Transform Your Mind & Change Your Life Retreat - 7-Point Mind Training from Atisha (part 51)

0:07 So, let's return to the text. We're now on to the fourth of the seven points of the Simple Mind Train. There's probably a question here, I presume. Looks like it. I do have one request for any written questions, but also this evening when we get to the discussion time, if today, if we can focus on questions that are directly relevant to this teaching here. Report an error in the passage at 0:07 Highlight the passage at 0:07

0:32 There's a lot of material here, and many, many other things are interesting. But we have a very finite time to try to get clarity about these seven points. So if all of your questions could be immediately relevant, it would probably be the best use of that time, which is so finite. So we go to the fourth point now. And as I mentioned before, this seven-point mind training is like a tray in which you can put together and integrate, I think, all of the practices you might learn, at least from Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 0:32 Highlight the passage at 0:32

1:01 Within the Buddhist tradition. And now here he's giving you kind of an overview of how to synthesize and put it into practice. So to synthesize the essence of this practical guidance, apply yourself to the five powers. So practical guidance. So in Buddhism, there's a lot of theory. And there are people who get PhDs in Buddhism, get Geshe degrees or attend monastic colleges in Burma and Thailand and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:29 They can develop a very rich, very textured, multi-layered, theoretical understanding of Buddhism with a whole worldview. And all of that can be very useful. But then sooner or later, you need to synthesize it down to what is called Upadesha. In Sanskrit, pith instructions or practical instructions. So you may hear about our teachings on the five skandhas, the five psychophysical aggregates. Report an error in the passage at 1:29 Highlight the passage at 1:29

1:50 That's interesting. But then how do you apply it? Or one case just from my own practice. It made a big impression on me. When I was in very early years as a monk, I went right into a monastery and had very intense training. And among the topics we learned in that first year was Buddhist psychology. And I thought it was brilliant. I mean, it was very, very compelling, very rational and laid out with a lot of nuance. Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

2:17 The nature of the mind, how it functions, but it was different from psychology. I'm not going to go into simply better or worse because I don't think it's useful, but it was a whole view of the mind looking at 51 different mental factors, seven modes of cognition from delusion to valid perception, going into detailed analysis of mental addictions and wholesome mental states and other states that could be wholesome or unwholesome. Report an error in the passage at 2:17 Highlight the passage at 2:17

2:42 But unlike anything in modern psychology, and I'm not saying better or worse, but it's unlike, is the whole orientation, the root, the motivation for this whole presentation that we studied, well, we studied it a lot, is all about how do you heal the mind, how do you achieve enlightenment? And what do you need to know about the mind so that you can recognize and attenuate? Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:04 Afflictive tendencies and recognize and cultivate the wholesome ones and overall just understand how your mind works. And so I was introduced to this when I was 23, I guess, 23. And it just struck me as this is really smart. And we're drawing on material that's like a thousand years old. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:27 But we finished studying that. We studied intensively for maybe three months. We memorized the textbook verbatim. We debated on it five hours a day. And so it was a very full, very demanding curriculum. And then we finished that. And then we went on to Buddhist logic and debate and so forth. We moved on to another topic. And what there wasn't, to my dismay, was having this beautiful theory, so detailed, specific, helpful, practical, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 3:27 Highlight the passage at 3:27

3:57 There wasn't, and I'm not blaming anybody, but it was true, there was... There was no guidance on, okay, now you've really memorized the textbook and you've analyzed it, you understand all of it, because you just analyze every single point so everything's clear. There was no point at which you say, okay, you got the theory, okay, now we're going to spend a month and just put this into practice and here's how you do it. That wasn't there. That wasn't there. Report an error in the passage at 3:57 Highlight the passage at 3:57

4:21 And in the whole Geshe training, it's not there. It's like 20 years of training. And I've known many geishis and most of them are really wonderful human beings. Ethical, gentle, wise, articulate and so forth. But that's why I didn't follow that route, even though it's been very, very good for many people. Report an error in the passage at 4:21 Highlight the passage at 4:21

4:38 For myself, when I almost died at the age of 23, I just had a sense, you know, you don't wait. You don't wait for 20 years before you get really serious about meditation. Because there's no guarantee that 20 years will come around. For me, that was blatantly obvious. And so I stayed in that training only for about a year and a half. Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

