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- 4:09
So we return this morning, without much further ado, to the mindfulness of breathing practice. Boy, if you're looking for stimulation, you're just looking in the wrong place. But there it is. It's antidoting, this fundamental surge outwards to glom onto something and to hold onto it, thinking that this now, this will bring me happiness. We're just nipping that right in the bud. We're not going out to anything. We're just coming into the body, into the mind. And rather than going out to try to hold onto something, we're just releasing and releasing and releasing.
- 9:09
I'm about to say learning how to breathe, but it's kind of just the opposite of that. It's unlearning how to breathe in a contrived, forced way. So I'm not teaching you now, here's the rhythm, here's a special Buddhist breathing technique. It's just the opposite of that. It's not a technique. It's not something learned, something imposed upon the respiration, but rather to release. The constraints, the effort, the restlessness, the grasping and so forth, the emotional upheavals that often impinge upon the respiration.
- 33:20
Give me something to really engage with that interests me. Stimulate me, for heaven's sake. And that's the voice of hedonism. The voice of eudaimonia. It is ready to attend to something that is not objectively sublime, but by attending to it, something sublime emerges. In other words, it's not arising independence upon a sublime stimulation. It's a quality of awareness that is emerging, that's being unveiled by getting our mind unfixated, off of its dependence on stimulation, pleasant stimulation.
- 42:28
In other words, this should be very mentally healthy. This implies that mindfulness of breathing has a very clear therapeutic and ethical power to it. Even though on the surface of it, it looks so innocent, so bland, so ethically neutral and therefore not by nature virtuous. But this is the Buddha's own teaching. This is his own metaphor he gives to this practice that he taught more than any other practice according to the teachings that he gave recorded in the Pāli Canon.
- 53:19
And so just be focusing with stability and clarity and a sense of relaxation on an utterly neutral object like the breath, but in the absence of all the mental afflictions coming in and dominating, infecting and damaging the mind, that the mind is allowed to heal. And so it's a very fresh, complementary perspective on the developmental. And I'd have to say for the first 20 years I was exposed almost entirely to the developmental.
Transcript
0:12 Good to see that we've gathered a little bit. Samādhi is happening in the room. So yesterday I drew the distinction between hedonic well-being and genuine happiness. One being stimulus-driven. Again, kind of getting it. Getting it from somewhere and then trying to hold on to it. Whereas genuine happiness arising from within. Report an error in the passage at 0:12
0:33 So you're not getting it. It's more manifesting. That said, it's actually out of sheer habit. It's very easy to approach Dharma. In the same mode that we've approached a romance, a new acquisition, moving to a new job and so forth and so on. So we find something new, something out there, something called Buddhism or a teacher or a Dharma center. Report an error in the passage at 0:33
0:54 And thinking, okay, what can you do for me? What happiness can you give me? It could be something abstract too, like a belief system. Or we start studying Dharma. Oh, here's something new. What can I get from that? Madhyamaka. The five paths, the ten bhumis. Teachings on Vajrayana. And Tibetan Buddhism in particular has so much stuff that if you approach it hedonically it can keep you busy for a long time. And the pursuit of hedonic pleasure does tend to be exhausting, right? Report an error in the passage at 0:54
1:23 Because it's always wanting to get more and then hold on and get more and hold on. And also there's something just built into the hedonic and that is we want novelty. Report an error in the passage at 1:23
1:33 Just to do the same old, same old, same old. Find your favorite food that you, you know, just absolute favorite food and eat it for one hour. Report an error in the passage at 1:33
1:44 And see whether you enjoy the last five minutes as much as you enjoy the first five minutes. Not likely. And that goes for everything else. Golf, tennis, sailing, whatever. After a while it just wears off. And a hedonic approach to Dharma. It's the same thing. Exactly the same thing. I've seen it happen many, many times. Report an error in the passage at 1:44
2:02 People get really excited and they start studying a lot and then reading more and more and then learning, oh wow, there's this whole new branch, oh there's this school, oh wow, there's this esoteric branch, there's another whole initiation and empowerment and Dzogchen or Vajrayana teaching, wow, something new and something new. Report an error in the passage at 2:02
2:20 And then after a while then you kind of get the feeling, I think I've heard this before and I've done already and before and I know that mantra and I did that visualization. Isn't there anything new here? And so actually the whole approach to Dharma can actually be just the same old, same old. Until eventually kind of the novelty, the romance dies off and one's finally kind of getting boring. Report an error in the passage at 2:20
2:42 Maybe Taoism would be cool. Or the Sufi, they dance. It's really got room. And they have poetry and they have music. Not a big strong point of Buddhism. Maybe Sufi would be cooler. And so when they can go on one fishing expedition after another, all in the pursuit of hedonic pleasure. But now in the guise of spirituality, it's very easy to do. And it does tend to be exhausting, really tends to be exhausting over time. Report an error in the passage at 2:42
3:11 I know from my own experience. And so our approach here, rather than approaching this set of notes, that's a pretty hefty set of notes there that we have, a lot of information there. Rather than approaching that or a teacher or the Vajrayana Institute, it's okay, maybe I'll find my happiness in you, in that system, that teacher, that Dharma center, that tradition, what have you. Report an error in the passage at 3:11
3:33 If we approach the teachings as the teachings, the teacher of course, is simply designed to enable us to explore, to discover our own inner resources. To explore what we are bringing to the teachings, not what we can freshly get out of the teachings. Because the novelty will wear off. I mean, I guarantee it, the novelty wears off. Report an error in the passage at 3:33
3:53 After a while, you just feel, I've heard this before. But there's nothing new there. And then... A new teacher. I probably need a new teacher. I need something. Again, the freshness, because it's an exact indication we're approaching it hedonically. We're looking for some pleasant stimulation. So we return this morning, without much further ado, to the mindfulness of breathing practice. Boy, if you're looking for stimulation, you're just looking in the wrong place. Report an error in the passage at 3:53
4:20 But there it is. It's antidoting, this fundamental surge outwards to glom onto something and to hold onto it, thinking that this now, this will bring me happiness. We're just nipping that right in the bud. We're not going out to anything. We're just coming into the body, into the mind. And rather than going out to try to hold onto something, we're just releasing and releasing and releasing. Report an error in the passage at 4:20
4:42 So if we regard the exploration of our inner resources to be like mining, And of course, you know, it's an analogy that's often given. Then the first thing is to get the soil right on the surface to be somewhat soft and porous. If it's hard-baked clay, maybe covered with a lot of granite and so forth, just to get through the thinnest layer, that's going to be a big thing. Report an error in the passage at 4:42
