Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 50)

0:12 It's waiting for you, Chris. I was not at all satisfied with the answer I gave you last night. Follow up. Report an error in the passage at 0:12 Highlight the passage at 0:12

0:47 So, let's return to the text. Report an error in the passage at 0:47 Highlight the passage at 0:47

0:54 So here it is, Special Practices for Accumulating Merit, Purifying Obscurations. We're under this heading on page 27. And the best of methods is to have four practices. So we've covered the first two, enormously important, very practical, very true and authentic. The third one's interesting. Making offerings to spirits. Report an error in the passage at 0:54 Highlight the passage at 0:54

1:18 I've worked a lot with scientists, especially over the last 25 years or so, mostly neuroscientists and so forth. But a lot of physics, I was trained in physics. And spirits, ghosts, aren't very popular in the neuroscientific community. You don't find a person, you know, going and having somebody come out of an MRI and say, yeah, I saw definitely some diabolical influence there. Report an error in the passage at 1:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18

1:43 You know, possession. It's not one of the things they pick up. But there's, I think, a really, a very good reason, actually. Very, very good reason why just generally the scientific community at large is very spooked by ghosts that they don't believe in. Report an error in the passage at 1:43 Highlight the passage at 1:43

2:04 And I mean, and I'm very, very serious, not being sarcastic or ironic here. There's a very good reason. Because I took a lot of interest in this when I was a graduate student at Stanford. It's called the witch hunting era. The witch hunting era. I don't know if you ever actually touched by that in Australia itself. It went from about 1450 to 1750. And you, in Australia, weren't really getting off the ground, were you, until about after 1750. Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

2:29 So you might have missed it. You might have missed it here. But most of your ancestors were back in Europe anyway, so they got a full, you know, like double-barreled shotgun. It was 300 years of psychosis. I mean, it's not an exaggeration. It was 300 years of psychosis. That pretty much gripped the European mind. And it did get spilled over to the other side of the Atlantic. The Salem witch-hunting trials in Massachusetts, very famous in my homeland. Report an error in the passage at 2:29 Highlight the passage at 2:29

2:55 But throughout Europe, it was not just Great Britain, it was throughout Europe. And it was a type of psychosis. And I'm not enough of a historian to know all of the factors that gave rise to it. Because Europeans, going back to the earliest times, the Greeks, the Jews and so forth, everybody, Jews being part of the Mediterranean bases. Report an error in the passage at 2:55 Highlight the passage at 2:55

3:13 They'd all believed in spirits. I mean, all of them. The Jews and the Greeks and the Romans and the Germans and the Brits and everybody. There was nobody who didn't believe in them. And pretty much, if you went to North America, South America, Australia and all of Asia, everybody believed in spirits. And often a wide variety, not just spirits, but a wide variety of very specific ones. Report an error in the passage at 3:13 Highlight the passage at 3:13

3:35 And so that was a belief, and it was co-existent with the Christian tradition, because after all, Jesus spoke of spirits and expelling demons. I think it was a woman who was possessed by demons, and he expelled all the demons into a herd of pigs. Remember the story? And those pigs then all went crazy and jumped up over a cliff or something. But he took all their spirits and put them into pigs, which was good for her, but not so great for the pigs, I think. Report an error in the passage at 3:35 Highlight the passage at 3:35

4:00 But there it is, and it's not even questioned. It wasn't like, wow, Jesus discovered spirits. And demon, demonic possession, but it was kind of like, yeah, of course, but it's cool that he was able to expel them or exorcise them. And of course that's still very much part of the Roman Catholic Church, but there was a very dark era in the midst of many people still believing in spirits throughout the world, almost everybody does, except for people very committed to scientific materialism. Report an error in the passage at 4:00 Highlight the passage at 4:00

4:26 But just to linger here just a minute, I think it's historically significant that we're driving ourselves crazy for about 300 years. And killed at least tens of thousands, but it could have been hundreds of thousands, mostly women. And mostly women who didn't have a man to own or protect or guard her. Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:48 And so if you have a woman whose husband has died or she didn't get married or what have you, and either of two things, either she shows some healing abilities, like knowing herbs and so forth, let alone some psychic ability. Report an error in the passage at 4:48 Highlight the passage at 4:48

5:01 For healing, you know. Borg, if she showed any type of exceptional intuition, so, sorry, you would be gravely suspect and you would be put to trial and by and large you'd be killed because it was almost certain you're either a saint, and that's a small percentage, small likelihood, or you're possessed by demons, diabolically possessed. Report an error in the passage at 5:01 Highlight the passage at 5:01

5:29 Which means the best thing for you, the best service we can provide for you is to kill you. And that went on for 300 years. And they killed many, many women. And so any woman that had some natural intuition or healing ability and so forth, she would be living in fear of her life. And of course there were political issues, just I don't want to linger here a lot, but barbers. Barbers were the closest thing that many people had too. Report an error in the passage at 5:29 Highlight the passage at 5:29

5:57 um, two-fifth-two. To medicine. And they were kind of like a guild, cutting the hair, but also doing surgery and so forth. And so they didn't want the competition. They didn't want the competition, so that was a bit lean. So it's interesting, but I'm not going to linger that too much, but it was freaking people out, our Western Eurocentric civilization, for a long time. Report an error in the passage at 5:57 Highlight the passage at 5:57

6:20 And then you get into the 17th century, and you have the rise of modern science come up. And they're looking at the objective, the physical quantifiable, and it's clean, it's neat. And you start finding rules that, you know, balls falling down accelerate. And you start finding mathematical rules. Now it really came to a beautiful kind of flowering in Newton. It was finding these three laws that cover all of the mechanical activity or movements within the universe. Report an error in the passage at 6:20 Highlight the passage at 6:20

