the passage at 7:04 Highlight the passage at 7:04

7:31 Brain cells are not light bulbs. They don't illuminate anything. It's chemicals. What's illuminating when I see all the texture of your beard, your face, your forehead, your posture, your facial expression? What's making those appearances? Luminosity of awareness. Nothing else does that. And so what's the source of that luminosity? Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

7:52 Well, Awareness itself. And so when you're simply resting in the very nature of awareness, you're resting in the very nature of luminosity itself. So if you're looking for out of relaxation, stability and clarity, clarity is the same word as luminosity. And you've come to the mother load, you've come to the origin, the source. It's kind of like just coming to an artesian well and bathing in it. You're just drenching, immersing yourself in that crystal clear flow of luminosity. Report an error in the passage at 7:52 Highlight the passage at 7:52

8:19 Okay? So that's good. So then I left you hanging. It was so much fun. I love torturing people. It's my hobby. Not really. Where do appearances come from? Frankly, there is no coherent explanation anywhere to be found in the materialistic paradigm, because nothing made sense. And moreover, whatever they come with, I've been looking at this for 25 years, they're all kind of theories they come up with. They all have something in common. Not one is testable. They're just... Report an error in the passage at 8:19 Highlight the passage at 8:19

8:53 Opinions. Like, just opinions, beliefs. And they're kind of ridiculous, beliefs. And they don't even bother to test them, they just start saying they're true. And then everybody just starts saying the same thing, and then we have all these, let's talk about neurons processing information and communicating with each other. Have you heard that before? Report an error in the passage at 8:53 Highlight the passage at 8:53

9:14 Is there any evidence for that at all? It sounds like each neuron is a sentient being. And your head is like an anthill. With about a hundred billion senji beings in there talking with each other. And you can't hear them. In fact, you don't exist. It's just an anthill full of neurons talking with each other, processing information. Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:32 It's just a great myth with no basis in reality at all. Zero. And so where do appearances come from? Well, I think we have an answer. And it's empirically testable. You can watch it happen. Because nobody ever sees appearances, thoughts, emotions, immersion from neurons. It's a crazy idea. Never happened. Report an error in the passage at 9:32 Highlight the passage at 9:32

9:52 Where do the appearances come from? From the substrate. You remember that one? And that is when you reduce your mind down to its kind of stem cell of mind, the stem flow of consciousness, just down to the substrate. It's down to the essential nature, its raw primal flow. Not mystical, not transcendent, not Buddha nature, just the raw primal flow, the dimension of consciousness that remains when you're deep asleep. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:16 And what you can be explicitly aware of if you're lucidly in dreamless sleep. You can see it. So there's that flow of consciousness, but then that's called the substrate consciousness, but then the space in which that consciousness is present, that space of which the consciousness is present, is called the substrate, or the alaya, or kunshi, kunshi at the back. Report an error in the passage at 10:16 Highlight the passage at 10:16

10:37 Well, here's an empirical statement. There's an answer to that question. It's not one of those imponderables, like, oh, who knows? People do know. All these appearances come from the substrate. All the appearances of dreams. You're resting there in the substrate consciousness, the substrate, that symmetry is broken, it's catalyzed, and lo and behold you find yourself in an environment, right? Report an error in the passage at 10:37 Highlight the passage at 10:37

10:59 A dream environment. And all the appearances of the dream environment are all illuminated by your substrate consciousness. But then where are they appearing? In the substrate. And the appearances on the self emerge from that substrate. Then the dream, after ten minutes in your first dream, it dissolves, the appearances dissolve right back into the substrate. Report an error in the passage at 10:59 Highlight the passage at 10:59

11:18 It's a field filled with energy that's ready to crystallize, to manifest, to take on specific forms. Out of emptiness comes form, out of form comes emptiness. Form is arising from emptiness and dissolving back into emptiness in a purely empirical way. Then when you're in deep sleep and you suddenly wake up, then all these appearances of your room, for example, they weren't waiting for you. Report an error in the passage at 11:18 Highlight the passage at 11:18

11:46 There's no white and yellow and green and so forth, the environment waiting for you to open your eyes and then see what's already there. Those colors aren't already there. And there are no sounds there either, out there waiting for you, or fragrances in the atmosphere and so forth. All those appearances, when you wake up and you see your environment, all those appearances are rising from your substrate. Then you fall asleep, they go back into your substrate. Report an error in the passage at 11:46 Highlight the passage at 11:46