5:03 But clay is a good example. Because what does clay need? Not so much a jackhammer, but how about some water? Just to soften it up a bit, moisten it, get it porous, porous, porous. And so just with a little spoon, you can start scooping it away. And you don't need a jackhammer. And so in a similar way here, the whole emphasis is relaxation, releasing, releasing, to soften up, to soften up, so that everything that we study and practice during this week is not to learn about some novel, esoteric, fantastic, amazing, fascinating, exhilarating and scintillating methods. Report an error in the passage at 5:03
5:41 But rather the methods are just there designed to really open up what you already brought. To this retreat on day one to discover that. And then I will say with total confidence that as you tap into your own inner resources the whole need for novelty just vanishes. It just vanishes. Because the satisfaction, the fulfillment, the joy, the contentment is not stimulus driven and therefore you don't need novelty. Report an error in the passage at 5:41
6:08 You're just going deeper and deeper. So that's the approach here. And the teacher, whoever it is, whether it's... A tremendous teacher like the Dalai Lama or a very ordinary person like myself, the role of the teacher is just to catalyze. You're not going to get your joy or enlightenment from somebody transmitting a mind-to-mind transmission. Report an error in the passage at 6:08
6:27 And I speak from a background in Dzogchen where that terminology is used, but it never really happens. Otherwise the Buddha would just go around like some ET going... Thank you. He would just walk all over the world zapping people. If there could be really mind-to-mind transmission. Then he would just go, you know, maybe just have a 300, like a water sprinkler, you know, everybody, you know, just come in his proximity, oh, thank you, you know. Report an error in the passage at 6:27
6:54 It's just not the way it happens, you know. The teacher there, whether it's the Buddha Shakyamuni himself, whether it's Dalai Lama or this guy from California, it's just there to catalyze, to open up, to help you discover for yourself your own inner resources that you already had. So there we are. So in this theme, let's go right back to the antithesis of stimulation. Report an error in the passage at 6:54
7:14 It's really as if, and perhaps not even as if, maybe it's just simply literally true, that we are addicted to stimulation. As people are addicted to cocaine and alcohol and nicotine and so forth, addicted to stimulation. Give me something to give me a high, to arouse, to interest, to excite me. And if there's any lull, even in an elevator, what do they do? They give you some music, even for one minute in an elevator. Report an error in the passage at 7:14
7:40 If that's not an indication of an addiction. I was there in Sydney at the Novotel and it was a nice elevator but I heard in the background, oh there it is. If you're kind of getting edgy here because you're going to spend 15 seconds in this elevator with no stimulation, listen closely. There's this incredibly boring music going in the background. Okay, if you need a fix, it's kind of like, okay. Report an error in the passage at 7:40
8:05 So this practice here, it is, I think you probably use the term in Australia, it's cold turkey. The term is used, yeah? Cold turkey means if you're addicted to cocaine, then you just go off and just no cocaine. If it's heroin, no heroin. Nada. Zip. Zitch. Nothing. Just total withdrawal. And by the way, you may have withdrawal symptoms. You may have withdrawal symptoms. They're called nyam in Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 8:05
8:28 We'll get to that later. But right now, without further ado, let's go right back to the practice. And we're going to continue for this morning in this first phase. So there are the phases. Accounting definitely can play a very valuable role, but not just yet. Because accounting can be one more kind of pushing, pushing, pushing, trying to acquire and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 8:28
8:48 And here it's just all about letting go, releasing old habit patterns, releasing grasping, releasing the I want, the hope and the fear. It's releasing a lot. So this simple initial phase of just coming into the body, being present, loosening up, relaxing, and then very core to this initial phase. Report an error in the passage at 8:48
9:09 I'm about to say learning how to breathe, but it's kind of just the opposite of that. It's unlearning how to breathe in a contrived, forced way. Report an error in the passage at 9:09
9:19 So I'm not teaching you now, here's the rhythm, here's a special Buddhist breathing technique. It's just the opposite of that. It's not a technique. It's not something learned, something imposed upon the respiration, but rather to release. The constraints, the effort, the restlessness, the grasping and so forth, the emotional upheavals that often impinge upon the respiration. Report an error in the passage at 9:19
9:42 And see again if we can so get out of the way, as if we were deep asleep, that a respiration flows just unimpededly, effortlessly and just works itself out. And so the body, through its own healing capacity, balance itself in terms of, in Eastern terminology, the prāṇa system. Western terminology, the nervous system and establishing a really healthy balance and equilibrium of the prāṇa system where your body is at ease, it's balanced, it's relaxed and yet it's not dopey, heavy, lethargic. Report an error in the passage at 9:42
10:15 So that's the aim for this morning. We'll be sticking with that phase. This afternoon we'll start moving on. But let's not hasten too quickly. Let's linger here in this detoxification program, this cold turkey approach of Releasing our addiction to and dependence upon stimulation and simply seeing about how about just releasing and being in the present moment. So with that, let's jump right in. Report an error in the passage at 10:15
10:41 Supine position is perfect. Sitting, if you're comfortable, you'll be clear and relaxed. It's just fine. Report an error in the passage at 10:41
11:16 There are two complementary perspectives on the practice of shamatha in particular and really spiritual practice in general. Both have their validity. And neither one tells the whole story. So they're really truly complementary. And one of these we may call a developmental orientation perspective approach. Report an error in the passage at 11:16
11:37 And so if we apply this notion of developmental to shamatha, then we approach the practice with the sense that our minds are really a bit tight, not very stable, quite scattered, quite frequently prone to laxity or dullness. And so this is what we're bringing to the practice. And then what we like to develop, which we don't have already, a sense of ease, looseness, relaxation in the body and mind, gradually develop stability of attention, develop vividness of attention. Report an error in the passage at 11:37
12:11 And so it's really a sense of developing that which we don't have. And then the teachings, the practices are to enable us to develop that which we don't have. And one can see that's very sensible. It's very sensible. So there's a lot of validity in that. But I would say it's not the whole picture. And there's another approach here that we may call the discovery orientation perspective approach. Report an error in the passage at 12:11
12:37 And that is approaching the same practice with a sense that there's a lot that I'm already doing that is obscuring, veiling, blocking the sense of ease, of looseness and so forth that is there but it's covered over. Likewise, there is a dimension of my awareness that is already still, relaxed, stable. And awareness by itself, the very definition of consciousness in Buddhism, includes, well, the definition is in Tibetan, that which is luminous and knowing. Report an error in the passage at 12:37