6:46 We find later, you know, not, how do you say, not within relativity or quantum mechanics. But suddenly it made the whole world sensible, rational, predictable. But then what do you do? Because these are all devout Christians. What do you do with the ghosts? Because the ghosts are not physical, therefore they don't follow physical laws. And so what do you do with the ghosts? Because they were freaking everybody out. Report an error in the passage at 6:46 Highlight the passage at 6:46

7:12 Diabolical possession and this and that. And Newton came along with a solution. He said, all these spirits we've all been believing in, they're nothing more than impulses in your own psyche. They're actually nothing more than impulses in your own mind, but they're not out there. It was a sanitization of the physical world. There's another word for it right now. Report an error in the passage at 7:12 Highlight the passage at 7:12

7:33 I can't remember right now. But it was basically housecleaning and sweeping up all the spirits out of the surrounding environment, the hills, the waters, the forests, and so forth and so on, that could be inhabiting all kinds of things, which pretty much all of humanity believed. And Newton took a great big straw. Report an error in the passage at 7:33 Highlight the passage at 7:33

7:50 Sucked them up and then blew them back into the human mind. And said it's clean out there. And of course this was during the rise of the Protestant Reformation when they said your mind, your soul is a den of iniquity. It's evil anyway. So now he just kind of populated it with a lot of evil neighbors. But he cleaned up the external world and then leave the internal world, you know, a can of worms. Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

8:12 But it made everything out there neat. And then with the real rise of modern science, by the time you get to 1750 or so. Then that whole craze had gone. Because for educated, rational people who are kind of in tune with modern science, there's nothing to worry out there. The bubonic plague is not because of demons or God punishing people. Oh, it's because of... Report an error in the passage at 8:12 Highlight the passage at 8:12

8:34 Rats and fleas. And this, that was thought, no, that's epilepsy, that's not diabolical. No, that's something. And they would find then scientific explanations that were physical. And it was a huge relief also for mental problems, insanity and so forth. Various types of insanity, schizophrenia. Very frequently it would be called, you know, you're possessed by the devil. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

8:54 And they'd find, well, no, it's a psychological disorder. So it was, I think, a tremendous relief. For a lot of Western society, when they didn't have to be afraid of ghosts anymore. Because they're all put inside. And out there, okay, well then we can walk. And then if a woman shows intuitive abilities, whatever, well, okay, she's intuitive. No need to kill her. And so that's our legacy. And to my mind, the rise of modern science has a lot to do with reacting against and protecting Europe from this possession, this kind of fixation on, this paranoia about spirits, ghosts. Report an error in the passage at 8:54 Highlight the passage at 8:54

9:31 These kind of things. So this is an upside. It's really wonderful that we're not condemning people and burning them at the stake and all of that. And the downside is that, well, number one, Freud got into this centuries later and he started looking at the subconscious and then he finds all the impulses, what Newton called spirits. Report an error in the passage at 9:31 Highlight the passage at 9:31

9:52 He said, yeah, these are subconscious impulse. But the downside is that Then the mind was ignored. The mind was not a topic of scientific research for 300 years. Because that's where they put all the garbage. Number one, if you're a Protestant, your mind is a den of iniquity. It's where the devil resides. Idle hands make for the devil's play. You know that one? So I don't think a really hardcore Protestant would think very much about just sitting doing nothing. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:21 Because that's when the devil comes into play. And they would not look inside. I visited, my great aunt was a real sweetheart and a real hardcore fundamentalist evangelical Christian. And when I was a Buddhist monk, she pleaded with me to go to a Christian center. And I loved her, so I went. And I walked around in my robes. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:44 And I saw a sign on the door saying, beware of yoga. I mean, I'm not joking. There was a sign on the, beware of yoga, it may lead to meditation. Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

10:55 Not a joke. Meditation with those non-Christians do. And we good Christians, we are hard-working, God-fearing, and we have faith and we know our salvation is a free, undeserved gift. Now let's get on with our lives. And so there was a major drift there. So we have a lot of upside of this. It's a really good thing. Report an error in the passage at 10:55 Highlight the passage at 10:55

11:15 And the downside was that the scientific community ignored the mind for 300 years because it was a spooky place to go. It could be evil. And when they finally got around to it, about 135 years ago, they didn't know what on earth to do with it. And nowadays, when we've gone to the 20th, 21st century, introspection is still banned. Report an error in the passage at 11:15 Highlight the passage at 11:15

11:39 Not from clinical psychology, not from psychoanalysis, but from mainstream cognitive psychology, academic psychology. Introspection is banned. Report an error in the passage at 11:39 Highlight the passage at 11:39

11:49 You do not go there. You will study behavior, you'll study brain, and you'll provide interviews. You'll conduct interviews, but you'll not practice introspection. So one friend of mine who's the chair of a psychology department at a major university in the United States and is a Zen practitioner, he tried to introduce introspection to psychology undergraduates to teach them how to observe their own minds. Report an error in the passage at 11:49 Highlight the passage at 11:49

12:12 He wanted to introduce that, and the faculty shut him down and said, no, we don't do that kind of thing. So I think this is still a legacy. It's a legacy of we don't want to deal with anything that's non-physical, and we don't want to deal with spirits, and if that includes the human spirit, well, we'll have to ignore that also. Report an error in the passage at 12:12 Highlight the passage at 12:12

12:28 So it's been shelved, and so when we come to spirits, I don't want to spend a lot of time here, but it is intriguing that when it comes to spirits, generally the scientific community, especially the cognitive sciences, which are struggling to be, that psychology has been struggling ever since its inception, To be accepted as a science and not simply within the humanities. They want to be on the rigorous side and not the soft side. And so it's a struggle for them, so it makes them more and more physicalist. Report an error in the passage at 12:28 Highlight the passage at 12:28