12:08 And then what about all these subjective impressions we have, that our desires are awareness itself, but our desires... Our feelings, everything coming up, our thoughts coming up. Where are these subjective states coming up from? As we're making sense of the world, perceiving, recalling, imagining things, all of these subjective impulses are not coming out of neurons or molecules or anything else. Report an error in the passage at 12:08 Highlight the passage at 12:08

12:31 They're not coming out of matter. They're coming out of the substrate consciousness. And then when you fall asleep and all the activities of your mind dissolve, they go back into, they dissolve back into the substrate consciousness. You start dreaming, they come out again. And so there we are. So there's a statement that is empirically testable. You can watch that happen. You need to develop some samādhi. But there's nothing mystical or metaphysical about this. Report an error in the passage at 12:31 Highlight the passage at 12:31

12:53 It's radically empirical. But then as we are going to the meditation, we have that deeper question. Because this statement, view all phenomena as if they were dreams. Report an error in the passage at 12:53 Highlight the passage at 12:53

13:03 He's not just talking psychology here. He's not just making a psychological statement. He's making a statement about the nature of reality that views them as if they were dreams because they are very similar to dreams. And that's phenomena. So what he's talking about is everything we're experiencing. And so a simple point that I make before we go to the meditation is when it comes to the appearances themselves, the five sensory fields, the appearance of mental perception, it's quite clear really that they're not out there independently, they're rising relative to the awareness of them. Report an error in the passage at 13:03 Highlight the passage at 13:03

13:38 And visual perception doesn't exist autonomously, all by itself, waiting for some appearances to come along. That visual perception arises relative to visual appearances. And visual appearances arise relative to visual perception. And that goes for auditory perception and sounds and all of these. That neither one is autonomous. That either they're both dependent on the other. Report an error in the passage at 13:38 Highlight the passage at 13:38

14:04 And that goes for mental awareness as well. That of which we're mentally aware wasn't already out there independent of mental awareness. But our mental awareness of dreams and so forth is arising relative to that. So it's all rising in mutual interdependence. But if you take each of the units or the ingredients of this, like color or visual perception or a dream and a dreaming consciousness, if you take it apart in these little categories, then you'll find that none of them exist autonomously. Report an error in the passage at 14:04 Highlight the passage at 14:04

14:36 Colors don't exist by themselves, but visual perception doesn't exist by itself if there are no visual appearances. So they're all mutually interdependent. And in that way, being interdependent, they're empty of having their own independent, autonomous, inherent existence as isolated units. Kind of the Newtonian model of atoms. Or Democritus going way back. All there is is space and atoms that Democritus saw 2,500 years ago, boiling everything down to these little units. Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

15:06 And then complex configuration of units, you have the whole universe. Except that that's been blown apart by quantum mechanics. But it begs the question so far. I find this very coherent and testable, because I always want to find something testable. But then it begs the question, what about people? Like Ani Chukila is not an appearance to my mind. She's a human being. If I dream of Ani Chukila, an appearance is there. Well, that's just an appearance. Report an error in the passage at 15:06 Highlight the passage at 15:06

15:35 But she is a human being. She's not an appearance to my mind. A human being. She exists independently of me. I die, she's still there. And so forth. And so when we consider the people, the objects, the entities that populate the universe that we inhabit, where there are people and there are buildings that were made by somebody, the appearances weren't made by anybody. Report an error in the passage at 15:35 Highlight the passage at 15:35

15:58 And if you dream of a building appearing in your dream, nobody constructed it. There's no insurance on it, there's no lease, there's no zoning. I think we should have a retreat center in a dream that we have no hassles at all. Just come to my dream. I've gone to dream many vacancies and many empty huts in my dream. Come here, there are all the problems solved. But for actual meditation huts, you have to get zoning, you have to get permits, you have to get an architect, you have to get good construction, you have to get all those kind of things. Report an error in the passage at 15:58 Highlight the passage at 15:58