13:14 So awareness by its very nature is luminous, it's bright, it makes manifest appearances. So luminosity is not something you add on to awareness. But rather it's in the very nature of awareness itself. And the term for luminosity is the same word for clarity or brightness. It's Selva. So in this regard, then the orientation is that, all right, I'm going to engage in these practices in order to unveil, to unblock those qualities of awareness that I already have, which are hidden, but nevertheless they are already present. Report an error in the passage at 13:14
13:51 Now different traditions tend to emphasize one somewhat more than the other. So the Galupa tradition, spearheaded by this really inconceivably brilliant man Tsongkhapa, the very strong orientation there is one of development. And it's just laid out with tremendous elegance, with logical rigor. And when it comes to shamatha, the finest, most precise presentation of the nine stages of development. Report an error in the passage at 13:51
14:17 Of attention skills along the path of shamatha which we will be attending to. And in the same tradition it's no surprise, quite natural then, that when it comes to choosing an object of mindfulness, an object of meditation for your shamatha practice, we're focusing on something that's not already there but rather something that you generate freshly. Report an error in the passage at 14:17
14:39 And that is you generate a mental image, quite frequently it's that of a Buddha. Or some manifestation like Thada, Manjushri, Bhatradhata and so forth. But it wasn't already there. You had to generate it. And having generated it, then you try to develop stability and vividness with respect to that image. Report an error in the passage at 14:39
14:57 And so it's really kind of working from scratch. You didn't have stability or vividness and you didn't have the object. So get going. So the developmental approach is a response to a question. Report an error in the passage at 14:57
15:10 And that is, what can I do? To develop attention skills and to achieve that which I don't have, namely Jamata. And the discovery approach is also a response and it is a response to the question, what am I already doing that's blocking, that's inhibiting or veiling the qualities that I would like to realize but which are already there. Report an error in the passage at 15:10
15:33 So the Dzogchen tradition, the Mahamudra tradition, Zen and Chan have a much stronger orientation towards the discovery approach. And the galupa, the sakya, a lot of the Theravāda tradition has much more of an orientation of developmental approach. But once again, I really want to strongly emphasize this, I really do not believe that one is better than another, or let alone that one is right and the other one is wrong. Report an error in the passage at 15:33
15:57 That one I'm completely persuaded is incorrect. But different individuals with different temperaments, inclinations and so forth may just naturally gravitate. It's like some people like one type of shoe and some people like another kind of shoe may naturally gravitate to, which is find a real resonance with more of a developmental approach, more of a discovery approach. Report an error in the passage at 15:57
16:20 So this is why the Buddhadana itself is so internally diverse. And even in the Buddhist teachings for 45 years that he taught, he taught in a wide variety of ways, always in response to and relative to the specific inclinations, capacities, interests and so forth. Of the individuals or groups that he was teaching. So he wasn't coming, that is when he got off his meditation seat underneath the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, he wasn't coming like a salesman with two suitcases full of, boy, I've got to deliver the goods. Report an error in the passage at 16:20
16:51 I'm going to download all this stuff that I've learned and then just start, you know. Sending it out. In fact the teachings always arose. They arose in a way freshly each time relative to the question, the person, the situation. So even though of course there is a coherent body of the Buddhist teachings, nevertheless they are always rising relative to individuals in search of liberation. Report an error in the passage at 16:51
17:16 So coming back to this developmental approach, as I mentioned Tsongkhapa teaches this and so actually do all of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism because all of them Do contain a developmental approach. In all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, there is this reference and sometimes a very detailed unpacking of how to generate a mental image, how to focus on it and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 17:16
17:42 And Tsongkhapa makes a very wise, very sound comment that as you're developing shamatha, then focus on what in Tibetan called gewe mikpah or a virtuous object. A virtuous object. By so doing, Report an error in the passage at 17:42
17:56 This, by focusing on a virtuous object, like the image of a Buddha, or if you have a very strong connection with Tara, or it could be just any figure, it could be Tsongkhapa himself, an image of Tsongkhapa himself. But an image of some individual that inspires, that arouses a sense of devotion, of faith, of confidence, of aspiration, and so forth, then that's called a virtuous object and that can really spur on. Report an error in the passage at 17:56
18:25 Or a kind of turbo power your shamatha practice because your heart inclines to it. You want to come back to it. It provides some satisfaction, inspiration and so forth. Blessing. Blessing may really come by focusing your attention on the image which is so full of symbolic import. So meaningful for you. Report an error in the passage at 18:25
18:45 So I would say that's very, very sound advice. It's very good advice. And of course it's advice we're not following in this six days. Report an error in the passage at 18:45
18:53 so but As soon as we use that phrase, focus on a virtuous object, well exactly what determines what is and is not a virtuous object? So for example, when the Chinese communists during the period of the Red Guard, the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 76, especially during that phase, when they just came through like locusts and they destroyed Buddha images and statues and stupas and... Report an error in the passage at 18:53
19:20 All manner of iconography and works of art and texts and so forth. I mean, it was seeing, it was kind of a frenzy and many people in China recognize also it really was a period of insanity, of just destroying their own cultural heritage in the name of Marx, of all strange things. Because Marx is a foreign import. So let's be real Chinese now and adopt the ideas of a German guy. Report an error in the passage at 19:20
19:44 And using his ideas as our pivot, let's destroy our own culture. It really was just rampant insanity. But my point here is that as these young fanatics really as crazed, very much like the witch-hunting craze of our own European civilization, where they were killing women right, left and center by the tens of thousands, thinking they were demon-possessed. Report an error in the passage at 19:44
20:08 Well, that too, among very educated, refined, sophisticated people. They just kind of went crazy. So there it is. But coming back here, when one of these young red guards, who's a total fanatic, sees an image of the Buddha, is that image of the Buddha for that red guard who says, oh, whether it's a red guard, whether it's Taliban, whether it's Al-Qaeda, sees an image of the Buddha like those statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan, see them and what do they want to do? Report an error in the passage at 20:08
