← B. Alan Wallace

Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 13)

B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 1 h 4 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 0:50

    That is a theme of really primary emphasis, deeper, deeper relaxation. Letting go, pushing the envelope of relaxation. And then where's the balance? Without losing clarity.

  • 6:01

    And so when I think of that, I think of three basic food groups of Dharma, all of which are really indispensable and no rounded diet is rounded if it misses any one of them. And so the first of these would be indeed, call it by whatever name, but some, and we're speaking just meditative practice, so there's many other aspects of benevolence, of philanthropy, of generosity and so forth, the way our... Dharma practice manifests in life as parenting, friends and so forth and so on. But if we just focus on the meditative practice, then that one niche within one spiritual practice, a very important one, but certainly not the whole thing.

  • 19:01

    If we put this into a category, then the category from the Tibetan would be nyam, N-Y-A-M. If there were an English word, I'd use it, but we don't really have it. And then nyam, N-Y-A-M, this will come up a lot later, is an anomalous psychological or physiological experience, symptom, something that is transient and it's catalyzed by proper meditative practice. There's all kinds of things that can happen because we're practicing incorrectly, with too much ambition, tightness and so forth, and all kinds of bad things can happen.

  • 35:11

    But in Buddhism, it really focuses down to Pratita Samadpada. And I'm going to finally kind of try to round this up and bring it to a real point. Pratita Samadpada, Dependent Origination. Jack, Betrayed my confidence, exploited me, robbed me and then took delight in it and treats me as kind of a sucker because he got away with it and I was too stupid to ward it off. All of that is a rising independence upon causes and conditions. And there is no autonomous Jack who's standing apart from his body and mind and making his independent free choices.

  • 1:01:04

    That's the nature of the practice. It's very healthy. Good. All right. So, tonight, I think time for homework again. When you get into bed, again, when everything's finished, breathing teeth, everything you want to do, and it's really time, then get under the covers. I would encourage, once again, the supine position there. And then bringing the awareness again, always bring it out of the head. Out of the head. Because we tend to spend so much time there anyway.

0:06 I mentioned that during our eight-week retreats in Phuket, people have 22 hours a day on their own to establish their own rhythm, their own discipline, how much they wish to meditate, how long their sessions are. So they're really taking charge of their own practice, which means that those two hours that we're together, that's really to facilitate the other 22 hours rather than trying to dominate the waking hours. Report an error

0:30 So in a little bit in a similar vein, what I'd like to do now is have two totally silent sessions. So you'll be, I invite you to choose which method. So we pretty much have two methods thus far. Full body awareness. And it is helpful to recall just the absolutely key theme. In this full one, full body awareness, you know about it. Report an error

0:50 That is a theme of really primary emphasis, deeper, deeper relaxation. Letting go, pushing the envelope of relaxation. And then where's the balance? Without losing clarity. That's the very gist of it. And then if you want to go to the abdomen, that can be with or without counting, as you wish. But now why are we doing that? Report an error

1:10 Why are we focusing there? Why would we introduce the counting element? Primary emphasis, what are we explicitly working on? Stability. Maintaining that continuity, moving from 2 seconds to 10 seconds to 20 seconds without losing our minds or without falling under coarse excitation. So that's what it's for. But then where's the balance coming in? Report an error

1:30 Don't get there by contracting, by tightening up. Don't get there by relinquishing or at the cost of the sense of looseness, of ease and relaxation. So between those two, those would be kind of the primary choices. So let's have two silent sessions. I'll just be the timekeeper. And then being your own mentor, and you may give yourself a commentary, coaching yourself in the midst of the session as you wish. Report an error

1:54 Then if you find... Some uncertainty as you are guiding yourself in the meditation. Then that's what we have our discussion time for. As you are trying to guide some questions, some uncertainty arises. Good. That's what we'll have the final hour for, to try to bring greater clarity so that you have more and more confidence. So in terms of an overall progression, by engaging in like a six-day retreat like this and then going home and practicing, some of you may feel the confidence and the inspiration. Report an error

2:22 Oh, it'd be nice to do a longer one. An eight week maybe, sometime. And then you go there, and on the basis of that, some people might feel, ah, I'd like to go off and achieve shamatha. I'd like to spend six months in retreat. But the chances are, at least for the time being, you won't be with a teacher. Because I'm traveling all over the place like a bee. And so you may be kind of on your own. Report an error

2:43 But what I found generally now, it's over 20 people, is that if they do spend eight weeks in retreat, 22 hours a day on their own, then if they choose, I don't encourage them. If they choose, then I help them. I'm there to assist them, but not to try to push them. But if they go into solitary retreat from that to actually achieve shamatha, by and large, in fact, there's hardly any exceptions. Report an error

3:05 People go off into solitude and they actually do have that confidence. So six weeks can give confidence to eight weeks. Eight weeks can give confidence to just going for it. And generally, the people who are in long-term retreat, they contact me about once a month. And that's quite sufficient. Report an error

3:22 There's overall, but the theme of growing confidence based upon your own experience, I think that's got to be good. So, let's have two silent sessions. I'll be each, of course, 24 minutes. Have a little stretch in between. Report an error

· · ·

4:42 Questions or comments? Insights or observations? Yes, we'll start with your name for everyone. Hello, Alan. Thanks very much. It's Betty Rose. I have a general question. If you hold the microphone right towards your mouth. I have a general question. If you were to create a gourmet banquet using the various practices and meditations such as shamatha, vipassanā, loving kindness, what would be an entree, a main course and a dessert? Report an error

5:20 I'm just going to go ahead and override your question by phrasing it just in a little bit different way. But number one, I really like the metaphor of food. And it crops up a lot in Dharma, in traditional discourse, and I like it a lot because food is sustenance and frankly so is Dharma. It's sustenance to enrich, to nurture, to provide nourishment for a meaningful life. Report an error

5:45 So it really is kind of food. When I think of, maybe I'm more of a farm boy than a gourmand, but I tend to think more of a balanced diet rather than what's just the most tasty and delectable. And so when I think of that, I think of three basic food groups of Dharma, all of which are really indispensable and no rounded diet is rounded if it misses any one of them. Report an error

6:15 And so the first of these would be indeed, call it by whatever name, but some, and we're speaking just meditative practice, so there's many other aspects of benevolence, of philanthropy, of generosity and so forth, the way our... Dharma practice manifests in life as parenting, friends and so forth and so on. But if we just focus on the meditative practice, then that one niche within one spiritual practice, a very important one, but certainly not the whole thing. Report an error

6:40 In that regard, three basic food groups, and one of them by whatever name would be shamatha. And that is, if the mind is dysfunctional, if the mind is not serviceable, if it's oscillating between excitation and laxity, then it's just not very useful for anything. So something, whatever it may be, and I'm not referring to any method, but some type of practice that really does enhance the sense of ease, of relaxation of body and mind and the stability of attention, the vividness of attention. Report an error