16:30 And then it's there. And you could all die, but the meditation huts would be still there. And so what about these objects? I don't want to go into it. But let's do it. I'm just going to make a simple point here. And that is whenever we observe, I'll say Ani Chukila. You don't mind. Yeah? Okay. So when I, because I've known Ani Chukila for years, and I still remember the time you took me out of Sydney Harbor. Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:54 That was so much fun. She was, she's quite a treat. So that was my first exposure to Sydney. And I was love at first sight, you know. Sydney Harbor and my dear friend Chukila. So, but when I attend to, when I look over at Chukila, and I have many memories of her, we have a very nice friendship, it's that simple, that as I attend to her, and I recall her, I think of Ani Chukila, then am I remembering simply her? Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:17 And the answer is no, any more than when I gaze in her direction, I'm not simply seeing colors of her robes, the color of her forehead and so forth, as something objective out there that I'm just picking up. But in fact, the visual appearance of Ani Chukila is arising relative to. My visual perception. If I were colorblind, she'd be wearing gray robes, from my perspective, right? So this goes, and then when I hear a voice, also I'm hearing it with my hearing, which is actually much better than my wife thinks. Report an error in the passage at 17:17 Highlight the passage at 17:17

17:47 But this is all relative. The colors that I see are relative to my visual perception, the sound of her voice relative to my auditory perception. But now let's go deeper. And that is, as we engage with people, we know people for some months, years or decades. Then we have a sense, well, if you say, well, describe to me, what kind of a person is she? I would say something. I would say something. And I think what I would say, because I tend to be a bit cautious, not making a wild, buoyant kind, but I think if I made some statements, they'd be true. Report an error in the passage at 17:47 Highlight the passage at 17:47

18:18 They would pertain directly to what I've been attending to. They'd be, in fact, consisting only of what I'm attending to, but not just what I'm attending to, but how I'm making sense of what I attend to. So we say this person over here, Joe Doe, is very smug. I'm pointing to no one. He's very smug. How do I know that? Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:42 Because I'm clairvoyant? Nope. That's an interpretation. Maybe he's simply very confident. Or maybe he's feeling very vulnerable. And this is a defense mechanism. Maybe he's not smug at all. But I understand smug, because that's within my bandwidth. And I see him, in fact, he may be very shy and have a lot of low self-esteem issues. Report an error in the passage at 18:42 Highlight the passage at 18:42

19:01 And he covers that over with an appearance of being smug, where in fact that's totally wrong. But I don't have low esteem, and I'm not extremely shy anymore. And so I just see it within my bandwidth, and I say, Joe Do is smug. What am I seeing here? I didn't dream that up all by myself. I'm observing his behavior. And yet, it's not just me, but it's not just him either. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:26 And the point is very simple. Whether it's smug Joe Do, or my impression is a bit more textured than that. Shukila, knowing her for some years, it's always you-me. That is, I'm not making this up, I'm not, how do you say, hallucinating, I'm not delirious, simply making up a person out of nothing. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:44 So there's a lot of input witnessing here a person who's not me. And so there's influence from that side, but there's also influence of my side. I've known many nuns in my past, I've known many people in my past, and we've had a number of occasions, all of them friendly actually. And so I'm drawing from that, but when I think of Anishukila, when I think of her at any time, or I mention her, describe her, I'm never describing just her, and nor am I describing a pure fiction that I've made up all myself. Report an error in the passage at 19:44 Highlight the passage at 19:44

20:12 It's always you me. It's always an alloy. It's always an alloy. So when I look in a direction, I'm not just seeing colors, I'm seeing a person, I'm not just seeing a person, I'm seeing a person who I might feel I know somewhat. And that... The person that comes to mind that I feel is the object of my attention is an alloy, a combination of subjective and objective coming together. Report an error in the passage at 20:12 Highlight the passage at 20:12

20:37 And that's for Ali Chiki, that's for this Christian college here, that's for Sydney, and that's for everything. Everything. That it's never two independent units just being slapped together. Like she is as she is independently, and I am as I am independently. It's always arising together. And so, whenever we point to anyone, point, what's coming to mind is never out there independently. Never. Report an error in the passage at 20:37 Highlight the passage at 20:37