20:34 Blow them up, which of course they did. And so it's quite obvious. That whether it's an ancient stone statue of the Buddha with the face already cut off in Afghanistan, or whether it's images that the Chinese were destroying by the thousands in Tibet, that they're seeing these images. Can you really say that those were virtuous images for those Chinese communists or the Taliban? Well no, all that's arousing is hatred and the will to destroy and contempt. Report an error in the passage at 20:34
21:02 This is an image of stupidity, of superstition, of counter-revolutionary sentiments and all that kind of nonsense. And so quite clearly that whether an object is virtuous or not is not some kind of an intrinsic objective quality within itself, because if it were, then anybody who would look at it would feel virtue arising. Report an error in the passage at 21:02
21:23 Well, I don't know if you can think of a single object, anything, Jesus, Buddha, anything, that you can say, oh, this is intrinsically virtuous, anybody who looks at it, they're just going to get a virtuous mind. Well, of course, if there were such a thing, then it's kind of like my little cartoon of the Buddha zapping everybody, then we should all just go, Like, you know, deer staring into headlights. And then suddenly, just by gazing at it, virtue would arise. Well, if you hear of such an object, let me know, because I want to be the deer. Report an error in the passage at 21:23
21:50 I'll just stare too, you know. Well, clearly it's silly. So what Tsongkhapa said was not silly at all. He's speaking within a Buddhist context to people with a lot of devotion. They're living, I think, not insignificantly at very high altitude. It's actually easier to visualize it. Three or four or five thousand meters than it is at sea level, in my experience. And also in that very rarefied atmosphere. It was a profoundly uncluttered atmosphere. Report an error in the passage at 21:50
22:17 I love where I stay when I stay in Sydney, right there by the harbor. It's just a beautiful looking out over the harbor and the boats and the people walking around the bay and so forth on the shore, obviously. But there's a lot of stuff happening there, right? And we all know that in cities. There's just a lot of stuff happening. Whereas... Report an error in the passage at 22:17
22:37 And of course for a lot of us that's normal. You live right downtown, right? You look out the window and wow, look at all this stuff happening. Imagine waking up every morning, opening up the flap in your tent and just looking out on sky and mountains. And the most exciting thing is that a yak just stood up. Report an error in the passage at 22:37
23:02 And that's just it for hour after hour, day after day, year after year. That that's the environment. It's pristine. It's high altitude, it's cool, it's bracing, it's invigorating, but it's just profoundly uncluttered, unbusy. Then in the midst of that type of environment, because I have been trying to understand why so many Tibetans that I know, having practiced at that kind of altitude and that type of climate, that type of environment, do so well in certain practices. Report an error in the passage at 23:02
23:31 And then people who are raised at sea level, in a very cluttered, busy, agitated, hectic environment, do exactly the same practices and have totally different results. So clearly this is actually a scientific question and I am very curious because it's also not the case that one practice fits all, that it will have the same effect on everybody regardless of age, gender, background, environment, cultural upbringing and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 23:31
23:55 So in my experience, visualization practices, very detailed practices of mandala and so forth, they tend to go very well if your environment is simple, it's clear, it's pristine, it's open and spacious, slow moving. And then you bring in the activity, the visualization, it's very different. Rather than bringing that into a very hectic environment with a lot of activity and so forth. So, what constitutes then a virtuous object? Report an error in the passage at 23:55
24:23 Because as I said, I think Tsongkhapa made a very valid point here. For shamatha, focus on a virtuous object. But then, what is a virtuous object? Well, an object that is, when attending to it, arouses a sense of virtue. That would be really it, not that it intrinsically delivers it to you, but given your relationship to the object, it does tend to arouse wholesome states of mind rather than simply craving, attachment, hostility or boredom. Report an error in the passage at 24:23
24:54 But now we come to this practice of mindfulness of breathing, which Tsongkhapa himself did embrace, he endorsed it, it's classic teachings of the Buddha, and Tsongkhapa cited classic Buddhist teachings in this regard, commenting, That mindfulness of breathing is the recommended method by the Buddha and by Tsongkhapa himself for people who are heavily prone to compulsive ideation, a lot of rumination. Report an error in the passage at 24:54
25:20 And I'm sure there must have been such people in Tibet in the 15th century, but probably not as many as we have nowadays in Sydney in the 21st century. And so it was practiced, but frankly mindfulness of breathing wasn't practiced that much. It was more like just a little starter. For almost all Tibetan yogis, mindfulness breathing was never prominent. Report an error in the passage at 25:20
25:42 They would use it, but only to get on to what they really wanted to do. Whereas interestingly enough, in Southeast Asia, mindfulness breathing, in places like Sri Lanka, where I've lived as a monk, in Thailand, where I spend five months a year these days, mindfulness breathing is very, very commonly practiced, very strongly emphasized. Report an error in the passage at 25:42
26:01 But now if you're attending to sensations of the breath, have we simply then abandoned This advice of Tsongkhapa, a pretty formidable person, not to be dismissed casually, have we abandoned his advice of focusing on a virtuous object when what you're attending to is just the sensations of the breath. Report an error in the passage at 26:01
26:17 How can one say that's virtuous? Well, I would say sensations of the breath in and of themselves are no more virtuous than focusing on a Buddha image. If you have no faith, no interest whatsoever, it's just an image, then the breath or an image of the Buddha, it's the same. If you have no feeding for it. Report an error in the passage at 26:17
26:36 No faith, what have you. And so could we then, how though could the sensations of the breath, how could that turn into a virtuous practice? Well, number one, something obvious in the old hands here, like Anichigila and others will know, bring to the practice a virtuous or meaningful motivation. And then whatever you're doing becomes virtuous. So develop a strong aspiration for liberation. That's very virtuous, very meaningful. Develop bodhicitta, the aspiration of a bodhisattva. Report an error in the passage at 26:36
27:07 That's very virtuous. In that case then, your mindfulness of breathing practice becomes a very virtuous activity, a very meaningful Dharma activity, not because focusing on the breath as such is, because it's not, but it becomes so as a result of your motivation. But now, let's move now into this realm of discovery, and we go right to the teachings of the Buddha himself, because while focusing on a mental image of the Buddha is a classic shamatha practice, With a developmental orientation to it, mindfulness of breathing is a practice much more with a discovery orientation to it. I mentioned the Theravāda is strongly inclined towards the developmental. Report an error in the passage at 27:07
27:46 Well, here's one element of discovery, which is very strong. So we return here. I mentioned this just a couple of days ago. That was in New Zealand. It's Wednesday. It must be Sydney. It must be Sydney. It's one of the really the classic and I think very rich metaphors that the Buddha shared. This with respect to this very specific shamatha method of developing, it's called in Pāli, Ānāpānasati samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 27:46