7:10 Whatever it may be, whether it's Jervish dancing or whether it's reciting mantras or listening music, but whatever, something has to address those issues because contemplatives throughout history, East and West, have recognized that this I referred to it the other night in the lecture on what was it, Tuesday night I think, this, what did he call it, this inattentive dispersing mind. Report an error

7:32 Remember that phrase? I think it was from Theodore Weitz. Inattentive dispersing mind. That that's just not useful and one way or another we need to remedy that if we're going to have any meaningful and transformative contemplative practice. So, first of all, shamatha. Kind of an obvious one and very important but not sufficient. And then, Report an error

7:53 If the Buddhist premise is correct, and I'm quite convinced that it is, that the root of suffering lies in ignorance and delusion, ignorance not knowing reality, delusion getting it wrong, act of misapprehension of reality, then if that's true, or even if it's a little bit true, then some aspect of one's meditative practice really must entail the explicit pursuit of insight, of understanding, of wisdom, of knowledge. Report an error

8:20 And that can be in formal meditative practice, but it can also be in contemplative reading. So clearly, whether it's comic books, whether it's novels, whether it's newspapers, whether it's Dharma books, we may read simply for the entertainment of it, because we enjoy it. And some people, I think, it probably happens, just kind of through one Dharma book after another, that was a really good book, and wham, into the bookshelf it goes, and oh, that was a good book, and wham, never look at it again. Report an error

8:44 But oh, that was interesting. A lot of interesting stuff, very well written, as if we're literature gourmands. And looking at Dharma just as aesthetic quality or entertainment quality or intellectual appeal. That's all very well, but it's kind of missing the whole point. And so contemplative reading is a phrase I like. Where we're reading, but we're taking our time, we're bringing it in, we're reflecting, we're seeing how it may be relevant to our life, our understanding of reality. Report an error

9:11 So whether it's reading, whether it's quietly reflecting, or whether it's meditation, one indispensable food group will be meditation's For the cultivation of wisdom. Understanding, knowledge, insight all in one package. So, so far so good I think. But then there's something kind of obvious for its absence and that is the explicit cultivation of the heart. Report an error

9:36 And that is okay. And here I think of it really like a cross. A Christian symbol with a vertical axis and a horizontal axis. And one requires faith or intuition or belief, call it what you will. So we'll go there first, why not? And that is in Buddhism. We don't need to believe in a god. We don't really need to believe in reincarnation. But if there's no sense at all of the reality of liberation, of nirvāṇa, of enlightenment, I don't really know why one would call oneself a Buddhist. Report an error

10:05 The Buddha was a really swell guy. Okay, that's very well. Then you think he's a swell guy. The sense of taking refuge in the enlightened one, the one who has achieved purity of mind, boundless compassion. This is clearly something beyond something we know directly from our own experience, otherwise be already there. Report an error

10:23 But that sense of taking refuge in Buddhism, now for a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, really the linchpin there is God, right? God, the son of God, the Trinity. But there would be the vertical axis. Well, in Buddhism we don't need to believe in God and there's a lot of, well, what do you mean by God? Is it? And so forth and so on. But in place of that, liberation. Report an error

10:46 Liberation. That is something transcendent. And so having... And that can manifest in devotion. And so that's what I'm not just believing in liberation. I mean, that would be more like an ontological stance. But looking upon the history of Buddhism, starting with the Buddhist Yaki Nune himself, And then these other extraordinary adepts, and one learns or reads about their lives and how they engage with the world, what they offer in terms of their writings, their teachings, and so forth and so on, there may arise, there may arise a sense of something beyond respect. Report an error

11:20 I respect Newton, I don't have reverence for Newton. I think he has a spectacular intellect with maybe the greatest scientist of all time. I've read a lot about Einstein. I have a lot of respect for him, both as a human being and, of course, his physics goes without saying. But I wouldn't say reverence. I mean, it's respect. Report an error

11:38 But when it comes to somebody like Tsongkhapa or Padmasambhava or Nagarjuna or Asanga or Shantideva or the Penjana Machi and Dujjom Lingva and so forth, then for me it's just off the charts. Of course it's respect. I mean, their writings are brilliant, they're intellectually engaging and so forth, but it goes beyond that. Report an error

11:58 Here's the word, it's sacred. Their writings are sacred. They're not only brilliant, but they're sacred. There's something noble, there's something, there it is, there's the one word, sacred. So I think the sacred is the vertical axis. And it's not just reincarnation, that's not sacred. That either happens or it doesn't. But in that sense, I think religious people around the world, including Theravāda Buddhists and Taoists and so forth, there is a sense of the sacred, an honoring of the sacred, a reverence, a devotion towards the sacred. Report an error

12:28 Whether embodied in a human being or in Tara, an embodiment of enlightened sacred compassion, the sacredness of the Dharma itself that it is a sublime kind of reverence to, strong emotion that arises in a deep commitment to, a reverence for, taking refuge in Dharma and Saṅgha. So that's one cultivation of the heart on a vertical axis. Report an error

12:54 And I think I found the word that really I resonate with. It is sacred and it has to do with devotion and reverence. And there's an enriching quality there, a deepening quality there, that makes the heart and the mind receptive. There are a number of cases where, I think in Shantideva's other text, the Compendian of Practices, he says, faith is the mother of all virtues. Faith is the mother of all virtues. Report an error

13:18 And he's not just referring to belief. We can believe all kinds of things that are not the mother of virtues. This faith in the sacred. And not only external, of course, in Buddhism. It's never just external. But the sense of devotion or even reverence to one's own Buddha nature. So there's reverence there as well. This internal taking refuge. So that's the vertical axis. And that takes some faith, intuition, call it what you will. Report an error

13:43 And if it's not there, then you say, okay, that's not there. Okay, that's fine. No problem. Carry on. Continue with your spiritual practice. You can still have a balanced diet. Report an error

13:53 Because who can doubt, unless you're an absolute solipsist, who can doubt that we're surrounded by a world of sentient beings? And that every single one of them, like ourselves, wishes to be free of suffering, wishes to find greater happiness. And so in that regard, then the cultivation, for example, of the four immeasurables, loving kindness, compassion, empathetic, joy and equanimity, cultivating these qualities, I call them the sublime qualities of the heart. Report an error

14:17 That brings, and the whole point of this, whether it's the vertical or the horizontal, it brings a sweetness, a moisture, a warmth to the whole practice that without which it can be a bit arid, a bit dry, a bit austere. Report an error

14:34 Bringing these qualities, the deep devotion, the reverence, the faith, perhaps even worship. And then, whether or not what has that, if one doesn't, don't worry about it, carry on, maybe it will come. But here's something we can't doubt, and again coming to the horizontal axis, looking around, oh I'm surrounded here together, this great big family we call the world of sentient beings, and opening one's heart. Report an error

14:55 And the key point there, the common denominator among all the four measurables, is empathy. Loving kindness is this deep caring about the well-being of others, but where would that come from if there's no empathy? One wouldn't care. Compassion is the yearning that us may be afraid of suffering. is empathy. Report an error