4:56 And studied psychology and then the logic and the debate and epistemology. And then I bailed out. And I went up the mountains and meditated for a year. Because that was not part of the curriculum, but it had to be part of my curriculum. And so this is what Atisha massively excels at. That he was one of the greatest of the great. Of his time he was renowned, he's still renowned in India, a thousand years later, for his tremendous erudition, as well as his deep bodhicitta, his bodhisattva way of life, his expertise as a scholar and as a siddha. Report an error in the passage at 4:56 Highlight the passage at 4:56

5:26 But he has this vast erudition like many of the other great Mahabandids of India. But like the great ones, he also knew how to take this vast ocean and then synthesize it down and put it into a cup and say, here, drink this. And that's what you do from day to day, from session to session. For him, he has an ocean of knowledge behind it. But if you never get around to synthesizing it down and making it practical as you're meeting this person and meeting this person in this situation and that situation, Then one can wonder what was the point. And so that's what he's getting to right now. For the first three points, you could study that material. Report an error in the passage at 5:26 Highlight the passage at 5:26

6:05 There are so many books now on the view, that is ultimate bodhicitta, on Madhyamaka, perfection of wisdom, teachings on emptiness, teachings on Dzogchen, Mahamudra. You could spend the rest of your life reading these books. There have been so many that have cropped up in the last 40 years in English. That'll keep you busy. And then if you want to read books about the Bodhisattva way of life, Bodhicitta, the life stories, the life stories of great bodhisattvas, great adepts, great mahasiddhas, that'll keep you busy. But it all boils down to, alright, that's all very cool, but now what do you do today, you know, in this moment here, when you're meeting this person and that. Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:40 So this is where Atisha, again, like many of the great ones, he brings this down to utterly practical guidance. That you apply in the course of the life. Day to day, moment to moment, situation to situation, lunch break to lunch break. Getting really practical. So five powers. He's going to synthesize it down here just to five points. So the first of these is the power of resolution. Resolution. This is looking ahead, of course. Report an error in the passage at 6:40 Highlight the passage at 6:40

7:06 New Year's resolutions, that kind of thing. That's the term. Resolution. And it's the resolve, the determination, the commitment, looking ahead. Now that you have been introduced to the two bodhicittas, you've understood them conceptually, hopefully. You have some taste, some idea, some taste, not just an idea, of what is the experience of this ultimate bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 7:06 Highlight the passage at 7:06

7:30 How do you cultivate it? You know the methods, you understand that. And likewise for the relative bodhicitta. And if you've reflected upon these, you've heard about them, you've reflected upon them, you've put them into practice, then you may very well develop some very deep sense of appreciation of the value of these two qualities of mind or modes of insight and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 7:30 Highlight the passage at 7:30

7:50 And insofar as you really appreciate the value, the tremendous significance of these two bodhicittas, then you may have the motivation to resolve, to make the resolution that To never be separated from them. Never from your middle age years to older age years, or you used to live here and now you live there, you used to have this job, that job, this relationship, that relation, this lifetime, next lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

8:18 It's a power of resolution. Just that never, from now until enlightenment, will I be ever separated. It raises an interesting point in terms of karma. There's a term that crops up in Tibetan called le tro. Le is karma. And Thok is something left over, like left over food. And so if we have some ambition, let's say to build a very successful corporation that will be cutting edge and be just raking the money. Report an error in the passage at 8:18 Highlight the passage at 8:18

8:46 So, and I used to live in Silicon Valley at Stanford, that's Silicon Valley, and boom, that's a big topic there in that area, making a lot of money in a very short time, many brilliant minds there. And so many people start, or they're venture capitalists and so forth, and they have this idea. So it may be their idea for their lifetime. They develop some company, and then they pour their heart and soul into it, and then they don't succeed, or they're succeeding, but something cuts it short. Report an error in the passage at 8:46 Highlight the passage at 8:46

9:16 Illness, death, just something that derails it. But that aspiration is still there. The aspiration is still there, right? And then you just get old and you die, but the aspiration was never fulfilled. So it's lingering there. It's still in that mind stream of something was started, there was a great aspiration, and it didn't happen. Report an error in the passage at 9:16 Highlight the passage at 9:16