28:17 It's samādhi or the unification of the mind, the development of real composure, unification, focused attention, samādhi, by way of Ānāpānasati, by way of mindfulness, sati of Ānāpānasati, which is in and out breathing. Report an error in the passage at 28:17
28:33 He's giving this analogy with respect to this one particular practice and it starts with an analogy which anybody who's lived in India will relate to very strongly and that is just as in the last month of the hot season when a mass of dust and dirt has swirled up a great rain cloud out of season disperses it and quells it on the spot. Report an error in the passage at 28:33
28:56 So we'll just stop there. There's the analogy. The last month of the hot season this is Late May, early June, because the monsoon comes in in mid-June and then things cool off significantly. But during May, late April, all of May, early June, then it tends to be throughout much of India, especially northern India, very hot. Report an error in the passage at 28:56
29:20 And then it's also the air quality tends to be very poor because a lot of dust gets swirled up. So there's a lot of massive dust and dirt swirled up. So it kind of has a grimy feel. It's very unpleasant. The British Raj knew anybody who could escape from Delhi and so forth. They'd go up into the highlands during that hot season up to Dharamsala, places like Dharamsala, Shimla, Darjeeling and so forth to escape from exactly this. Report an error in the passage at 29:20
29:45 Because the rain hasn't come yet. So it's pretty awful. Just heavy, hot, muggy and the air quality is terrible. But then imagine in that season, right in that season, this hot season, A great rain cloud out of season, that is prior to the onset of the monsoon, suddenly forms and they just get this lovely cloud burst. Report an error in the passage at 29:45
30:12 Just rainfall comes and ever so swiftly, right on the spot, all that muck in the air, all the smog and so forth, the dust, the contamination, all of that is washed through the earth, in an instant it dispels and quells on the spot all of that dust and dirt that is contaminating the air. So it's very refreshing and it's very quick. So he says, so too, concentration by mindfulness of breathing, or this Ānāpānasati samādhi, Report an error in the passage at 30:12
30:41 when developed and cultivated, in other words, it's not overnight, but when you do develop, you put in the time and you develop this type of unification of the mind, this focused attention by way of mindfulness of breathing, when you put in the time, you cultivate it, you develop it, then the quality of awareness that you experience, As a result of such practice is first of all peaceful. Now anybody who just thought about meditation but never practiced it might very well be able to guess that would be a consequence of the practice. Report an error in the passage at 30:41
31:15 That what you're bringing to the practice is a mind that's quite agitated. A lot of conceptualization, the OCDD, the obsessive compulsive delusional flow of thinking or rumination taking place, a lot of attentional hyperactivity. But when you subdue that mind, By just coming back to the breath again and again and again, then you would expect that the mind would become more peaceful. And that it does. Report an error in the passage at 31:15
31:42 So expectation fulfilled. But he doesn't stop there. He says this quality of awareness is not only peaceful, but it's sublime. Report an error in the passage at 31:42
31:54 Now if one's never practiced this, you might really wonder, well, it sounds like it's hype or it's exaggeration, but it doesn't really make any sense. I mean, what's sublime about it? You're just attending to the sensations of the breath. That may be peaceful, but Sublime, isn't that exaggerating a little bit? There's really nothing sublime about the breath or sensations of the breath. And that is the voice of hedonism speaking, thinking that if we're going to experience something sublime, that's because we must be encountering something sublime, some stipulation, some magnificent mountain like the Matterhorn or Mount Everest. Report an error in the passage at 31:54
32:31 Or some beautiful piece of work, a sublime piece of work, or listening to sublime music, or a sublime gourmet meal, and so forth. Or even a mathematical equation, you know, the four equations of Maxwell, sublime mathematics. But if some sublime state of awareness is to arise, well, okay, give me something sublime to attend to. That is the hedonic assumption, that a sublime state of awareness will arise only if and only if you're attending to something that arouses the subjective response of sublimity. Report an error in the passage at 32:31
33:00 Because the object is sublime. But that's missing the whole point. And that's why some people find mindfulness of breathing so boring. Because they're not willing to cultivate it and develop it. They're still waiting for, you know, so, say something interesting. Do something interesting. Arouse me. Interest me. How about a visualization? How about a mantra? How about something complex like a mandala? Report an error in the passage at 33:00
33:20 Give me something to really engage with that interests me. Stimulate me, for heaven's sake. And that's the voice of hedonism. The voice of eudaimonia. It is ready to attend to something that is not objectively sublime, but by attending to it, something sublime emerges. Report an error in the passage at 33:20
33:40 In other words, it's not arising independence upon a sublime stimulation. It's a quality of awareness that is emerging, that's being unveiled by getting our mind unfixated, off of its dependence on stimulation, pleasant stimulation. So it's actually literally true, a sublime quality of awareness can arise as you're attending to an utterly neutral meditative object, namely the sensations of the breath. Report an error in the passage at 33:40
34:10 So peaceful and sublime, something quite lofty, something quite exquisite, a quality of awareness arises, but it's being discovered, it's flowing from within, and you can't trace its source to some object, to some technique, that made me feel sublime. Because the object is quite neutral, but it's allowing for the emergence of something sublime to arise from within. Report an error in the passage at 34:10
34:34 But he doesn't even stop there. He refers to this quality of awareness as an ambrosial dwelling. Well this sounds like something really exceptional, over the top. And that's exactly what he's getting at. You discover an ambrosial quality of awareness arising, which means clearly that you're not getting it from the technique. Report an error in the passage at 34:34
34:54 The technique, frankly, is just not ambrosial. It's quite ordinary, really. And the sensations of the breath are not ambrosial. They're just sensations of the breath. But the quality of awareness that arising goes from peaceful to sublime to ambrosial to really quite exquisite. But that would imply that those qualities of serenity, of sublimity, the ambrosial qualities must have been already there. Report an error in the passage at 34:54
35:20 Because you're not getting them from the object. You're not freshly generating them by the object, but by attending to a neutral object, the veils, the obscurations that are blocking, obscuring these qualities of awareness are melting away. Report an error in the passage at 35:20
35:37 So affectively, what does it feel like? Peaceful, sublime, ambrosial. Then he adds another whole dimension as well, which is enormously important, let's say in terms of mental health or therapeutically. And that is through this simple practice. This practice, it disperses and quells on the spot, let's say the dust and the dirt, of unwholesome states whenever they arise. Report an error in the passage at 35:37