12:58 So more and more psychology departments are inserted into neuroscience departments to show that they're real. They're really scientific because they deal with evidence-based and evidence is always physical. And so the scientific community will generally say that spirits... Don't exist because they can't be measured. They can't be measured. And even if they were there, they couldn't possibly act upon anybody. Report an error in the passage at 12:58 Highlight the passage at 12:58

13:24 They couldn't possess anybody. They couldn't do anything. Because the world is physical and they're not physical. And the non-physical can't have any influence on the physical. It's the ghost in the machine. How could a ghost tweak a machine? Gears grinding and so forth. How would the spirit even touch it? It would float through it perhaps. Report an error in the passage at 13:24 Highlight the passage at 13:24

13:42 But it couldn't touch it. It couldn't mess with it. And so therefore, number one, spirits don't exist because they can't be measured. Number two, if they do exist, they can't do anything. So why don't we just ignore them entirely? And that's what's happened. And why don't we ridicule anybody who believes in them as being non-scientific and superstitious? That's a relief to many people. Report an error in the passage at 13:42 Highlight the passage at 13:42

14:03 It makes the world simpler. But then when it comes to our own spirit, our own awareness, our minds, thoughts, emotions, they too can't be physically detected any more than ghosts. They cannot be. They are not physically. They are not measured scientifically. You can't detect them at all. Any of your subjective mental states. They can't be measured. Report an error in the passage at 14:03 Highlight the passage at 14:03

14:24 So there are hardcore materialists that say they don't exist. They don't exist. Introspection doesn't exist. That's what mainstream philosophers say, quite a number of them, like John Searle. Some say that subjective experience doesn't exist. The mind doesn't exist. One, at least, says consciousness doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 14:24 Highlight the passage at 14:24

14:44 so ... They're just following, they're basically being consistent. And then others say, well of course it does exist, the mind does exist, your emotions and so forth, but they have no causal efficacy because they're not physical. So therefore they're just emergent properties of what's really going on, and that's your brain, so therefore the mind is what the brain does. The brain is physical, and the mind, subjective experience, is fluff. Report an error in the passage at 14:44 Highlight the passage at 14:44

15:07 It's epiphenomenal fluff, and it doesn't really do anything at all. So people who advocate this... Very, very adamantly say that free will doesn't exist. In fact, you're not making any decisions at all, because that which is doing things is the brain, and the brain is a very complex array of electrochemical events taking place within the brain, following the laws of physics and chemistry. Report an error in the passage at 15:07 Highlight the passage at 15:07

15:32 And therefore, you're not really making any choices at all, because the brain's doing everything. This is a mainstream view. Mainstream view is not universal, but it's very mainstream. And so if you're not making any decisions, of course, you're not making any choices, not only do you not have free will, you actually don't have any will at all because the brain is a machine and it's doing everything, then it immediately follows, although they feel uncomfortable about this, that if you're not making any choices, not making any decisions, the brain is doing everything, then you, as an individual, are not responsible for anything because you're not doing it, which means there is no such thing as moral responsibility. Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

16:14 And look in the media, just the popular media. It's the same here in Australia as everywhere else. Commonly, almost universally now. The brain is doing this, the brain is doing this. The brain figures out that. The brain does this. The brain remembers that. The brain decides this. They have simply replaced you with your brain without any evidence to that effect at all. Report an error in the passage at 16:14 Highlight the passage at 16:14

16:35 They've simply made a decision. And the media has picked up on this like puppies lapping up milk. Without any type of critical evaluation of whether that happens to be true or not. And it's just a way of talking. And I think it's basically still rooted in this kind of quasi-medieval hysteria of freaking out about spirits. Report an error in the passage at 16:35 Highlight the passage at 16:35

16:56 And so here it is in Tibet. Of course there was basically no one who didn't believe in spirits. So I'm not going to linger there much more, but it is interesting. And we say, well, okay, but if... Report an error in the passage at 16:56 Highlight the passage at 16:56

17:13 There are many open-minded people. If spirits exist, who sees them? I mean, clearly there is such a thing as superstition. People believe in things that have no existence at all. So why don't we simply regard it as superstition? Just stuff that primitive, uncultured, unscientific people believe in. Who's ever seen them? Report an error in the passage at 17:13 Highlight the passage at 17:13

17:34 And the fact that they can't be scientifically measured should come as no surprise because our thoughts, images, emotions, they can't be scientifically measured either. But you have to be a real wild dogmatist to deny their existence. And some do, but most sensible people don't, of course. And most sensible people don't deny the perfectly obvious fact that our thoughts, our emotions, our attitudes and so forth influence behavior. Report an error in the passage at 17:34 Highlight the passage at 17:34

17:59 And the most incontrovertible aspect of this that I've seen, for which there is no explanation whatsoever within a materialistic context, is what is called by the misnomer the placebo effect. And there's hardly a scientist that doubts that they exist, because there's some overwhelming evidence that the placebo effect is real. But the fact that they call it a placebo effect is very telling, because the one thing a placebo effect is not is an effect of a placebo. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:28 Because if it were, it wouldn't be a placebo, right? And so the fact that they attribute the efficacy to something that has no efficacy shows they are bending over backwards to avoid the possibility that something is non-physical like faith and trust and anticipation and desire and hope and confidence, which all factor into the placebo effect and which are the actual causal agents. Report an error in the passage at 18:28 Highlight the passage at 18:28

18:52 They don't want to acknowledge that because they're not physically measurable, they're not physical and so forth. Ignore that which is the actual causal agent that brings about the placebo effect and then blame it on an innocent bystander, which is the sugar tablet. And I've read articles that boggle my mind. Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:13 I read an article in the New York Times talking about the placebo effect, defining the placebo effect as something exactly that. You know, it's just something that the placebo has no efficacy at all. And then in the same paragraph saying the enormous power of the placebo. You can find that. Look for power of the placebo. Google it. I challenge you. Power of the placebo. And you'll find more than one article. And what they're talking about is the power of salt tablets and sugar tablets. Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