9:37 And that's what you carry to the next life. And so if you didn't work it out, that aspiration, that goal, may very well carry over to the next life. So if it's mundane, well then it's going to be mundane. But on the upside of this... So the leto is then karmic propensity, karmic leftover. It's swept over from the last life and it's something, some unfinished business. That's a colloquial way of saying it. Report an error in the passage at 9:37 Highlight the passage at 9:37

10:03 Unfinished business. And it could be a wide variety, including hedonic as well as eunomonic. But something is not finished and it's lingering. It's kind of hooked you. Well, in the Theravāda tradition, you want to be as free of hooks altogether. You want to have no hooks. So that when you leave, you leave scot-free with no unfinished business. And that is, you look at your mind stream, it's totally free of all mental affliction. And you're totally free of the roots of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 10:03 Highlight the passage at 10:03

10:29 You sever them. I'm done here. And you're an arhat, and then you just die, and you're finished. Because they have no motivation to come back. They want to achieve nirvāṇa, have an irreversible transition from samsata to nirvāṇa, and you're finished. Basically saying, I'm done. Report an error in the passage at 10:29 Highlight the passage at 10:29

10:48 And there's nothing more to say. Boom! But then we have the Bodhisattva way. And here we're making this resolve. You see this when you take the Bodhisattva preset, the Bodhisattva vow, or he's suggesting it right now. And that is, from now until enlightenment, I vow never to be separated. I resolve never to be separated from relative bodhicitta or ultimate bodhicitta. Well... Report an error in the passage at 10:48 Highlight the passage at 10:48

11:15 If you're not a Buddha and that resolve is very sincere, deeply rooted in your mind stream, then you enter your next lifetime and you'll be wandering around thinking, something missing, something missing. And then you meet a nun or a monk and say, I think you might be able to help me. Something missing. And then they start talking about bodhicitta. That's it. Report an error in the passage at 11:15 Highlight the passage at 11:15

11:37 So for myself, I don't have any clear knowledge of anything I was in the past lifetime. But I picked up that one book on Dzogchen when I was 20, and I knew I didn't understand it. It was just, that's it, that's it. And then I had to wait 20 years to learn out what that is. I learned a lot of Buddha Dharma, but not Dzogchen. But there had to be, I think it's just logic, that it made no sense. I'd read all kinds of Plato and Socrates and lots of Christianity. Report an error in the passage at 11:37 Highlight the passage at 11:37

12:06 My father's a theologian, I had no choice. And so I had been exposed to a lot of wisdom. From basically the Western tradition by the time I was 20. And there's a lot there, of course, a lot. And then I pick up one book on Dzogchen and that's it. I dropped everything. And I started studying, went off to study Tibetan. Because I knew that's the only way I could learn more about this because hardly anybody was bilingual back then. Report an error in the passage at 12:06 Highlight the passage at 12:06

12:28 So it's just one case. But I'm very happy with that le to, that unfinished business, that it hooked me and then I had 20 years to prepare to receive Dzogchen and then receive. Report an error in the passage at 12:28 Highlight the passage at 12:28

12:40 But this is a hook we take on willingly. And that is, I would very much like not to be born in some future life and have a sense, what's up? Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

12:52 What's up? Oh, she's pretty. That's a cool car. That's a very nice yacht. I just have no, like, what's up, dude? I just kind of try to navigate myself from scratch. I want major, major momentum over. And the bodhicitta is the tie that binds. So I just learned in this retreat the actual etymology of religion. And as I mentioned earlier, it's that which binds you. Report an error in the passage at 12:52 Highlight the passage at 12:52

13:19 Well, binding on the one hand, of course, can be bondage. But there are other kinds of binds where you bind yourself to something that you consider to be of tremendous value. You commit yourself to something. So I would say the Dalai Lama is Dharma. It's Buddha Dharma. There's just no question. He's not a Christian Dharma. He's not a Hindu. No, he's following Buddha Dharma. That's his Dharma. But his religion, what he's down to, his religion, kindness. Report an error in the passage at 13:19 Highlight the passage at 13:19

13:52 And so what he's inviting you to do here is let your religion be, or what you're willing to bind yourself to, open-endedly until you're finished, is the two bodhicittas. And that can provide continuity coherence throughout a whole course of a lifetime. You may switch jobs, you may have different relationships, you may move here and there, your physical appearance will change and so forth. But is there any continuity or is your life simply a series of this happened and this happened and then I died? Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