15:13 But if there's empathy, that won't happen. Empathy, joy goes without saying. And equanimity is that even distribution, recognizing that however people appear to us, whether they're agreeable, disagreeable, attractive, unattractive, virtuous and non-virtuous, however they may appear, there's someone there fundamentally like our own that we resonate with. Report an error

15:32 And each one is deserving, each one is deserving of love and kindness and compassion. So bring in that element, and now I look at those three, in terms of sheer meditative practice. The shamatha, which is almost like enzymes, you can digest all other kinds of meditation, they really assimilate. The shamatha, make your mind servicial, and then the wisdom practice, and then the practice for the cultivation of the heart. Report an error

15:53 By the time I look at those three, a nice triad, I think, okay, in terms of meditative practice, I can't think of anything really important that's missing. Report an error

16:04 If you think of something, let me know, I'm ready to expand at the drop of a hat. But thus far, I can't think of anything really fundamentally missing in meditation. But then we say, well, that's just for meditation. That was a rounded diet, the gourmet meal and so forth for meditation. In which case one could say, if you wanted to put it that way, then the hors d 'oeuvre would be the shamatha. Report an error

16:24 It kind of freshens your appetite, gets you ready for the main meal. The main meal is wisdom and compassion. Report an error

16:32 But then one can say, well, is it meditation for the sake of meditation, for the sake of meditation? Is it kind of like inbred? Is it just for the sake of itself? And the answer for that is most explicitly in Mahāyāna Buddhism. I won't say exclusively, but most explicitly is why are we engaging in this meditation which is cultivation? Why are we cultivating the heart, the mind, the attention and so forth? Report an error

16:54 Well, we're doing this because of this sense, this empathetic sense of the interconnectedness of ourselves with all beings. So we cultivate within so that we can manifest without. And so this all comes to its fruition. Then, okay, I've just figured out the dessert. I was wondering, what's a dessert? What's a dessert? Report an error

17:11 The main meal then is the cultivation of the heart and cultivation of the mind, of compassion, of the heart and then the mind, wisdom and knowledge and so forth. But then where's the dessert? Where's the final flourish? Where's the grand finale? Because after all, we love dessert. And that's when you bring it out into the world. You manifest it in the world. Report an error

17:30 You share your wisdom, your compassion, share your sanity, your presence, your attentiveness. So that's the grand flourish. And when I had that 11 course, Report an error

17:42 meal at the, what, Japanese-French fusion restaurant, whatever it's called. You people know it. It's right here in Sydney. As I recall, I think there were three desserts. I mean, they the drum rolling. Okay? So there's your gourmand, gourmand meal. Very good. Report an error

18:03 There will certainly be time for both. Go ahead, please. Hi, my name is Brian and from time to time when I feel that I've relaxed Got into a new state of relaxation. I'll get the experience of twitching in my body. Yes, myoclonic spasms. And sometimes in the past it's been very violent, like my legs and arms and hips will be flailing about everywhere. Report an error

18:35 Very good. Glad to hear it. She's looking at me thinking, why did I have to sit next to this guy? She moves away a little bit to get out of target range. So obviously it's very hard to concentrate at that time. But what's going on there? Is it something I should be concerned about or just let it happen and eventually it will go or what? Very good. Very, very practical. Report an error

19:01 If we put this into a category, then the category from the Tibetan would be nyam, N-Y-A-M. If there were an English word, I'd use it, but we don't really have it. And then nyam, N-Y-A-M, this will come up a lot later, is an anomalous psychological or physiological experience, symptom, something that is transient and it's catalyzed by proper meditative practice. Report an error

19:28 There's all kinds of things that can happen because we're practicing incorrectly, with too much ambition, tightness and so forth, and all kinds of bad things can happen. But imagine that your practice is really quite impeccable. Number one, it's authentic teaching. It's sound practice. You've learned it. You've understood it correctly. You've implemented it quickly. Report an error

19:46 And then still weird stuff happens. That's called a nyam. And so these kind of spasms, jerks and so forth that can happen, especially in the limbs, but sometimes it can happen along the torso and so forth. That would be a nyam. And I've been witnessing, number one, I've experienced it myself. But many people I've taught, not all, but a very significant minority, have experienced this. And speaking with medical doctors, then if we look for a label from the western side, they're called myoclonic spasms or myoclonic jerks. Report an error

20:18 Either way, they're synonymous. If there's any concern, and this is a personal issue, if there's any concern, might this be a medical condition? Might this be, do you say, some kind of a... Report an error

20:33 A prelude to epilepsy. My answer is, to you, no, but I'm not a medical doctor. But if one has any concern, might this be a little bit of epilepsy? Might this be some kind of a physiological problem, an imbalance? If one has any qualms, then go to a doctor, because I'm not even remotely that, so I won't pretend to speak from that perspective. Report an error

20:53 I have no qualification. But if one sends, or you check with a doctor, and the doctor said, well, no, you have no medical condition, that happens. Don't worry about it. There's just nothing to be concerned about. And by the way, we're going to call that a myoclonal jerk. Then, you know, taking no offense that a person just called you a jerk, you go home. Report an error

21:14 But now, I don't really know. There may be a medical doctor. I'm sure they have something they can say that explains it. But I'll just come from the inside. In terms of first-person physiology, which I take very seriously, I take as seriously as my thoughts and emotions, which are also invisible to all scientific means of observation. Report an error

21:30 Well, so are prāṇa. They're also invisible, but a person who's meditated for a while can start to experience the pranas and the chakras pretty vividly, and they become as real as anything else. So in this regard, especially when you're starting to relax very deeply, really melt and have that kind of real, very pleasant unraveling quality, which is intentional, deliberate, and also, if you're practicing correctly, you're not just getting muggy and groggy and falling asleep, so you're doing the practice. Report an error

21:56 In that process, what happens is, first of all, What you're bringing to the meditation, you, generically, I'm not pinpointing you, is there are a lot of blockages in one's pranic system. Blockages all over the place. In the nadis themselves, like in the navel, the heart, the throat, the forehead and so forth. All kinds of blockages. And they are really impairing, inhibiting, blocking the realization of all that we can be. Report an error

22:22 The potential of the human mind and also this whole energy system. So it's blocked. And so when you get really relaxed and loose, Then, over the course of time, in these kind of spurts or spikes, there can be a breakthrough of kind of a melting, almost like a clogged artery, and then suddenly it gets unclogged and then the blood really flows, or an irrigation canal where it gets blocked, and then after a while the pressure builds up and then suddenly the water's really flowing right through. Report an error

22:50 Those are two pretty strong analogies. When that happens, when there's kind of a breakthrough or a breaking down of some blockage in the prāṇa system, Then you're going to experience a surge of energy. And that surge of energy may connect with your muscles. And then you have these twitches or spasms. Report an error

23:07 And it can be a whole leg. It can be an arm. It can be the torso and so forth and so on. And overall, when you said, then you saw my reaction. Oh yeah, number one, I know about these personally. I witnessed them many times. From meditation, again, when you really check, you're practicing correctly and you know you're practicing correctly. Report an error