19:40 But it doesn't even have to be a physical substance. Just being in the presence of somebody you regard as an authority, like a medical doctor, a prestigious medical doctor from a major university hospital, wearing the white cloak and saying, M.D. And the doctor says, I'm sure you'll be well within a week or so. Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

19:59 Just follow my advice. And then lo and behold, you do. It doesn't have to be physical. It could be a mantra. It could be anything. But it needs to trigger that anticipation, that hope, that confidence, that belief, that trust. And then lo and behold, that can bring about remarkable changes in the body that are physically measurable. Report an error in the passage at 19:59 Highlight the passage at 19:59

20:24 And there are thousands and thousands of cases of this. And the pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to avoid it. Because they can't sell it. And so one friend of mine who is head of R &D, research and development, in a major pharmaceutical firm in the United States, he told me, Alan, about 50 % of the benefit you get from pharmaceutical drugs across the board, of all kinds, roughly, statistically, 50 % of the benefit people get is from the placebo effect. Report an error in the passage at 20:24 Highlight the passage at 20:24

20:55 And so my immediate conclusion is that they should, you know, slash the prices by 50%. Report an error in the passage at 20:55 Highlight the passage at 20:55

21:02 That's reasonable, isn't it? You're doing half the work, they're doing half the work, so let's divvy up the profits half and half. Strangely enough, they're not doing that. And so, the placebo effect, it is the most flagrant example of something that's completely immaterial. I mean, faith, trust, belief, expectation, there's just no way to measure that physically. They have no physical attributes whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 21:02 Highlight the passage at 21:02

21:28 And that is what actually is guiding. Triggering the placebo effect. And I have written to, when I was writing the book, Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic, when I wrote that book, I did some correspondence with two of the world experts in placebo effect, and neither of them had any explanation whatsoever for how it works. Report an error in the passage at 21:28 Highlight the passage at 21:28

21:48 And I proposed a theory, which I won't go to right now, and I proposed this to one of the two, and he said, oh, that's an interesting theory. And I said, well, what's your theory? And he said, I've stopped asking the question. Because he didn't feel, I mean, I think he felt profoundly uncomfortable of stepping outside the materialistic paradigm. Report an error in the passage at 21:48 Highlight the passage at 21:48

22:11 If there is no explanation within the materialistic paradigm, so you have a couple of choices. You can either step outside the materialistic paradigm and come up with a new theory or way of explaining it, or stop asking the question altogether and remain comfy but stupid within the materialistic paradigm. Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:28 And he chose the latter, which most people do. So, spirits. You don't have to believe in spirits to have a spiritual practice. But, oh, I was asking, does anybody actually see them? Sure. Yeah, there are. I know people who have seen spirits. Different variety. There's a lot of variety. In the Tibetan Buddhism, they have as many different types of spirits as, oh, elementary particle physicists have elementary particles. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

22:54 But only they can see them. Only they can see the positron and the neutrino and the boson and so forth. We lay people, we can't see them. We just believe. Because they have extrasensory perception to see these. And I say it seriously. They do have extrasensory perception to see the telltale signs, to be able to observe, measure and understand elementary particles. Report an error in the passage at 22:54 Highlight the passage at 22:54

23:18 And I do believe in elementary particles. And I know I don't see them. But I know they have ways of measuring them. And making them intelligible and working with them and so forth and creating quartz crystal watches, which I like. And that's all based on elementary particle physics, quantum mechanics. Report an error in the passage at 23:18 Highlight the passage at 23:18

23:33 So I believe in it, but I can't see them. I don't know many people who can. And in the Buddhist tradition, frankly, it's exactly the same. Most people don't see ghosts or spirits. But if you're a highly accomplished yogi, then you broaden the bandwidth. Just like, as a strong analogy, our human visual perception is bracketed from the red to the violet, right? And then you have infrared we don't see, ultraviolet, gamma and so forth, don't see. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

23:59 It's outside our spectrum. But within this we see well, with normal sight, but still there's all these other frequencies you don't see. They can be scientifically measured, but you can't see. Well, that's for a visual. How about for mental? We've been looking in this sixth domain of experience, right? And we have the bandwidth. Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:16 A phenomena, appearances, images and so forth that we can see with just normal, untrained mental perception. But if you go very deeply into meditation, and the key above all is Samādhi, developing Samādhi, and breaking out of the confines of this narrow bandwidth of mental perception that is specifically human, drop the bottom out of that, slip into or at least approach the substrate consciousness, and you increase your bandwidth. Report an error in the passage at 24:16 Highlight the passage at 24:16

24:43 And then you start mentally seeing. Things that other people don't see. And if they don't see them, then they'll think you're stupid or delusion or a witch or a crazy New Ager. But that's exactly what a number of psychologists said about lucid dreaming until relatively recently, about 30 years ago. Mainstream cognitive psychologists, academic psychologists said lucid dreaming never happens. Report an error in the passage at 24:43 Highlight the passage at 24:43

25:09 They just denied it flat out. Most of the people in the field denied it. And they denied it on logical grounds. And that is, you can't be asleep and awake at the same time, stupid. And of course, they haven't had them. Report an error in the passage at 25:09 Highlight the passage at 25:09

25:24 And they've got logic, so they haven't had them. And they're a psychologist, so if I as a psychologist haven't had them, then lay people, lay people, they shouldn't have them. If they do, they're delusional. Because I'm a psychologist, after all, and I've not had them. Therefore, nobody has them. And this is why nobody has them, because you can't be awake and asleep at the same time. Stupid. And that was the end of the conversation, until they had physical evidence that was produced by Stephen LaBerge. Report an error in the passage at 25:24 Highlight the passage at 25:24