14:23 Sometimes I think that happens. There was no real coherence, nothing that really drew it together, nothing you see really growing. It was just this, this, this and then finished. And the whole point of Dharma is path. That there's some coherence, some direction, some continuity, and in a very meaningful way. And it's so strong that if you're not a Buddha in this lifetime, that binding yourself to the two ultimate bodhicittas, that will be your continuity through the bardo. Report an error in the passage at 14:23 Highlight the passage at 14:23

14:49 And as you're navigating beyond the bardo, and seeing where your impulses are, your desires or aspirations beyond the bardo, because that's a very transient period. That you're having bound yourself to the two bodhicittas is going to be a bind or a bond that carries you through in a really good direction. Report an error in the passage at 14:49 Highlight the passage at 14:49

15:06 It could be a pure land. It could be a very meaningful human rebirth. But this is the commitment. So this is deep religion. Deep religion. And so that's what he says is the first power. Resolve. If you wish. This is entirely voluntary, of course. Nobody's going to do it for you. But that's the first one. It creates a continuity from now until you're perfectly enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 15:06 Highlight the passage at 15:06

15:28 And whether that's one lifetime or a thousand lifetimes, if it's a thousand lifetimes and they're all bound by this deep commitment to the two bodhicittas, then you can have a lot of confidence that every single lifetime will be just a building crescendo of meaning. So then if it's a thousand, let it be a thousand. That's the first one. Power of resolution. The second one is the power of familiarization. Many of you will recall that the Tibetan word that we translate as meditation is gomba. Report an error in the passage at 15:28 Highlight the passage at 15:28

15:56 Which is closely related to the term gomba, which means to familiarize. So often when they gloss, the Tibetans gloss their term gomba, they say, well, meditation, after all, is a mode of familiarization. Familiarizing yourself with sustaining quality of awareness of ease, stillness and clarity. The contrary is a habit. This becomes another habit, but this is much more helpful. Report an error in the passage at 15:56 Highlight the passage at 15:56

16:17 It's a habit to be self-centered. It comes very naturally, but it brings so much wear and tear. And you can reverse that and have a habit of attending more to others, cherishing others more than oneself, and that becomes a habit. We have a habit of reifying everything we touch, the anti-Midas touch that turns everything to lead. Report an error in the passage at 16:17 Highlight the passage at 16:17

16:36 And we have this habit of reifying, of decontextualizing, concretizing, there's the mudrā for it, just everything chunky and concrete and isolated and so forth, and that's a habit. But with wisdom, with insight, we can create another habit of seeing interdependence everywhere we go and events arising, mutual interdependence, with no independent entities anywhere in sight. Report an error in the passage at 16:36 Highlight the passage at 16:36

16:58 And that's a habit. And there are habits that are rooted in reality and habits that are rooted in delusion. And so this is the power of familiarization. And Shantideva, in his sixth chapter, the Patience chapter, He comments, I remember this still in Tibetan, I memorized that a long time ago. With familiarization, there is nothing whatsoever that does not become easier. Report an error in the passage at 16:58 Highlight the passage at 16:58

17:22 And that's probably a very sound generalization. And so, that's the second one. Then the power of positive seeds, they call them white seeds, so I say positive seeds, something constructive, something positive. But these are the seeds, again, if you consider your mind stream throughout the course of this life, the substrate consciousness that carries on from lifetime to lifetime, it is something like a field in which you're sowing seeds of memories, of desires, of aspirations, of negative and positive actions and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 17:22 Highlight the passage at 17:22

17:56 It is definitely a field that we are sowing every minute really or every time that we make a decision or have an intention. And so what kind of seeds are we sowing in this field of our own mind stream? And he's suggesting, well, the power of positive seeds is constant devotion to spiritual practice. And for me, spiritual practice, again, has nothing to do with spirits per se. It has everything to do with the cultivation of eudaimonia. So the word spiritual practice is just one of those floaters. Report an error in the passage at 17:56 Highlight the passage at 17:56

18:27 I mean, people define it in all kinds of ways, right? Christian, Buddhist, secular people, humanists and so forth. Some people say watching a sunset and really enjoying it is a spiritual practice. I'm just not going to debate it. Nobody has a monopoly on what's the right definition. Most people say it has nothing to do with spirits. So this definition that I use is the spiritual practice is practice that is centrally related to or involved in the cultivation of eudaimonia. Report an error in the passage at 18:27 Highlight the passage at 18:27