21:07 Doesn't matter whether it is, an atom, a moon of Jupiter, a person, a country, whatever it is, there's always a subjective element, always, every single time, without exception. So whatever you're pointing to, say, Angela. The Angela... That I'm perceiving, that I'm conceiving, I remember our email correspondence and so forth. She's not there. She's not there. Because if she were, then I would have nothing to do with it except for witnessing what's there objectively. Report an error in the passage at 21:07 Highlight the passage at 21:07

21:34 But she's not a figment of my imagination. Otherwise I'd stop imagining her and she'd die if she's completely a fiction of my mind. That's not true. So it's always relational. Whatever we're thinking about anything, whether it's atomic physicists thinking about Higgs boson. And defining Higgs boson. They're not measuring or defining something absolutely objective. It's relative to their measurement, their system of measurement, their conceptual framework, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 21:34 Highlight the passage at 21:34

22:03 And it's not saying they're dreaming up a Higgs boson. Not that, then who needs a large hadron supercollider. But nor are they simply measuring something that is absolutely independently existent out there. It's always relational. So if you're looking for who is the person who is doing this independently, as some independent agent over here, well, check. Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:26 But when you're looking objectively, Higgs boson, Angela, Sidney, and so forth, if you try to find objectively, is that to be found there, excluding all the subjective input, you find it's empty. It's all empty. Every unit you can find is all empty of its own intrinsic, independent nature or identity. Report an error in the passage at 22:26 Highlight the passage at 22:26

22:47 Because it's always relational. And the subject-object relation is always system and never two things bouncing into each other. In this way, everything is empty of inherent nature. And of course, this is exactly what's true in a dream. Not in exactly the same way, but in a dream too. Everybody you meet, it's always relational. Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

23:08 And they don't always act in predictable ways. If they're simply figments of your imagination, like writing a novel. Well, the people in the novel do exactly what you tell them to do. Right? It's your novel. So that's your creation. But dreams aren't that way. When I interviewed those people in the diner, I didn't think they would do that. Report an error in the passage at 23:08 Highlight the passage at 23:08

23:28 I thought at least one would be curious. Nobody was. And so clearly I wasn't controlling them, even though I knew this was a dream. So that's a short synopsis of the emptiness of all phenomena. Not to say there's nothing there, but it's not absolutely there and it's not absolutely here. The colors are not out there, they're not in here, they're relational. Report an error in the passage at 23:28 Highlight the passage at 23:28

23:51 The people you know, it's always you-they, you-he, you-her. It's always relational. And moreover then, when they're looking at you, then it's you-they, you-he and so forth. We're always rising in interrelationship with each other. There's one little boy on the planet, there's only one on the planet. That looks upon me and thinks and says, Grandpa. And for him, I'm arising as Grandpa. So I get to say, I'm Grandpa. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:20 Not yours, though. Not yours, sorry. Call me Grandpa? No. Say, don't do that. Because it's not true. But for one person, it's true. I'm Grandpa. So when I look at him, there are four people that look upon him and say, Grandchild. My Grandchild. But there's only one person that looks upon me, but therefore I can say, I'm a Grandpa. Report an error in the passage at 24:20 Highlight the passage at 24:20

24:41 I think, Rhonda, I think you look at me as your Lama, right? I think so. So I'm a Lama, in the same way that I'm a grandpa. Now, if nobody thinks of me as Lama, which you're fine too, anytime, you know, I'm ready to retire, but if nobody looks upon me as Lama, then I'm not a Lama. But if one person does, as in one child looks upon me as Grandpa, then I'm Grandpa. But does this mean that I'm really a Lama? No, I say, if nobody looks upon me as a Lama, then I'm not a Lama, right? Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:12 Any more than if nobody looks upon me as a Grandpa, I'm not a Grandpa. So it's all relational. But for some people, I'm Lama. For one person, I'm Grandpa. For another person, I'm Son. For another person, I'm a client. For another person, I'm a passenger, and so forth and so on. And now where is the nuclear me? Where is the person who is the real one, who is manifesting as a Lama for some people, not Lama for most people, Grandpa for one person, and so forth? Report an error in the passage at 25:12 Highlight the passage at 25:12

25:40 Where is the nuclear? Where is the nuclear self, the real me? Will the real me please stand up? And show yourself nakedly without this relational business. Will the real me please stand up? Let's go to meditation and find out. Report an error in the passage at 25:40 Highlight the passage at 25:40