25:52 And now every self-respecting psychologist says, yes, lucid dreams occur, and they're irrelevant. It's a whole documentary on sleeping and dreaming. A whole documentary. And they didn't even mention it. They didn't even mention lucid dreaming. They just talked about sleep disorders, apnea and this and this and this and never even mentioned that, oh, you can be lucid in a dream and you can be lucid in dreamless sleep and this is how you can do it and these are the benefits and this might be useful for understanding the mind. Report an error in the passage at 25:52 Highlight the passage at 25:52

26:24 It did not come up. It wasn't even mentioned in the whole documentary. So they're still afraid of ghosts. They're still afraid of ghosts, I think. So there's deep kind of existential, maybe there's a group memory. That we used to believe in ghosts and it was awful because we killed off our women folk. Bad idea. So in this non-paranoid culture of Tibet, they had their problems to be sure, but they weren't just spooked by ghosts in general, but rather wanted to have an amicable, benevolent relationship with them. Report an error in the passage at 26:24 Highlight the passage at 26:24

26:57 And you find this in many countries nowadays. Go to Thailand. I've lived there for two years. And virtually every house, especially out in the countryside, you'll see the... The Deva house, and you see the local spirit house. The Deva is higher, and that's for those loftier beings. Not Buddha. These are not Buddha shrines, but they're kind of for the local neighborhood. Report an error in the passage at 26:57 Highlight the passage at 26:57

27:16 And the higher ones, and then you put offerings there to the ones up above. And then you have all those spirits that are just populating your neighborhood. And you have a spirit house, and you're making offerings there regularly. And then you have your Buddhist practice, which is quite separate. But these are intelligent, many of them very educated people. Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:34 And for them, spirits are as well as anything else. So it's an interesting area. There's obviously no obligation to believe in them. But if one doesn't believe in them, it would be interesting to know why. So there's spirits. And so this is one thing, make offerings to spirits. Tibetans do it regularly, and many other cultures do as well. And it's just an act of friendship. When this $100 million center of Tanya Puta, where I taught for two years, before this was created, I was there when it was just dirt. Report an error in the passage at 27:34 Highlight the passage at 27:34

28:04 And then Klaus Hebben built this whole marvelous center with a sports facility school and then the mine center that I'm still nominally the chairman of. But before they built it, they called in one of the top shamans from the country and he checked out the scene and told them which kind of spirits they want to be very friendly with and then they made offerings. Report an error in the passage at 28:04 Highlight the passage at 28:04

28:24 He did a whole shamanic ritual, not a Buddhist ritual, shamanic religion to make peace with all the local inhabitants who were already there. And then they put up a big shrine that, you know, we come in peace, we come in peace. We just want to have sports and have children and have people meditate. Tourists come in and enjoy a spa. Report an error in the passage at 28:24 Highlight the passage at 28:24

28:43 And that was normal. That was normal. If you want to have a good thriving business in Thailand, be nice to the spirits. So that's spirits. And then making offerings to Dharma protectors. This is another interesting one. But Dharma protectors, again, widely, universally believed. This was in India, and within the Buddhist tradition alone, within India, everywhere believed, Tibet everywhere believed. There's been one issue, and I'll not go into any detail, but there's been some controversy about a particular entity that was regarded by some as a Dharma protector. Report an error in the passage at 28:43 Highlight the passage at 28:43

29:15 It created a lot of sectarian strife and dissent and so forth, quite very problematic. And so his only Dalai Lama has come back and said, well, you know, why don't we just step back from this a little bit, and if you're a Buddhist... If you really like to look for a Dharma protector, why not just look at Buddha Shakyamuni? Who has more power to protect you than the Buddha himself? And why don't we cut out this sectarian business and just be Buddhist? Report an error in the passage at 29:15 Highlight the passage at 29:15

29:38 So that's very helpful. But I'll tell you one story that I just found very interesting myself pertaining to Dharma protectors. When Padmasambhava, this is the prelude of the story, when Padmasambhava came in, there were, by all accounts of Tibetan accounts, there were many entities there, spirits, with a lot of power, Who are creating a lot of problems for this initial entry of Buddhadharma into Tibet. A lot of resistance. It was turf. And they didn't want this kind of foreign tradition coming in because they were kind of in charge. Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

30:07 It was turf. So apparently they were making a lot of mischief, a lot of destruction, kind of warding on me, a lot of problems for these early Buddhists. And the Shantarakshita was a great abbot, great bodhisattva, great scholar. He started the first monastery in Tibet, Samye, Samye Ling. But they were just having enormous problems. And his scholarship, his wisdom, his compassion wasn't up to the task because they kept on just being really assaulted. Report an error in the passage at 30:07 Highlight the passage at 30:07

30:31 Lots and lots of problems. And it wasn't just people. They all believed it was these local entities that were creating a lot of mischiefs. And so they called in Padmasambhava, who was also very wise and compassionate, but he also had a lot of power. And the short story is Padmasambhava came in and he did not kill these entities, but he subdued them. Report an error in the passage at 30:31 Highlight the passage at 30:31

30:51 Subdued them and then turned them from malevolent entities that were anti-Dharma to actually supporting the Dharma. So became Dharma protectors. And so in the course of time in Tibet, it was very common for not only whole regions, but individual monasteries to have a particular Dharma protector. Report an error in the passage at 30:51 Highlight the passage at 30:51

31:12 And they would make offerings and so forth that they would have protection from this local entity or being. And there was one great... What was his name? I'll get his name later. He was one of the great Indian Mahasiddhas. I'll get his name later. But he came up from, he was invited from India to Tibet. Report an error in the passage at 31:12 Highlight the passage at 31:12

31:30 And he was profound, he had tremendous powers, wisdom, a great Vajrayana master. I'll get his name later. And he came up there, he was invited up there to share the Dharma, to teach the Dharma. And before he went, his teacher told him he should go, as I recall. And his teacher gave him a number of Dharma protectors. Report an error in the passage at 31:30 Highlight the passage at 31:30