23:25 Those two together. If it's coming out of that, then there should be just kind of a baseline confidence. What I'm doing here cannot be injurious to my body. Report an error

23:38 If you really have that strong... See, what we've done here is I didn't teach you some exotic breathing technique that might be really cool and profound, but then how do you know? I didn't teach you some exotic visualization technique of honing in and doing a very powerful visualization, which might be very good, but then how do you know? So I didn't teach anything mysterious here. Report an error

23:58 I'm not trying to insert into your body-mind system something alien from Buddhism or from India or Tibet, some kind of foreign import into a system like, what did he give me, like some kind of a spiritual drug or something. I didn't insert anything at all. You're already breathing. You already have mindfulness. You already have that ability. So you see what we're doing is we're not injecting anything toxic or alien into the system. Report an error

24:22 And what we're doing is really sensible. It's really sensible. And that is relax. How can that be bad? And relax while maintaining a clarity of awareness. Now exactly how can that be bad? How can that possibly be injurious? It seems like inconceivable. So if we have that root confidence, and that's exactly where I'm starting here, and we'll proceed step by step on a way that should be sensible all the way through, then if you have that confidence, and then you start developing these spasms and jerks and so forth coming out of that, you have grounds for considering This is weird. This is disruptive. This is hard to really remain focused when this is happening. But how can it be bad? This should not be injuring my system. Report an error

25:06 This can't injure my system. And so if you have that confidence, then when you go to it now, let's assume everything I'm saying is true, may or may not be, but let's assume for the time being, then what do you do when it happens? Relax around it. Don't worry if you just suddenly got, you know, it's like having a car backfire in the neighborhood and it kind of jolts you. Report an error

25:24 Okay, so you got jolted. Big deal. Come right back to the practice and then relax around it. Melt into it and melt into it with confidence that this has to be a good thing. And when I've experienced that, kind of a spasm or jerk and then melting around it, when I get off the cushion, the whole system feels mellower than it did when it got on the cushion. Report an error

25:47 So that's got to be a good thing. Okay? If when you get off the cushion, the whole system feels tighter, constricted, knotted up, bound up, Probably doing the practice incorrectly. And then you won't have the myoclonic jerks. Because I'll bet you the myoclonic jerks will happen more when you're deeply relaxed and not when you're trying too hard, pressing down, getting frustrated and so forth and so on. Report an error

26:06 They don't happen. That's when you're creating the blockages and not unraveling them. Okay? So, very good, very practical. And then right to your right. Report an error

26:23 My name's Eugene. Eugene? Eugene. Yes, thank you. Just referring back to your response to Betty Rose's question, in particular the main course. Yes. And when you got that beautiful response, the question arose in my mind, does forgiveness play a role in Buddhism at all? That does. Does forgiveness play a role in Buddhism at all? That's a very interesting question. Yeah, a very interesting question. As we know, it's so prominent, so beautifully central, or at least prominent in the Christian tradition. Report an error

26:55 And overall in the Abrahamic or the Western theistic tradition, it's quite strong. But Christianity, really very prevalent. And there's one organization I've had a lot to do with over the years called the John Fetzer Institute, the Fetzer Institute based up in Michigan in the United States. And they fund very interesting research. They're willing to go kind of out on a limb. They funded research on subtle energies, for example. And yet they've also funded Richard Davidson doing very mainstream neuroscience. Report an error

27:24 They funded me on occasion. They helped to fund the, in big time, major way, funded the Cultivating Emotional Balance research, the scientific research on that. So they're really quite open to things that are not just absolutely mainstream. And I know, if you check them out, Google them, check out their website, the Professor Institute, they're pouring a lot of money into understanding forgiveness. Report an error

27:48 It's something that, who can be really against it? For starters, it's clearly a virtue. It's one of the virtues like compassion and generosity, compassion, loving kindness and so forth. It's a virtue. As such though, by that name, there's a lot of terms from Christianity or Christianity or simply modern virtue theory, Aristotle and so forth and right on through the centuries, that we can translate right over into Buddhism and find, oh yeah, there it is. Report an error

28:15 Generosity, equanimity, compassion, love. Wisdom and so forth. Oh yeah, translate, translate. Then you look for forgiveness. Where is that? Where does that crop up in classical Buddhist literature? Not in moderners trying to bring Buddhism into the 21st century. Where do you find it in Shantideva? Where's the word forgiveness and Nagarjuna and the Pāli Canon and so forth? And there is no term for it. Not just a nice neat one-on-one translation like Nying Jai, compassion, nailed it. Report an error

28:43 That's it. Got it. And so now why? There's a really interesting question. Why? And then if you know any Buddhists who are really, you know, who really have devoted themselves to the practice for years or decades. So you say, yes, this is a really truly practicing Buddhist. A lot of people give lip service to it, like there are people, lip service Christians and so forth. But if you find one, and you may have by now found really dedicated, then is this person, is this a forgiving person or is this person because Buddhism doesn't have a big... Report an error

29:14 Word for forgiveness, kind of just holding it and resentful and never forgiving and never give an inch and grudge holding. And I know a lot of really good Buddhists and they don't do that. They don't do that. And yet they don't use the word forgiveness. And now this gets more interesting, doesn't it? The plot. And so where it comes up, you want to find, okay, well, do they ever address the issue? Report an error

29:38 First of all, what's the opposite of forgiveness? Holding a grudge. Vengeance. Resentment, intolerance, contempt and so forth. Well, if you want to define some kind of a nest in which these issues are addressed, then go to the sixth chapter, the patience chapter of A Guide to the Vedasattva Way of Life. Report an error

30:03 Shantideva, classic, the most studied text in all of Tibetan Buddhism. And it's all about patience, forbearance, fortitude. Well, then you'll see what you, how... How, if you're following the bodhicitta way of life, if another person wrongs you, a person slanders you, treats you unjustly, exploits you, lies, steals, destroys, this actually comes up explicitly, if someone from outside comes and destroys your temples or destroys your sacred statues, how should you respond? Report an error

30:34 An eye for an eye? What do you do? And so clearly, this whole theme of what we would call forgiveness crops up all over the place. And the response is, patience. Acceptance, non-vengeance, compassion, but they don't use the word forgiveness as such. Now that is one of the meanings of this term kshanti, kshanti in Sanskrit, which we translate as patience, fortitude, forbearance. Report an error

31:03 But again, why doesn't it come up? And I think this is the reason. Now, everything I think I said thus far is just true. I mean, it's just good objective statements as a Buddhist scholar. This is what I found. Report an error

31:13 But now why don't they have the word, they, Sanskrit, Tibetan, classic literature? Because I'm a translator for now, gosh, 35 years, I've been translating a lot of texts. And why is it not there? And here's my speculation. That's all it is. I could be dead wrong. But as a translator, for some decades now, that if Report an error