18:57 And so you can be meditating. You can be meditating and if the motivation, your aspiration, your goal is simply to reduce stress, I think it's very good for you to reduce stress. But I just see no reason at all to call that a spiritual practice. With the same motivation, people might take Valium or jog or listen to pleasant music. Report an error in the passage at 18:57 Highlight the passage at 18:57

19:17 None of those are wrong either. But I just don't think, it's not Dharma and I just don't see any reason to label it. It's my choice. But if a person is doing something as simply Report an error in the passage at 19:17 Highlight the passage at 19:17

19:30 Taking care of one's neighbor's dog while they're on vacation, but doing so with compassion, out of love and kindness for the dog, for the people, wanting to be a good neighbor, sensitive, caring, attentive, helpful when possible, as an expression of ethics, so no violence to the dog or your neighbors, and then benevolence, taking good care of the dog, treating it as if it were your own as long as the owner is gone. Report an error in the passage at 19:30 Highlight the passage at 19:30

19:55 And that's the motivation. That's Dharma. Taking care of a dog is Dharma. I often like to speak of a, I've told the story many times, but not here. When I was a graduate student at Stanford, I went into the bookstore, a great big Stanford bookstore. And it's not just a bookstore, it has many, many, many, it's a really like a supermarket or department store. And of course in a bookstore they saw there was an area for stationery, pencils, pens and that kind of thing. Report an error in the passage at 19:55 Highlight the passage at 19:55

20:21 And so I went there one day just to buy some, I don't know, a pencil, pen or something, something really, really mundane. And I went there and there was a woman, Report an error in the passage at 20:21 Highlight the passage at 20:21

20:32 Who was there behind the tax register, of course. And I was there for this utterly prosaic reason to buy it. But I was so struck by her graciousness, her warmth, her friendliness, her openness, her attentiveness. And I figured out, I think immediately, it was not personal. It wasn't something special about me. This is the way she was. That was kind of clear. Because there was no vibe. I don't always get it right, but it was quite clear. Report an error in the passage at 20:32 Highlight the passage at 20:32

21:01 It's not about me at all. This is just a very loving, open, gracious, attentive, sensitive person who's really doing her best to help me as a sentient being who just came in. And I was very impressed. She didn't do anything special in terms of anything like that. It was just the way she attended, the way she was present. Report an error in the passage at 21:01 Highlight the passage at 21:01

21:21 And so I paid my thing and went out and I thought, wow, that was an exceptional woman. And that was it. It wasn't like I wanted to especially cultivate a relationship. There was nothing really personal from my side either. That I wanted something for her or can we be best friends or anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

21:38 But I was really struck by it. And then about two months later or so, I saw in the daily newspaper for Stanford University, somebody had written an article about her. Report an error in the passage at 21:38 Highlight the passage at 21:38

21:47 Yeah. That I wasn't the only person who noticed. And what they wrote about was exactly what I saw. By the way, folks, there's a lady over there in stationary. And she's very special. I don't know if that ruined her job or whatever. I hope for the best. But I would say for her, and I never learned her name, I don't really care, is she was practicing Dharma as a person who sells pencils, pens and stationery. Report an error in the passage at 21:47 Highlight the passage at 21:47

22:15 And that was her Dharma practice. And she did it so splendidly that it caught my attention and obviously the attention of a lot of other people as well. That's Dharma. But if you're following your breath, or you're resting awareness in its own state, or even conceivably you're practicing Dharma, you're practicing Donglen, for example, is it Dharma or is it not? Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:34 If you're practicing Mettā Bhavana, cultivation of love and kindness, are you doing this really to cultivate love and kindness for the sake of others, or are you doing it because it really feels good? Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

22:44 It can give you hedonia, you know, like just thinking happy thoughts. Thinking, you know, just happy thoughts. Well, that's a stimulus, and you can experience pleasure by thinking happy thoughts. Learn optimism, that whole kind of thing. It's hedonia. So there's no guarantee, I don't think, even if you're practicing Dong Lin or cultivating love and kindness, that that's necessarily Dharma or spiritual practice. Report an error in the passage at 22:44 Highlight the passage at 22:44