31:52 Kind of like in his employee, he gave him and said, okay, here's some Dharma protection you can carry with you, take with you. And when you get to Dharma and you create a monastery, what have you, then you can appoint them. Okay, you protect this monastery, create another one, you. And so he would basically being, you know, like local policemen, he was appointing each of these Dharma, and they were bound to him, they were oath-bound to follow his instructions. Report an error in the passage at 31:52 Highlight the passage at 31:52

32:18 And so he was... He created one center after another. But then he saw he was about to die. And he had some leftover Dharma protectors. He wasn't able to establish as many monasteries as he was anticipating. And if he died, then their oath bound would dissolve away and they would be free agents and they could get into some mischief. And so he didn't want them just floating around looking for juveniles getting into problems. Report an error in the passage at 32:18 Highlight the passage at 32:18

32:46 So just before he died, he called them in. He said, now you have to go, I want you to go back to India, back to my master and he'll tell you what to do next. But you can't hang out here. And so this is something I translated about 30 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 32:46 Highlight the passage at 32:46

33:04 The history of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism, this is one of the great Mahasiddhis that helped to establish that particular lineage. And so all these Dharma protectors, they had to head south, he told them to, back to his teacher who had given them to him in the first place. And so when they were going south, Back down to India. Then it was said in this ancient document that I translated that village folk along the pathway, they couldn't see these entities because you'd have to be highly realized to see them, but along the pathway they would hear a sound and in Tibetan it was urda, urda. Report an error in the passage at 33:04 Highlight the passage at 33:04

33:37 It's an onomatopoeic sound. The sound of ur, like that. Urda means sound. And they just, it was tracking down, they'd hear this kind of roar going, South. They look out and they couldn't see anything. And so I just thought that was all very curious, very interesting. And then, not too long after that, I read Carlos Castaneda book, in which he's talking about allies. Report an error in the passage at 33:37 Highlight the passage at 33:37

34:05 Allies, this is now in shamanic Mexico. And when the ally would come, oh, I asked my teacher, who was helping me do this translation, I said, what is this urda, what does it sound like? He said, oh, it kind of sounds like a jet engine, like a jet going by. That's what it was. That's very interesting. And then I was reading Carlos Castaneda, and he was talking about these allies, and he might recall, if you've read Jurnitya Islam and books like that, that when an ally would show up, he would always hear a sound first, and it was a sound of like a jet. Report an error in the passage at 34:05 Highlight the passage at 34:05

34:37 So I think we're just kind of in old lore here, of shamanic lore, that I do not shrug off and say, well, isn't it silly how superstitious they were? Because it looks like it goes across cultures. And so Dharma protectors can really help you. And His Holiness Dalai Lama takes him very seriously. He has his Dharma protector, Shri Devi or Bandai Lama. And by and large they all do, all the great Lamas. Report an error in the passage at 34:37 Highlight the passage at 34:37

35:00 They have a Dharma protector, there'll be offerings and so forth. And so it's interesting. We don't have to believe in any of this. No obligation, no, you know, you still practice Dharma fully. But it's an interesting part of the whole culture. And having lived in that culture for years, I take it quite seriously. Report an error in the passage at 35:00 Highlight the passage at 35:00

35:20 And so that's the fourth one. Make offerings of Dharma protectors. Won't hurt. Could help. So that's for the meditative practice. We have those four practices. And then we have the post-meditative yoga. So again, within this context, and that is, all context is indeed, isn't it? Yep. Transforming adversity in the spiritual path. We're still in the third of the four. Then we have the meditations. We've covered those. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

35:49 And then you get off your question, you're engaging with the world, the very active world around you. And then his pith instruction here, the aphorism, is whatever you encounter, immediately apply it to meditation. Report an error in the passage at 35:49 Highlight the passage at 35:49

36:01 And so, you can see I have a lot of notes here, you can read at your leisure. But the point is, whenever any kind of adversity comes, whether it's coming from outside, cases here of illness, robbed, misfortune, disappointments and so forth, that as... Adversity arises to you. Something unpleasant, something you find unpleasant arises, which then you identify as adversity coming to you. Report an error in the passage at 36:01 Highlight the passage at 36:01

36:25 But of course it becomes adversity by you identifying it as adversity, which there is some wiggle room there. But also when mental afflictions arise from your own side, so not coming from outside but from within, as mental afflictions arise. So internal adversity and that which we see as appearing as external adversity. Then the point is... Report an error in the passage at 36:25 Highlight the passage at 36:25

36:46 Apply that to meditation. And that is, quintessentially, apply this to Donglen. And that is, as you experience misfortune, rather than your mind collapsing down into poor me, into the self-centeredness and the self-grasping, which is very, very easy to do, the natural thing to do, where we just become completely preoccupied with the misfortune in our life, and it becomes a very big deal, and we're not attending to. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

37:11 What's going on in the surrounding world? So the misfortune of our life seems gargantuan because it fills this little tiny cup of our own minds. And it's a great big splash in that mind. One relative, one this, one that. And it's very, very upsetting. And this whole practice is to have a mind that grows from the size of a cup to a swimming pool, to a pond, to an ocean. Report an error in the passage at 37:11 Highlight the passage at 37:11

37:36 And the water in the cup is still the water in the cup. It's still as important as it ever was. But we're seeing it from this much broader perspective. So in terms of emotional balance, emotional equilibrium, maintaining overall mental balance, the larger the sphere of the mind, the space of the mind, the larger the space of sentient beings that we're attending to and making real by attending to them, then we see it in context. Report an error in the passage at 37:36 Highlight the passage at 37:36

38:00 That's the thing. We see it in context. And so loved ones die. They do that sooner or later, loved ones die. And when it happens, we all know what it feels like. But it's very easy to then focus on that like this at the end of the world, and then just completely ignore the fact that loved ones are dying by the millions all over the planet. Report an error in the passage at 38:00 Highlight the passage at 38:00