31:40 it's hypothetical Jack, because I don't particularly want to point to any person here, Jack. Jack has treated me really badly. He's cheated me. Big time. Really cheated me. Betrayed my confidence. Treated me. Exploited me. Robbed me. And never apologized. Never took it back. Just got off scot-free. Ha ha ha. I got his money. I win. You lose. Sucker. Like that. That can give rise to some real resentment. Report an error

32:11 So now, Report an error

32:15 as a practicing Buddhist, if I look at this situation, how to attend to it? Well, forgiveness tends to be based upon The notion there's an individual there who has free will, freely chose as an agent, a rather autonomous agent, who has free will, chose to deceive me, to rob me, to exploit me, and then afterwards took satisfaction. Report an error

32:45 And that individual agent, that autonomous agent, never even felt sorry. All right, you've really treated me badly, but nevertheless, I'll forgive you anyway. So the sense that he acted as an autonomous agent, I'm identifying him as an autonomous agent, but in the benevolence of my heart and with the spirit of forgiveness, I may go back to Jesus, okay, Father forgive him, he knows not what he do, what he did, what he does, what he is going to do. Report an error

33:16 He's acting out of ignorance and therefore I forgive you because you in some way you really are ignorant. So that's, I think there's a lot of Christianity in that way and I say that with respect. But the notion of there being free will, an autonomous agent, which is pretty prevalent, pretty prevalent in the theistic traditions. That's the one that goes to heaven or hell, that autonomous agent who's ultimately responsible for our conduct, makes free choices. Report an error

33:44 The notion that we are imbued with free will and we are autonomous agents, nowhere to be found in Buddhism. It's subtle though. If you think I just said we have no free will and therefore it's all deterministic, absolutely wrong. Absolutely wrong. Buddhism is not deterministic. The Buddha refuted that explicitly, that we're just pre-programmed robots and we just bump around like billiard balls, mindlessly just acting out of cause and effect and all pre-programmed. Report an error

34:11 Absolutely not true and the Buddha explicitly refuted that. But are we then therefore autonomous agents who have free will that stands outside of the nexus of causality? And then makes choices for which we are ultimately responsible as autonomous agents. That also not. So there's a middle way here that is very slender. So rather than having this sense of forgiveness, I as an autonomous agent viewing you as an autonomous agent and I forgive you, which would be one way of viewing that. Report an error

34:40 And why? Because God forgives you and God is another autonomous agent. And so God forgives you, therefore I forgive you. We're all children of God. And this has worked very well for a lot of people. So I'm not going to come around and slam it. This worked very well for a lot of people. But it's not the Buddhist view. Number one, there's no God out there forgiving people. The Buddha doesn't forgive us because we're not offending the Buddha. Report an error

35:00 So there's no question, oh Buddha, please forgive me because he's not God. He doesn't punish. He doesn't reward. The Buddha's an enlightened one that tries to help people find liberation. Report an error

35:11 But in Buddhism, it really focuses down to Pratita Samadpada. And I'm going to finally kind of try to round this up and bring it to a real point. Pratita Samadpada, Dependent Origination. Jack, Betrayed my confidence, exploited me, robbed me and then took delight in it and treats me as kind of a sucker because he got away with it and I was too stupid to ward it off. Report an error

35:29 All of that is a rising independence upon causes and conditions. And there is no autonomous Jack who's standing apart from his body and mind and making his independent free choices. No one's ever found such a Jack. There's no empirical evidence for such a Jack. Jack is someone who's a rising independence upon conceptual designation, designation based upon... Report an error

35:51 A body, a mind, an environment that's constantly in a state of flux. So Jack does exist. Jack does make decisions. But to say that Jack has freedom of will as something autonomous and outside of the nexus of causality, no evidence. And so rather than me forgiving Jack from autonomous agent to autonomous agent, it's recognizing that Jack is part of my mandala. Report an error

36:15 I'm part of Jack's mandala. I've just received some ripening of my own karma here. So I actually contributed to it in past lives. Jack's mental afflictions, his greed, his ignorance, maybe his desperation, maybe his fear of poverty, maybe, maybe, maybe all kinds of factors are playing in Jack's mind. Report an error

36:33 How did I engage with Jack? Did I arouse some kind of antipathy that he felt I should be, that I really kind of deserved what I was getting? Because he seemed quite happy about it. And so we're looking at a complex mesh of dependent origination. In which I'm a participant and not simply 100 % victim. He's a participant and not 100 % victimizer. We're in this play here that is all woven together. Report an error

36:58 And there is a person over there, there's a person over here, but all of one of mutual interdependence. And so therefore as I shed bright light of understanding of this whole causal nexus that gave rise to this scene of my being exploited, then I see that sharp target. Of Jack who needs to be forgiven, or maybe I won't, has dissolved. And there's no target, there's no autonomous person there. Report an error

37:22 I will forgive you. But rather, this is what happened. And Jack will now experience the consequences of his actions. And in Buddhist understanding, they're not pleasant. If you rob somebody, you treat them badly, you injure them. We don't need a God out there. It's just, consequences will happen. And so then, Compassion is actually the realistic response. Compassion is a realistic response. Especially, I mean, one can spend a whole evening on this. It's such a rich question and a rich topic. Report an error

37:55 But I think I'll end on this point. And that is, none of us, none of us chooses to have a mental affliction. None of us wakes up in the morning with no delusion, no craving, no hostility. Looks around and says, gosh, I'm bored. I think I'll be deluded today. Or, I'm feeling so content. Gosh, let's have some craving. Report an error

38:14 Or, it's such a wonderful day, let's be really pissed off. We just don't choose it. We don't choose delusion, craving, hostility or any mental affliction. We may choose to act out of them. I choose to rob him. That's a choice. But I don't choose to become angry, choose to become greedy, choose to become dishonest or arrogant and so forth. Report an error

38:35 Don't choose those. They happen. And that's why I think right there is the reason. As we treat each other badly, we do things that may be called for forgiveness or for which we may seek forgiveness because we've acted out of mental afflictions but we didn't choose to be mentally afflicted. Report an error

38:52 They happen to us. It's like catching the flu or any other disease. And that's why they're called afflictions of the mind. They happen to us. And then when they get us in the grip and we're dominated by them, then we act out of them and we are responsible for our conduct. We are responsible for our conduct. Report an error

39:08 We are agents. We do make choices. We make responsible choices. We are responsible for them. So we're not getting off scot-free because we're not independent agents. But because we don't choose to be mentally afflicted, then anyone who acts out of or motivated by mental afflictions is above all worthy of compassion. Report an error

39:27 And that's something more than forgiveness. If I merely forgive you, or Jack, then okay, Jack, I forgive you. Now, be gone. I've forgiven you. What more do you want? You know? Not enough. So it's almost as if you bypass forgiveness and go directly to compassion. Report an error

39:52 Yes, please. And then we'll go right. But over here first. I have to give you some legwork. Claudio, on the opposite side of the room. Report an error