36:07 In other words, he's saying that this turns out to have a marvelously healthy or therapeutic effect on the mind, such that when unwholesome or negative or afflictive tendencies such as anger, resentment, craving, jealousy, And so forth, arrogance, contempt and so forth arise, that when we have these old habitual impulses arising, that once you have developed and cultivated this unification of the mind by way of mindfulness of breathing, then these old impulses may still arise out of sure habit. Report an error in the passage at 36:07
36:45 But this quality of mindfulness, this quality of samādhi, tends to disperse and quell them on the spot. Whenever they arise. So it really sounds like this practice, it's so, in a way, breathtakingly and breath-givingly simple. Report an error in the passage at 36:45
37:05 From his description here, and he means literally every single word, and I would say every single word is actually true. No surprise there that I would say that. What he's suggesting here, it's a thinly veiled implication, is that this such a practice is really bolstering your psychological immune system. Report an error in the passage at 37:05
37:24 So we speak of physiological immune system. You hang out with a person who has the flu and they breathe your way, maybe even cough a little bit in your way. Maybe they shake hands with you and now you have the virus on your hands. Well, the question is, do you get the flu or not? And that goes for all other kinds of contagious disease. Not everybody gets the contagious disease. Report an error in the passage at 37:24
37:45 Sometimes it's extremely contagious and almost everybody gets it, but there do tend to be, even in bubonic plague and so forth, there are often some people that just for whatever reason are exposed to it and don't get it, let alone the common cold or the flu or mumps or chickenpox and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 37:45
38:02 Not everybody gets it, and so what's that? Well, they may be naturally immune, like arhats, arhats with respect to, let's say, chickenpox. But it may be also, at least for the time being, they're just so healthy. Their diet has been good, their exercise is good, they're well refreshed. They're really strong and healthy. Report an error in the passage at 38:02
38:21 And so they come into a room full of people with the flu or common cold and they go out and they don't get it. Well, of course we know, but your immune system must have been very robust, right? Report an error in the passage at 38:21
38:34 I remember a study that was done by a very capable, very expert. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, working with an old friend of his, they're both friends of mine, John Kabat-Zinn, who originated mindfulness-based stress reduction. I think it was his first study they ever did on scientific effects, or kind of scientific study of the effects of basic mindfulness practice, let alone shamatha or vipassanā or what have you, but just very basic mindfulness, as John Kabat-Zinn so expertly teaches. Report an error in the passage at 38:34
39:06 And they found that, there was a study done in Wisconsin years ago, Report an error in the passage at 39:06
39:14 The people who attended this seminar by John Kabat-Zinn, that it actually bolstered their immune system. Now, he's teaching mindfulness-based stress reduction. The whole point of it, the way he devised this, presented this in a medical context, is practice this type of mindfulness, and with some other adjacent practices, and it will alleviate stress. Report an error in the passage at 39:14
39:36 That's the whole idea, mindfulness-based stress reduction. Well, here's a pretty obvious fact, but it's still worth stating. The more stressed you are, the more that's bound to inhibit your immune system. It can be easier to get sick, harder to get well if you're really stressed out. And the more stressed out you are, the harder it will be to get well and the easier it will be to get sick. And so if you're engaging in a simple practice of mindfulness and it alleviates stress, well then it's no wonder that that would also indirectly, by knocking out the stress which is undermining your physiological immune system, That your immune system will rebound and you're more likely to stay healthy. Well, that's for physiology. But now I'm talking about here is not just that you'll not get the cold so often or not get flu and so forth, but in fact these afflictions of the mind, of craving, hostility, resentment and so forth and so on, they may arise, but like being exposed to a person with a flu, you're exposed to it, but you don't get caught in its grip. Report an error in the passage at 39:36
40:45 You don't get carried away, you don't get dominated and succumbed to the mental afflictions. They just present themselves and then they kind of fade back. That is just by the power of this unification, this extraordinarily healthy mind, sane mind of samādhi achieved by way of mindfulness or breathing. Report an error in the passage at 40:45
41:04 That is not to say that your mind now is irreversibly free of, in fact it's not free in terms of utterly liberated from any mental affliction, but it is to say... That a major point of the practice of shamatha is, whether it's this practice or any other practice, is that if it's working it should really make your psychological immune system much more robust. Report an error in the passage at 41:04
41:25 So that mental afflictions have a much harder time dominating your mind. Now this is generically true for shamatha and the practice of samādhi. If it's not doing that, if you're engaging in meditation and you're doing this on a regular basis, from day to day, month to month, And you're finding that it's not improving your psychological immune system. I say your meditation isn't working. You might want to try something else. Report an error in the passage at 41:25
41:50 Because that really is a fundamental purpose. That the mind may not immediately be liberated from mental afflictions. That's kind of tough. That's a very ambitious endeavor. But at least that it doesn't so easily succumb to them. And shamatha is exactly designed to enhance, to empower, to bolster the Just the overall quality of awareness so that when the dust and the dirt of mental afflictions and other unwholesome or negative emotions, destructive emotions and so forth arise, they may still arise on occasion, catalyzed by whatever kind of trigger, but they don't so easily dominate the mind. Report an error in the passage at 41:50
42:28 In other words, this should be very mentally healthy. This implies that mindfulness of breathing has a very clear therapeutic and ethical power to it. Report an error in the passage at 42:28
42:39 Even though on the surface of it, it looks so innocent, so bland, so ethically neutral and therefore not by nature virtuous. But this is the Buddha's own teaching. This is his own metaphor he gives to this practice that he taught more than any other practice according to the teachings that he gave recorded in the Pāli Canon. Report an error in the passage at 42:39
42:58 So there are implications in this and you'll see this in the notes here. And that is it's tapping into this mindfulness of breathing. It's tapping into something that is very easy to ignore and hardly gets any references in the popular press, in the news, or in the medical establishment as far as I can tell. Report an error in the passage at 42:58
43:21 And certainly the last place you'll find out about it is in advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry. Because all of these are for-profit, especially in a very capitalist place like the United States. Nowadays, as we're running to the elections, the big freakazoid word is, oh, this person is socialist. This is like demonic. Report an error in the passage at 43:21