38:20 And each one is as important as everyone else. So on one occasion, a woman who lost her baby, very tragic case, she lost her baby. And she was, as you can imagine, absolutely grief-stricken. It was like the end of the world. And she's carrying her dead baby around. You know, just the attachment was intense and so grief-stricken. And she came to the Buddha. And so, Shuki and I, if I get anything wrong, please do correct me, okay? Report an error in the passage at 38:20 Highlight the passage at 38:20

38:46 Because I'll give my best shot, but I may make a mistake. But so far, so good, yeah? Yeah. So she's carrying this dead baby around and she comes to the Buddha. And, you know, he seems to be a miracle worker and so forth. Can you bring my baby? Can you help? My baby is dead. My baby is dead. And he said, well, go off around the village. Report an error in the passage at 38:46 Highlight the passage at 38:46

39:08 And speak with people and find households in which no one has died. No mothers died, no babies died, no brothers died. And for every household that has no death, collect a mustard seed, something like that. Collect a mustard seed. And when you have a little cup and it's full of mustard seeds, then come back and we'll talk again. So she went around from house to house to house. Report an error in the passage at 39:08 Highlight the passage at 39:08

39:31 And in every single one. My grandma died just last year. My mother died. My child died, my brother died, my wife died, my husband died. Everywhere. And so she went all the way around. And by the time she'd finished, she was able to set her baby down. And that was the message. The death of her baby was just as important at the end as it was at the beginning. No less important. Report an error in the passage at 39:31 Highlight the passage at 39:31

39:57 It's not that she cared about her baby any less. But her mind now embraced a village rather than there's only one death in the world and this is absolutely disabling for me. So the Buddha did not bring the baby back to life. But he brought her back to life. Report an error in the passage at 39:57 Highlight the passage at 39:57

40:15 So transform everything. So with the Donglen adversity, you experience adversity, and then just broaden your mind up to an ocean and consider how many people are experiencing similar or worse adversity and practice Donglen right there. Imagine taking on their adversity and dissolving it into your heart. Take on your adversity, by the way. Dissolve that into your heart. Mental afflictions come up. They afflict. Report an error in the passage at 40:15 Highlight the passage at 40:15

40:37 They feel awful. They make it at least uneasy. And we don't like them. And we're caught in their grip. And then simply, instead of struggling or judging ourselves or feeling bad about ourselves or being upset or identifying with them, identify the mental afflictions as mental afflictions, as I discussed yesterday afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 40:37 Highlight the passage at 40:37

40:54 And then sing, as I suffer from anger, from greed, from selfish and so forth, so do myriad other sentient beings. If it's right now a little bit of irritation or anger coming up, may the irritation of others all descend upon me. May it all come in. May it all be free of irritation. Anger. And so forth, enmity. And imagine it all coming in and dissolving into your heart. So whatever is coming up, any type of adversity, then transform it in this way. Report an error in the passage at 40:54 Highlight the passage at 40:54

41:23 And Dinko Kenci Rinpoche, I'll end of this note, Dinko Kenci Rinpoche comments here. Eventually, DKR, Dinko Kenci Rinpoche, this great Dzogchen master, he said, eventually by the power of bodhicitta you will be free even from the hope of accomplishing bodhicitta and the fear of not doing so. So it's this moving out of the whole bandwidth, that whole bipolar, Shifting back and forth between hope, fear, hope, fear, hope, fear. If you're wondering about the roots of rumination, the mind just uncontrollably spewing out one thought, image, memory, fantasy after another, you may be able to just trace it right back to this. Report an error in the passage at 41:23 Highlight the passage at 41:23

41:57 This ongoing, just sub-current of hoping and hoping, fearing, hoping, fearing. And by and large, when we just enter into Dharma, most of the great majority of our hopes and fears are going to be hedonic. It's our relationship, our financial situation, our homes, our possessions, our reputation, our success, our future and so forth. It's almost entirely there. Report an error in the passage at 41:57 Highlight the passage at 41:57

42:21 Almost entirely. For many people it just boils down to money. I hope I get more. I hope I don't lose what I have. And then that just immediately because we're in this world of utter uncertainty with so little control. So how can you stop thinking about it? If this is what I invested, if this is what's most important, how can you stop thinking about it? Report an error in the passage at 42:21 Highlight the passage at 42:21

42:40 Because it doesn't let you rest. Because the world is not getting into control. We're not managing even our spouses and so forth and so on. I don't want to. But if we do want to, we still can't. And so it gives rise to this fixation on hedonia with all the hopes and fears pertaining to it. It just gives rise to a chronic sense of restlessness. Because you can never rest. Because everything constantly changes. So you just got a raise. Report an error in the passage at 42:40 Highlight the passage at 42:40

43:06 Good. But now there's this competitor coming over here. And he's saying bad things behind everybody's back. Behind your back about you. And so you got it, but now can you hold on? Or you just got dropped. Can you come up? Your health is good, but I'm having a doctor checkup next week. And it's just always edgy, always uncertain, always... There's no rest there. Report an error in the passage at 43:06 Highlight the passage at 43:06

43:29 There's no ease. And then you shift. I mean, it's not going to be overnight, but you shift from that prioritization on hedonia or eudaimonia. And then, frankly, you know, that evaporates. Can I be ethical today? I'm not quite sure. Maybe I won't be able to. No, that doesn't happen. Be ethical. I mean, it's not dependent on something outside of ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:53 Make the decision. Where decisions can't be made, and there's a whole bunch of things that we can decide. And can you begin to cultivate? You don't have to be anxious as you're cultivating these qualities of the mind. Just be persistent. It'll turn out well over time. But the anxiety goes because you're not trying to control the uncontrollable. Report an error in the passage at 43:53 Highlight the passage at 43:53