40:07 Say again? My name's Fiona. I still couldn't hear. Fiona? Fiona. Fiona. Fiona. Fiona. Oh, then I got it. Fiona. Yes. Sorry. I just have a question because... I'm just wondering what you do if you already have a practice commitment which you have to perform daily and how you integrate shamatha into that. I've asked my teacher before and he suggested placing it somewhere towards the end of the practice commitment after the full visualization. Report an error

40:37 But to tell the truth, in day-to-day life sometimes it's not very constructive because you're not very settled before you start and I think you need the sort of stability. And calmness before you start. Otherwise, your practice becomes quite formulaic. It's easy to do, yeah. Because I've had daily commitments now for 35 years and more. So I know what they're about. And I keep them every day. I'm just wondering what advice you have. Sure, sure. Report an error

41:09 I've heard, and I'm not even remotely a medical doctor, but I've heard that if you take enzymes before a meal, and living for years in India, my digestion took quite a wallop, so I take digestive enzymes to try to keep the system working. I've heard that if you take digestive enzymes, you should take them before the meal. And so that's what I do. And then get the system working, it's ready to digest, and then put some food into it. Report an error

41:33 Likewise, it kind of just makes common sense that before you begin a sadhana, Before you begin recitations, mantra recitations, visualizations, devotional liturgy and so forth, it kind of makes sense that first of all, you settle your body, your speech and mind in the natural state, that you are relaxed, you're stable, you're clear. Report an error

41:52 Otherwise, what are you bringing to it? Uptight, you know, agitated and dull, at least some variation of that, most likely, unless you're just walking around with a marvelous same mind all the time. And so, first of all, just to make the body, speech and mind serviceable makes really good sense. But then to linger there and to go a bit deeper into making the mind really quite calm, quite still, quite clear, stable, coherent, composed is a very nice word. Report an error

42:20 Composed. So that, and this is why in the conversation with Betty Rose, this is why this is the hors d 'oeuvre, the appetizer. So get your mind really composed. And now you're ready for the main course. Maybe it's a Genre Z sadhana. Who knows what it taught us, I don't know, whatever it may be. So that just kind of makes common sense, that you would make the mind serviceable, stable and clear, and then engage in your daily commitment. Report an error

42:45 Certainly I would encourage, if you're taking commitments, that you keep them, that shamatha is not competition, ever. And it is designed, and I mean it absolutely, 100%, it's designed to facilitate, to serve every other form of meditation. And it's in competition with none. How can it be? It makes the mind serviceable. Report an error

43:04 If I've understood, I'm going to interpret, because I don't know who your teacher is and I don't really need to at this point, I'm going to interpret what your teacher might have meant, because I have received a fair amount of teaching, I'm an old geezer by now, at least I'm trying to be an old geezer. Report an error

43:18 And that is, when I received the Soliness the Dalai Lama's guidance in my first retreat, 32 years ago, he taught me shamatha, a shamatha method, that was contextualized within the body of a sadhana. So it's a Vajrayana approach to To Samatha. If you do that, as you probably know, if you've studied Vajrayana, the state of generation, you probably know that there's a wide variety of ways of achieving Samatha, and one of them is to achieve Samatha within the context of Vajrayana. Report an error

43:50 Now, I'm not giving straight Tsongkhapa's approach, he's a master of this. I don't think he can be really refuted, I think he got it spot on. And that is we're looking at highest yoga tantra with the state of degeneration and state of completion, those two phases. Then we can ask question between those two stages, which is the appropriate stage? Report an error

44:08 If you want to achieve shamatha within the context of adriyana, which of those two stages is the time to achieve it? There's only one right answer. State of degeneration, not state of completion. State of completion is not designed to achieve shamatha. The stage of generation isn't designed to achieve shamatha. It's designed to do much, much more than that. But if you haven't achieved shamatha yet and you don't want to do it prior to, outside of the context of Adryana, then here's when you do it. Report an error

44:36 This is straight from the Dalai Lama. It's not my opinion. And it's classic. He's not just giving his opinion either. It's classic. And that is you have your sadhana. Well, how does the sadhana go? You take refuge. You take bodhicitta. You call it bodhicitta. And then whatever understanding you have of emptiness, you bring that to bear, you dissolve all impure appearances and all impure concepts, dissolve them all into emptiness. Report an error

44:59 All sounds familiar, yes? Then out of emptiness, out of this pure ground, then you arise, whether it's a self-generation or the generation of the deity in front of you, together perhaps with the mandala. And then there are the various aspects of it. I wanted to go into more detail, but you know them. And so you have... Report an error

45:16 Various aspects of the proceeding through the sadhana, at which point, sooner or later, you're just bound to come to the stage, when you've come to a certain completion within the sadhana, then there's a time for mantra. And then you recite mantra, one or more. Now what the Dalai Lama told me is, when you finish the mantra recitation, now rather than just zipping on and basically finishing off the sadhana, now is the time to pause. Report an error

45:48 You've just done the mantra. And however long you like, five minutes, fifty minutes, two hours, whatever it may be. But once you finish the mantra, now, now you go into shamatha. Report an error

46:00 That's when you go to shamatha. And you may practice one hour, two hours, five hours, whatever you like. But all of that, all that precedes it was to prepare you then for going into shamatha in the context of Adryana. Which means you're bringing to it your pure vision, your divine pride, your understanding of emptiness. Report an error

46:19 And all of that, that's what makes the Vajrayana approach to shamatha so powerful. If you can do it. If you can do it. If you really have bodhicitta, you've already aroused it. You have realization of emptiness, you've brought it to bear. You've cultivated divine pride, that's here. Pure vision, that's here. So this is loaded. Report an error

46:37 This is loaded. And you bring all of that into your shamatha practice. And then you sustain it. And once you've finished, however long you want to practice your shamatha within that context, then you... Bring the sadhana to an end and dedicate merit and you're finished. So that's the classical approach. Report an error

46:58 It's very difficult, that's quite true. Report an error

47:03 There's a microphone. I suppose one of the things I'm asking is, it's so demanding to reach Shantideva through this method. It is. Is it better to focus on trying to stabilize your mind and provide stability and clarity first and put less focus on the sadhana? Report an error

47:25 I will express an opinion. And I know that there are other opinions that are also very well, I think mine is well thought out, I don't think it's foolish, but I think there are also other very well thought out opinions that are different from my own. So I do not think that I have the only right opinion. I simply have my opinion that I stand by because it's the one that I find most compelling. And that is if we once again come back to the classic literature. Report an error

47:47 I mean, I'm really a classicist. I really adhere to, because that's where I have the greatest competence. For example, Tsongkhapa's Lamram Chamo, I was one of the, I don't know, dozen or so translators of his great exposition of the stages of the path to enlightenment. I was one of them. I translated half of the shamatha section, like ten years ago, a long time ago. But I have reverence for this text, right? Stages of the path, all sutrayana. Report an error