43:43 So there's such an orientation towards capitalism there. It's supposed to be a frightening word. But I think people here in Australia and New Zealand is not quite so terrifying as it is for some of the elements in America. But the point here being that Report an error in the passage at 43:43
43:59 this system, this body-mind system, already has an extraordinary capacity to heal itself. That is the immune system, the ordinary old immune system. It's done very well for us. Here we are all alive and we've been exposed to all kinds of things. Even tuberculosis. I was exposed to tuberculosis living with Tibetans. I never got it. I can't give it to anybody. I don't have it. But I was exposed to it. Report an error in the passage at 43:59
44:25 But my immune system was good enough and it has remained good enough that chances are I probably will never get it. There's no reason I should unless I'm just totally allowed my health to deteriorate and the immune system to get shot. But the point here is both for warding off diseases, but also once we have been injured or become diseased or ill, I will say this body-mind system, because we can't just separate the body and the mind into two independent chunks. Report an error in the passage at 44:25
44:51 The mind, for the time being, is profoundly embodied. And our emotional states having an impact on the immune system, the endocrine system, the nervous system, the digestive system, and so forth and so on, as all of these systems are impinging upon the mind. So this is one integrated system. Not to equate the body and mind, but they are profoundly entangled. So if we take this whole system, this deeply integrated system of body-mind, we'd have to say this system, and it's a biological truth, has an extraordinary capacity to heal itself, extraordinary capacity to ward off viruses and bacteria that could easily injure it or even kill it. Report an error in the passage at 44:51
45:28 And so, again, to belabor the point just a little bit, because it's so easy to take for granted, and we take it for granted, In a capitalist country, it's taken for granted because it's just not marketable. There's no profit. There's no profit motive in telling people, oh, your own body has an extraordinary capacity to heal itself. Report an error in the passage at 45:28
45:47 How can we help you? There's very little profit to be made in that. Whereas if you can get people to be dependent on your drug for years or decades at a time, oh, you're going ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. I mean, it just, you know, makes you want to sing and dance. So there's the downside of the capitalistic domination of health in a number of countries, such as my home country. Report an error in the passage at 45:47
46:11 But, okay, take this simple example, a paper cut. I'm looking for the most trivial injury we can get. I think paper cut's pretty close, but it just barely draws the blood. Okay, a little paper cut. Well, there it is. In Beverly Hills, they probably have some of the most expensive plastic surgeons on the planet, right? Report an error in the passage at 46:11
46:29 That's where all the movie stars go. So show me the plastic surgeon that can take a paper cut and heal it. And you've got Bill Gates saying, I've got a paper cut, I've got a paper cut. Please, plastic surgeon, I'll pay you $10,000 an hour of it, heal my paper cut. Well, there's not a plastic surgeon on the planet who can heal a paper cut. Report an error in the passage at 46:29
46:48 Cover it over maybe, but heal it? No way, they don't have even a clue how to begin. So no, paper cuts cannot be healed by modern medicine. Report an error in the passage at 46:48
46:59 But then of course they don't need to. Just keep it clean. Do the obvious. Just don't let it get dirty. Maybe cover it with a little band-aid. And then, you know, three or four days later, no paper cut. And all your money, Bill Gates, wasn't needed. The plastic surgeon wasn't needed. It covers it over and there's a paper cut. It doesn't even leave a scar. So pretty cool. And it was for free. Okay? Now consider, though, this whole reference to dust and dirt that is swirled up. Report an error in the passage at 46:59
47:27 Imagine that one... Wants to conduct a very bizarre experiment, and you take your little paper cut, and then you look for some really contaminated area, like fly to Kathmandu and drag it in the gutter in Kathmandu. Whoosh it around in the gutter, really swish it back and forth, right next to open sewers and so forth. And keep on swishing it, keep on coming back, you know, and just see what happens to that paper cut. Report an error in the passage at 47:27
47:53 And, of course, if you do it with some persistence, it may get really good and infected. And then let the infection spread, and it could in principle turn gangrenous, and then you could lose your finger, and then let the gangrene, the blackening, the withering, go up your arm, you could lose a whole arm, and then let the gangrene get to your heart, and then the paper cut has killed you. Report an error in the passage at 47:53
48:15 Same paper cut, one person is sensible, just covers it, doesn't let it get infected, it heals itself, the other one conducting a very bizarre experiment, winds up dying from a paper cut. And in principle that is certainly possible. Report an error in the passage at 48:15
48:29 So what are the paper cuts to the mind? And so I won't focus on anybody. I'll focus on Jack over here. Jack, you're really a dope. That's a paper cut. I just paper cut Jack's mind. There's no Jack there if you're looking. There's nobody there. I don't want to target anybody. But this is a hypothetical Jack. Jack, you're such a dope. So I give a disparaging comment. I didn't hit him. Report an error in the passage at 48:29
48:57 I didn't cut him. I didn't rob him or anything. You're a dope. What a sap. Paper cut, right? And so Jack is practicing Dharma. He says, oh, Alan's got a little verbal problem there. Report an error in the passage at 48:57
49:12 He insults people. Not very pleasant, but that's his problem. Cool, whatever. And moves along and his paper cut heels right over. He recognized that was just my little aberration. I'm an insulting kind of person. That's Alan's problem. Maybe he'll work it out, maybe he won't, but whatever. So his paper cut heels over. Report an error in the passage at 49:12
49:32 And another person now, I'm not going to elaborate because you know exactly what I'm going to say, how could he say something like that? Why does he think I'm a dope? Maybe I am a dope. Other people have said it too. Maybe that's only at the tip of the iceberg. Maybe he thinks I'm a really terrible person and he was speaking very gently, just saying dope, but he really meant I'm an atrocious, awful, awful human being that really should commit suicide. Report an error in the passage at 49:32
49:53 Maybe that's what he's really getting at and maybe other people agree. Maybe actually everybody agrees and he's representing the world. They all think that I'm a wretched human being. And actually, I think I probably am. No, I'm quite convinced of it, really. In fact, he just said what I felt, but he said it much more gently than I would feel. I am an awful, wretched human being. Report an error in the passage at 49:53
50:12 And so just let it infect. Let it get gangrenous. And then you'll pull the trigger and blow your brains out. And so it got to the gangrene of your heart. And, you know, gives rise to self-contempt, self-hatred, and maybe suicide. So, triggered by the paper cut. So, the mind can become infected, the mind can be... Report an error in the passage at 50:12
50:34 Mindfulness of breathing protects the mind. Broken bone, the same thing. Set it, it seals over. It's as strong as ever. It's amazing, really. We take it so for granted. But don't set it, you'll be crippled for life. There it is. So this practice here, this is like keeping a wound clean, like setting a bone so that it can heal. Report an error in the passage at 50:34