44:13 And the uncontrollable is pretty much everything outside your mind. Even great holy beings get sick, die of cancer and so forth. Can't control that. But there's one area where there's a real possibility of control and finding sustainable well-being, sense of ease, of openness, of empathy and so forth, sustainable. Report an error in the passage at 44:13 Highlight the passage at 44:13

44:31 But it's only in one place, and that one place is the source of euromonia. And so we move the locus, the bandwidth of our hopes and fears, more and more out of the bandwidth of hedonia. Report an error in the passage at 44:31 Highlight the passage at 44:31

44:44 And it comes into, may I achieve bodhicitta, may I gain realization, may I achieve shamatha, may I, may I. Aspiration comes up. So at least it's may I in an area that actually come to fruition and moving the engine out of hedonia, which is just basically losing back because you're going to get sick, old and die. Report an error in the passage at 44:44 Highlight the passage at 44:44

45:03 That's how that one turns out. We already know the end. But yudamaniya has no end. It has no end at all. It's enlightenment. And that has no end until all sentient beings are free. And so the locus of hope and fear shifts over from, I want more money, I hope I don't lose what I've got, as a symbol of hedonia, and moves over to, may I swiftly realize bodhicitta, may I achieve irreversible bodhicitta, may I enter the path and never fall off the path by the depth of my bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 45:03 Highlight the passage at 45:03

45:32 That becomes an aspiration, a hope. I hope I can do it before I die. And then he says, if you continue on the path, then you even transcend that hope. And that's what he says right here. That eventually by the power, by the bodhicitta arising, then even the hope and fear about accomplishing or not accomplishing bodhicitta, even that dissipates until you're simply practicing Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 45:32 Highlight the passage at 45:32

45:53 And then there's no hope and fear. Because you're right there in the present moment and there's no hoping about the present because it's right here, so you just do it. So that's what I was taught years ago by one of my meditation teachers, my wonderful teacher in Sri Lanka. He was teaching me Samatha. Report an error in the passage at 45:53 Highlight the passage at 45:53

46:10 And I was asking him, I can't remember what the question was, but making it complicated with my Western mind, about to say brain, with my Western mind. And he just said, this was 1981, getting complicated questions about Shaman. And he just said, just do it. Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:37 And you may or may not believe it, but right when he said that. Some marketing guy from Nike was just passing by. And I think, I think we can use that. I don't think it's true, but it could be true. Because he said it first. So there we are. So overcoming all the hope and fear. This is what he's saying right here. And so that's it. Report an error in the passage at 46:37 Highlight the passage at 46:37

47:01 So now we have three out of four. That was a very central theme of lojong generally. But it has to do with, again, the lojong won't work. It simply won't work. You can try and try and it won't work as long as the priorities are primarily hedonic. It's not like you're a bad person, but if it's primarily hedonic, then you can't transform the world. Report an error in the passage at 47:01 Highlight the passage at 47:01

47:22 It just doesn't follow our orders. And if that's what you're hoping to happen, then I'm going to be fine as soon as this happens out there and that happens and this stops happening. And that's what you're really hoping for. Then the lojong really won't work. But insofar as you're shifting over to the prioritization of eudaimonia over hedonia, which is to say you could be a Christian, you could be a Buddhist. You don't have to be religious. Report an error in the passage at 47:22 Highlight the passage at 47:22

47:47 You don't have to believe in God or spirits or karma. One can be practicing a lot of this without any particular religious beliefs. But this is why I say my religion is eudaimonia. I mean, I'm a Buddhist for sure. But as the Dalai Lama says, my religion is kindness. Well, I bow to that. And I say, well, okay, my religion is eudaimonia. Because then I know I'm following the same religion as my Christian friends, very devout Christian friends, and Hindu, and a number of secular friends who have no religion, but really do value eudaimonia. Report an error in the passage at 47:47 Highlight the passage at 47:47

48:18 It's a unifier. And it doesn't even exclude non-religious people, let alone this religion versus that religion. And so the cultivation of eudaimonia can save us as a civilization. And if we fixate on hedonia, we will destroy ourselves as a civilization. That's why that's my religion, because I don't think that's an exaggeration. And insofar as we prioritize the eudaimonia over our hedonia, that becomes more important than even when something hedonically or kind of mundane arises that we find to be unpleasant. Report an error in the passage at 48:18 Highlight the passage at 48:18

48:49 We say, yes, I would like this to stop, but I would like even more, because I have no control over that. So I'd like it, but I don't know whether it's going to happen or not. So here's something unpleasant has arisen. Sure, I'd like not to be sick or not to have this or not to have that. Sure. But I can't control that. But what I would like more, a higher priority, is that I bring a quality of awareness to this that transforms it into spiritual practice. Report an error in the passage at 48:49 Highlight the passage at 48:49

49:14 And that's more important to me than just simply having a whole bunch of really good days. Like sunshine like this. Every day please now. Sydney, this is good. Keep it up. Because I'm happy when the sun shines. Report an error in the passage at 49:14 Highlight the passage at 49:14

49:26 And then people sometimes behave very nicely towards this. Keep on doing that. We're like one of those people with the sticks and the little bowls. Okay, you're doing fine. Stay. Yep, keep it up. You and weather. And after a while, it gets kind of anxious. Report an error in the passage at 49:26 Highlight the passage at 49:26

49:44 So if your priority is Dharma more than anything else, then all of this is practical. And you really can find a sustainable flow of well-being that is not contingent. just, you know. Report an error in the passage at 49:44 Highlight the passage at 49:44

49:56 Upon the sun shining or becoming overcast, metaphorically speaking. Through aging, sickness and death. And that's Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 49:56 Highlight the passage at 49:56

50:07 So, it's now 10.35. Let's come back at 10.55. Yeah, from 35 to 55. 10.55. Five minutes till the hour. Report an error in the passage at 50:07 Highlight the passage at 50:07