48:12 It's almost just about 100 % sutrayana. And that's where he really unpacks shamatha. It's scores of pages. It's a long treatment. And he unpacks it in detail. Really definitive presentation. Well, Gampopa. Gampopa, His Jewel Ornament of Liberation. Now we have two translations. The second one is very good. The first one is not bad. That's the lamrim for the Gagyu tradition. Samatha is right in there. And then you'll find other classic texts from the Nyingma tradition. Report an error

48:43 And Samatha is right there in the Sūtra, in the Sūtra section. I've translated quite a bit of Dzogchen literature by now. The shamatha comes very early on, before you get into Dzogchen and before you get into state regeneration and completion. I've translated one 400-page text from the Dzogchen tradition called the Vajra Essence. Report an error

49:02 He does a little preamble and it goes right into shamatha and vipassanā and then does state regeneration, state of completion, tummo and various very advanced practices and then into tekcha and chutgil and rainbow body but way up there towards the front. That's where the shamatha is found. So I think all of these masters, Jujum Lingba who composed that one, Sogkhapa, Gampopa, Sakya Pandita, the Lamde, the Lamde tradition of Sakya, it's the same thing. Report an error

49:27 The Samatha is found in the Sūtra section, prior to and as a basis for the Vajrayana. So people of the, just the massive intelligence and wisdom of a person like Sogkhapa, he's not going to put it there if he thought, well this is for Patsas. But if you're really serious, of course you're going to do it in Vajrayana. Report an error

49:46 He has this whole ngarim chamo, the stages of the path of vajrayana, of mantrayana. But shamatha is not highlighted there. It's there, but it's not highlighted. So I think these great masters from the Tibetan tradition, the Indian tradition as well, look, go back to Kamalashila, where Kamalashila, Bhavanakrama, stages of meditation. Report an error

50:07 Shamatha is there in the sūtra section. It's not in the vajrayana section. So I think what they're telling us here, this is not a very weird interpretation, is these great masters. Padmasambhava is the same. I've translated one of his classic dharmas called Natural Liberation. And it goes into various, various Vajrayana practices and of course into Dzogchen. Samad is way up towards the beginning. Right after the preliminary practices, goes right to Samad, then Vipassanā, and then all the esoteric stuff. Report an error

50:33 So we have Padmasambhava, we have the Sakya tradition, we have Gamboppa from the Kagyupa tradition, we have Tsongkhapa from the Galupa tradition. It's kind of looking like a consensus here, and that's not even counting the Indians. Shantideva, where is Samatha? In Sutrayana. Kamalashila, the same. And so forth and so on. So I think what they're getting at, so that's all fact again, now comes an opinion, that there's this and then the Buddha Shakyamuni himself in the Pāli Canon, there's Samatha right up front, right on the basis of ethics, boom, there's Samatha. Report an error

51:03 And then Vipassanā and everything else coming after that. That for the great majority of people who are devoted to the practice, to wanting to follow the path, achieve the path, reach the path, ascend along the path, the way that's bound to be most viable for most people is take it step by step and get a mind that's serviceable early on and then use that for everything rather than trying to leap up to a very advanced practice which is so demanding. Report an error

51:32 Do you have bodhicitta? Do you have realization of emptiness, pure vision, divine pride, some realization of Buddha nature? Okay, oh good, then you have all the ingredients. So if you're brilliant, if you're extremely well prepared, or if you're one of those people who's born as a prodigy, and there are quite a number in Tibet, just, you know, children that are like, they had the Mozarts of the spiritual world, you know. Report an error

51:55 There's one that was in the Gagyut tradition, Mingyudorje, Mingyudorje. He was born just mind-blowing. Dujo Lingba himself. I've translated a lot of his works now. He was having visions of Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal and one emanation of the Buddha after another as a child. He just had them growing up. Well, if you're born that way, then why would you mess around with Samatha? You're already totally immersed in the ocean of Adriana. Report an error

52:23 So, of course, you'd go there. You've got all the ingredients. But if you're not a prodigy, if you're not exceptionally gifted, then do it the old-fashioned way. As one master after another, these great towering peaks of all the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, they all teach it. And they all acknowledge it is possible to freshly achieve shamatha within Vajrayana. Report an error

52:42 But maybe what they're implying is, yeah, that's for the Mingyodurjis and the Tsongkhavas and the Karmapas and so forth who are coming in just so prepared that there's no reason for them to go back and just develop shamatha as something separate. Report an error

53:03 Over here, I have already pointed, I've chosen. Over here? We'll get there. We still have time. Well, not much time, but I already said I would choose you next. Yes, what's your name? My name's Maria. Maria, yes. Yes, and it relates more to what Brian was saying earlier, that this evening I also had a myoclonic kick, but this afternoon, more unusually, I felt my whole body and then it felt weightless, as if I was sort of not on the... Report an error

53:35 And I've never experienced that in my life and I'm new to practice, so do other people describe such things? Only the fortunate ones. I was just speaking with a wonderful monk. He is a monk, he's a Geshe. And he's the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Higher Tibetan Studies in Saranath. He's become quite a dear friend of mine, a very esteemed friend. Report an error

53:55 And he had long conversations with one Tibetan Geshe who had achieved shamatha. Everybody knew he had. When I went back to India for the second time in 1980, and I asked His Holiness, do you know anybody who's achieved shamatha? I can't even know that it's still happening. He said, oh yeah, there's this Geshe Nima. Report an error

54:11 He's from Ganden Shartse, I'm pretty sure. Ganden Manasseh University. And he achieved it. Everybody knew it. The Dalai Lama knew it. It was really quite public. And this Geshe I just spoke with a couple of weeks back when I was in India. He said he had long conversations with this man. And the man, describing his own experience, he said, you know, once you've achieved shamatha, you feel as if you can leap over mountains. Report an error

54:36 Your body feels so light. You kind of look at a mountain and say, I could jump over that. You can't. You know, you really can't. You're not a magician. But there is that buoyancy. And this has been reported generation after generation. It's just this is what it feels like. And so, coming back to Brian, you break through all the blockages. Report an error

54:58 And when you actually achieve shamatha, on that day, it will be a day, it will be an afternoon, it will be a memorable event, not kind of sometime last year. No, it was on that Tuesday. That's when you achieve shamatha. When you achieve it, then it's like a crescendo, a grand climax, like in a symphony. Report an error

55:15 The final grand da-da, boom, boom, boom, and then it's finished. What happens when you fully achieve shamatha is then there's just this full breaking down, full dissolution of blockages in the prāṇa system. And you just get this total free flow. Just total free flow. And it's said now that your energy system has become le suruma, serviceable. Report an error

55:40 And that's experienced together with physical bliss. And a buoyancy, a lightness, a suppleness, a malleability. And it surges up, you're kind of engulfed by this bliss. And then it tapers off and then you've achieved shamatha. But when you get off the cushion and you're out of meditation, you still maintain this kind of real quality of lightness of the body and a corollary of a lightness, a buoyancy of the mind as well. Report an error