23:08 It may very well be. Mindfulness breathing may very well be. Attending to your neighbor's talk may be, but then maybe it's not. Maybe you're doing it out of sheer duty, or because you just feel, you know, it'd be embarrassing not to, or whatever. So everything then hinges on this, Motivation, motivation, motivation, and it's devotion to spiritual practice. And whatever comes up. That is the richness of spiritual practice, not having a reductionist notion, which happens a lot. Report an error in the passage at 23:08 Highlight the passage at 23:08

23:38 That it's not one method. It's not mindfulness meditation. It's not shamatha. It's not TM. It's not any one method. It's an array of practices designed to bring forth yudamonia for yourself and others. So diverse and rich. And so it's devotion to that. It's basically devotion to Dharma. And that's the third one. And the fourth one is the power of revulsion. So we think, oh, that's yucky, we shouldn't have that. But no, we should have that. Report an error in the passage at 23:38 Highlight the passage at 23:38

24:06 Revulsion to your true enemies. So we often, remember the other one, blame everything on one culprit. Well, we tend to blame a lot of people for a lot of things. You know, in America, you know, political parties. And this person and this person here and this business and that person and that neighbor and that person and so forth. Why are you so unhappy? And then we just start pointing the fingers like all directions because of all those people, you know, which means you're completely disempowered because those people are still there and it's not legal to kill them. Report an error in the passage at 24:06 Highlight the passage at 24:06

24:37 And if you do, then you'll just be blaming the guards and so forth and so on. And so when it comes time to blame, if you want to blame something, then blame your own self-centeredness. And your own self-grasping. And here it comes, the power of revulsion. But it's not just some kind of an abstraction. It's revulsion for self-grasping and self-centeredness. Report an error in the passage at 24:37 Highlight the passage at 24:37

24:59 But where this really plays out, that it's practical. And not just something you remember, yeah, that's what it said in the seven-point mind training. And then, yeah, whatever, got it. But rather, in the midst of life, this is a challenge, really is a challenge. But this is where the benefit is. In the midst of life. Report an error in the passage at 24:59 Highlight the passage at 24:59

25:15 When you're cruising along and then a spike of self-centeredness comes up. It's not there homogeneously. I don't think it's there homogeneously for anybody. But it comes up just like anger is not always there or greed or craving or arrogance. They're not steady. It's not constant. They come up in these surges triggered by causing conditions and then after a while they have to dissipate. Report an error in the passage at 25:15 Highlight the passage at 25:15

25:37 You have to fall asleep at least. So on those occasions when you're cruising along, but you are metacognitively aware of what's taking place in your mind, you're looking at the dashboard and not just the surrounding traffic and so forth. And you see in some conversations, some engagement, a spike of self-centeredness coming up. Identify it. Report an error in the passage at 25:37 Highlight the passage at 25:37

25:58 Identify it. That's what they're talking about. That's it. That's self-centeredness. Ah! And then recognizing this is the true source of suffering, this and then having revulsion towards that, not towards yourself as a self-centered person, but towards that that has risen up and then not going with it. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:17 So whether it's self-centeredness or whether it's self-grasping, see when, it's subtle, but see when that tendency of reification kicks in because it's not also homogenous. Sometimes we have a much lighter touch on other people, environment ourselves, and sometimes we... Clomb in and really reify, decontextualize, solidify and lock on, lock on. And that also comes in waves and surges and then it subsides. Report an error in the passage at 26:17 Highlight the passage at 26:17

26:43 So when you see either of these occurring where there's that reification or that self-grasping, especially to oneself, or the self-centeredness and recognize it when it happens and then recognizing it, then if it strikes you as true, then see this is a true source of suffering. And then revulsion means I'm not going with it. It's like looking at rotten food. You don't have to hate it. You don't get hysterical. You just think, I'm repelled by that and I'm not eating it. Report an error in the passage at 26:43 Highlight the passage at 26:43

27:11 In that kind of way, just like rotten food. So, there's one, this Ben Quingen, he was the one I mentioned, times are running out, but he was the one I mentioned who has been a brigand and then turned to Dharma really, really strongly. And there was one case, he was a monk, this very simple, very humble monk, but he knew what... Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:29 What an awful person he had been. So he was trying to go way over to the other end. And he was in line with a monk. They'd been invited to some patron's house. And they were serving a meal. The monk's coming in. And there was some really tasty yogurt. Tibetan yogurt can be really, really good. Rich and very fresh. And so he's a junior monk. Report an error in the passage at 27:29 Highlight the passage at 27:29