50:57 And you'll see, again, when a skilled doctor sets a bone, I mean, If it's a simple fracture, it's really not that complicated. You just put the two bones together and set it and cast around it. It's not brain science. It's kind of like just simple. Set it, keep it protected, tell the person don't use it. This is not incredible medicine. It's good medicine, but it's really simple. Report an error in the passage at 50:57
51:19 It's like mindfulness of breathing medicine. Just put them together or put a band-aid on, disinfect and put a band-aid on the cut and now just get out of the way and it'll all happen by itself. Mindfulness of breathing is setting the bone or putting on a band-aid and getting out of the way so that the mind can heal itself. Report an error in the passage at 51:19
51:35 But then we can ask, all right, what are the infections of the mind that allow a wound like, Jack, you're such a dope? Or that's pretty trivial, but sometimes not so trivial. Tragedies strike, adversity strikes. People are harmed in a variety of ways. What are the tendencies of the mind that are the dust and the dirt that swirl up in the mind that keep the mind ruminating, that keep the mind anxious, get the mind caught up in resentment and so forth and so on? Report an error in the passage at 51:35
52:04 They are called mental afflictions. Mental afflictions are exactly those tendencies in the mind that throw the mind out of balance, that afflict it, that disturb it, that agitate it, that give rise to misery and anxiety. Fear and so forth. And so there's certainly, going back to the developmental approach, there's tremendous value in actively generating wholesome states of mind, such as loving kindness, compassion, renunciation, bodhicitta, generosity and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 52:04
52:38 There's just no question about it. It's very, very valuable to do that. And that's a developmental approach. And what the Buddha is getting at here is that's not the only way that virtue arises. By actively generating it, as if you don't have it, what thoughts can I think, what mantras can I recite, what visualizations can I do to arouse that which I don't have? Report an error in the passage at 52:38
53:00 Okay, that's a developmental approach. Or here's the other approach, how can we just get the mind off of, disengage it from these afflictive tendencies that we're bringing to every situation and focus on something where the mental affliction don't arise, not even dullness, not even excitation. And so just be focusing with stability and clarity and a sense of relaxation on an utterly neutral object like the breath, but in the absence of all the mental afflictions coming in and dominating, infecting and damaging the mind, that the mind is allowed to heal. Report an error in the passage at 53:00
53:40 And so it's a very fresh, complementary perspective on the developmental. And I'd have to say for the first 20 years I was exposed almost entirely to the developmental. And I'm tremendously rich, and I've never even one smidgen abandoned it, but I must say I'm really delighted to see that now there is this complementarity of the discovery that we don't have to do all the hard work for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 53:40
54:04 If you get a paper cut, you don't need to find a brilliant plastic surgeon to try to fix it at, you know, $500 or $1,000 an hour. It actually will fix itself if you just get out of the way and allow it to heal. And likewise we don't need to apply individual antidotes and fix individually with specific remedies every affliction and destructive emotion and so forth that arises in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 54:04
54:29 Keep the mind clean and the mind has a capacity for healing itself. And so that is a powerful theme and it runs through the Buddhist teachings on mindfulness of breathing. And we're going to take a break now, but we'll see as we look in the notes, I'm on page 7 by the way, the Buddha's four verse or four phase description of the practice, which is complete, to return to this in the Mahāyāna, it comes back to it in the Vajrayana, that the practice all the way through is very, very simple. Report an error in the passage at 54:29
55:05 And it's really paradigmatic of a discovery approach of allowing the mind to heal in very, very splendid ways. And allowing virtue to naturally arise from the nature of the mind, rather than being actively generated by doing virtuous things. So again I want to emphasize a complementarity here. This is not, oh, the developmental approach isn't working so well, so let's do this one instead. But rather they are utterly complementary. And all schools of Tibetan Buddhism actually embody both. Report an error in the passage at 55:05
55:34 So the Galupa school is not just 100 % developmental. The Nyingmar Dzogchen is not 100 % discovery. Just sometimes more emphasis here, more emphasis there, but all the way through. There is some degree of balance. And then we have these varieties for different people with different proclivities. So, there's a short introduction to mindfulness of breathing. But we see mindfulness of breathing hardly needs any introduction at all. There's not a whole lot to be said about it. Report an error in the passage at 55:34
56:02 Breathe in, breathe out, be mindful of it. I mean, really, there's not much more complexity to it. I will give more nuance to it. But what the real import of all of this is about. It's not, oh, we've learned something incredible about Buddhism and that was some great, something from Theravāda Buddhism, this was from Mayana Buddhism. We're not really learning that much about Buddhism per se. Report an error in the passage at 56:02
56:23 The method is so simple. It's almost like, that's it? Report an error in the passage at 56:23
56:31 What? That's it? Just that? That very little we're learning from outside. Where the bright light is being shown is what actually we're bringing to the teaching and not what we're getting from the teaching. Report an error in the passage at 56:31
56:45 And that is, this is the capacity of your own body and mind. And then we can ask, what am I already doing that's blocking that extraordinary healing capacity that I already have? And the shamatha answer is really simple. What you're already doing that's really blocking that healing capacity of your own mind is called obsessive compulsive delusional disorder. Report an error in the passage at 56:45
57:06 That tendency, or psychologists just call it rumination. Just getting caught up habitually in rumination. That's just the dust and dirt that's swirled up. And it really does inhibit, not only block it, but it can give rise to so much stress that actually continues to erode and undermine both your physiological immune system as well as your psychological immune system. Report an error in the passage at 57:06
57:29 So shamatha is really coming in as a remedy, a healing agent, to overcome this very strong habitual tendency that was prevalent at the time of the Buddha in rural India 2,500 years ago, but is now rampant and endemic. In the modern world. So if this was good 2,500 years ago, then it's really what the doctor ordered now for people living in modernity. So that's it. Report an error in the passage at 57:29
57:51 So by my clock, let's say it's about, oh, five minutes still. So let's come back at 10 minutes past the hour and go right back to the practice, explore a bit more deeply. Report an error in the passage at 57:51
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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ShamathaRetreatWithAlanWallace2012. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Recorded at Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, and archived by the institute on Internet Archive. More from Vajrayana Institute