27:48 So he's kind of towards the end of the line because there's a certain hierarchy there. The older get sort of first. And he's gradually making his way to the line. He's watching. The yogurt disappearing quickly. And he's kind of like, three people, five people, look, look, look, three people, look, look, look, look. He's getting really quite antsy there, you know, thinking by the time I get there, there's going to be no more yogurt. Report an error in the passage at 27:48 Highlight the passage at 27:48

28:10 And that's exactly self-centeredness. And so he recognized it, and then he averted it. There are many stories like that. So there it is. This is love. It's just too cool to pass up. So maybe we'll have to do the power of prayer later. But this one from Dingo, Kensington, and Butch. I love this. It's not too obvious, but hit the pig on the nose and clean the lamp while it is still warm. This is a Tibetan farm. It's an aphorism. Report an error in the passage at 28:10 Highlight the passage at 28:10

28:36 He didn't make it up. It's an aphorism in Tibet. And in Tibetan houses, they're usually multiple stories, at least two. And down on the bottom is where your livestock will be. It's cold winters. You don't leave them out there. You have frozen pig at the end of the day. So you let them in. So your pigs and your... Report an error in the passage at 28:36 Highlight the passage at 28:36

28:53 Your sheep and your chickens and so forth, they come in, because that's where it's warm and they won't freeze to death, but you live up here, up above, and that's where your kitchen is, and maybe if three stories, maybe that's where your shrine room is, up on the top. But down below, that's also where they do the cooking. Often the cooking is done. Then they have the living quarters and then the shrine up on the top. So if a pig, now it's summertime, and a great big 300-pound pig is just about to come into the kitchen, right? Report an error in the passage at 28:53 Highlight the passage at 28:53

29:19 And it's generally a woman running the kitchen. She's 100 pounds and the pig is 300 pounds and the pig is coming in where she's preparing the meal. As soon as the pig's snout comes to the door, you whack it. Because if the pig gets all the way in, the pig's going to whack you. Report an error in the passage at 29:19 Highlight the passage at 29:19

29:38 There's no contest there. So you have to look out for the pig. As soon as the nose comes in, whack it on the nose and then people won't like that and it'll go away. But if the pig's gotten into your food and is chowing down, that 100-pound woman has no chance. You know, you're, you're... Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

29:52 Don't get your hands too near the pig. That might be also the pig's lunch. So as soon as the pig's snout comes in, whack it on the nose. What he's saying there is as soon as the mental infection comes up, as soon as self-centeredness or self-grasping comes up, it's just the pig puts its nose through the door. Report an error in the passage at 29:52 Highlight the passage at 29:52

30:09 It peeks through into your mind. Whack it. There you are. I got you. Report an error in the passage at 30:09 Highlight the passage at 30:09

30:16 So there's one metaphor. Now you won't forget it, will you? Whack the pig on the snout. And the other one is clean the lamp while it's still warm. Well, anybody who's had a kerosene lamp, you know that if it's still hot, it's all sooty, right? But if you just blow it out and immediately put a rag in there and clean it up, it's easy. It just comes right off and the rag is black. And you have a nice glass, you put it back on, it's ready. Report an error in the passage at 30:16 Highlight the passage at 30:16

30:42 But if you let it get cold, then it's a hassle. Then it's really hard. You'll need your Ajax and a scrubber and it'll never be really clean because it got, you know, just like that. So clean the lamp while it's still warm. Then it's easy. So big, strong metaphor. These are real farm metaphors. And we can do, yeah, but the last one's too good. So we'll get to that later. Report an error in the passage at 30:42 Highlight the passage at 30:42

31:05 Power of prayer. The first one's easy. Pray never in all your lives to be separated from the two bodhicittas, from genuine spiritual guides and metters, never be separated from Dharma. That's again the residual. The residuals that carries over and connects lifetime to lifetime until you're enlightened. But the final aphorisms, we'll do that after lunch and then we'll move right on pretty quickly to the fifth one. Report an error in the passage at 31:05 Highlight the passage at 31:05

31:28 So, enjoy your lunch break and I'll see you at two o 'clock. Report an error in the passage at 31:28 Highlight the passage at 31:28