56:04 So there's a real serviceability of your body and your mind. It's really physiological on a subtle level, as well as psychological, which of course it should be. But it's so interesting there because the two are so profoundly entangled, body and mind, and entangled by way of the energy system, the prāṇa system. Report an error

56:22 And that's what's getting really serviced here in the practice of shamatha and most explicitly in this practice of mindfulness of breathing. It happens in all shamatha practices. But the mindfulness of breathing is explicitly dealing with the respiration and that's explicitly connected to the prāṇa system. Report an error

56:39 So this tends to work very quickly on the prāṇa system, because you're attending right there with the breath, and with that whole mindful, gentle releasing of the breath, that has a very, very healthy impact on the prāṇa system. So, it's not uncommon. It's not uncommon, and it's a thoroughly good sign, but so is it a good sign to have the myoclinic jerks, because whatever needs to happen, that's manifesting. Report an error

57:01 And it comes back, and I think we will end on this note, and then the very first question will be the one that was lingering from night. Who was that that had a hand up? Good. It'll be the very first one tomorrow. Report an error

57:11 It really comes back to this, and it's a good note to end on. Because I think it's so important that when you're venturing into practice, do so with confidence. Do so with confidence. And if you look at the practice and say, okay, where was the weird part? Where was the part that I have to believe something that I think is dubious? If that's your foundation, your starting point, it's a bit wobbly. Report an error

57:34 It's a bit wobbly. Maybe it's the Lama who inspires you and says, well, he was so charismatic, so marvelous, what he said must be true. But then he dies. Or something like that happens. But if you're starting out, where you really start out with a sense of confidence in the practice. And number one, the sources are really good. That's not enough. But that's good. We've seen the sources. And then you look at it with your intelligence, with your sound judgment. And you say, yeah, there's nothing wrong with this. Report an error

58:00 This makes sense. If you proceed into it, and when you're doing it right, you know you're doing it right. And you know that it's sensible. It makes really good sense. You can have confidence in it. Then once again, as I said with Brian, Whatever comes up should be okay. So even if it's eruptions of emotions, strong emotions, and this is one of the big nyam that come up, strong emotions coming out. Report an error

58:21 There you are just watching the breath and suddenly steep sadness comes up, just wells up, just like a surge of sadness comes up. Relax around. How can this be bad? You weren't doing anything to damage your psyche or your body. So sadness comes up. Say, okay, hello, sadness, my old friend. Come on in and sweep right on through. I'm not going to cling to you. I'm not going to indulge in you. I'm not going to be afraid of you. Report an error

58:50 I'm not going to recoil. Come on in. Take your time. Sweep right on out. To have that kind of spaciousness and relaxation around it. And it could be some on occasion. It could be all kinds of things. It could be strong sexual urges arising up. Some sexual desire. And just saying, oh, that's arising. And try to relax around it. Just say, oh, that's an... Report an error

59:12 Maybe it hasn't come for a while, when it's older. I've seen this happen a number. Middle-aged women, women in their 50s or 60s, will be doing this practice and then getting really strong desire coming up. And even sexual bliss coming up. Menopause was yesterday, yesterday. And sexual bliss coming up. Not uncommon at all. Report an error

59:35 And it's not something, this by the way is not an advertisement. Now, now really come to Phuket. It's not an advertisement. It's not a pitch. It's just observing what does happen occasionally. But really weird stuff happens. It could be sexual desire. It could be sexual bliss. It could be sadness. It could be fear. Fear. And what are you afraid of? I don't know. Report an error

59:53 I don't know. No target. No object. But fear may arise. But if you come back and say, what I was doing cannot be injurious. It was not harmful to my system. Then what's coming up? Allow it to come up, let it be and let it flow right on through. And that's part of, so we have the breaking down of blockages of energy. How many of our emotions are blocked, stifled, packed down, repressed, repressed? Report an error

1:00:21 We're not even aware that we're suppressing it, gone down below suppression to repression. Well, what's repressed? That's going to come up. It could be rage, it could be anger, it could be all kinds of things. But you relax around it, let it flow on through. And then over the course of the time, what you're observing here, And it's really quite marvelous. I get quite excited. I've taught it so many times. But when you're just talking about it, you get so inspired all over again. You're watching your whole system heal. Report an error

1:00:46 You're watching it heal. You're watching toxins come out and cleanse and be purged. You're watching blockages break through and surges of energy. You're watching this kind of lightness. Oh, that's a good sign. Balance. That's an indication of balance. That's a good sign. So, there we are. That's the nature of the practice. It's very healthy. Report an error

1:01:08 Good. All right. So, tonight, I think time for homework again. When you get into bed, again, when everything's finished, breathing teeth, everything you want to do, and it's really time, then get under the covers. I would encourage, once again, the supine position there. And then bringing the awareness again, always bring it out of the head. Out of the head. Because we tend to spend so much time there anyway. Report an error

1:01:32 But now, when you've really called an end to the day, there's nothing more you need to accomplish today. Then bring your awareness out of the head, into the torso, down to the waist even, down to the belly, the abdomen, maybe even below, to the legs and so forth. But bring it down and then there's just that mellow releasing, releasing, releasing through. Report an error

1:01:48 While, as long as you can, very gently sustain the clarity. Sustain the clarity. And if you don't get drowsy, so this is the sweet thing of our not starting at 9 o 'clock, right? That if you get to bed pretty soon, you can really get slept out. And even if you wind up... Staying awake and meditating until 10 or 11 o 'clock because now it's just a little bit after 9. Hey, you don't have to set the alarm probably that we have plenty of time for sleep. Report an error

1:02:16 Just stay there until you find that drowsiness coming in. Then bring it to an end. Get your good night's sleep. But I've made this habit for years now that I pretty much always end the day in bed with meditation and it really helps for sleep. At the very least. And then as you become more adept, you move into the practice we'll start day after tomorrow, then you can start moving into that territory where you're actually falling asleep consciously. Report an error

1:02:44 And your whole sleep and dream state is getting lighter and brighter, dreams getting more vivid, dreams getting more lucid. And then you can start developing a 24-7 practice, which would be a nice place to go. But the first thing first, getting a good night's sleep. Getting enough sleep. Sleeping out. So you're really finished. That's a good idea. Report an error

1:03:04 And that's why going to bed, that's an old aphorism, probably a farmer's aphorism. Early to bed, early to rise makes somebody healthy, wealthy and wise, right? Well, there's good old folk wisdom in that. Getting to bed early, the monastic principle is, if you can, and the monks can, because they don't have any other demands on their time, good old-fashioned monks, they center the sleep around midnight. Report an error

1:03:26 If you need six hours of sleep, be asleep by nine. And then you wake up fresh as a daisy at three. If you need eight hours of sleep, And you're a monk and you don't have dinner obligations and all that kind of stuff. Bear in mind that electricity is a very recent event in human history. When the sun goes down, say, hey, it's dark, time to go to sleep. The Dalai Lama, I think, goes to bed at 8.30. He goes to bed really early, 8.30 or so, but then he's up at 3.30 in the morning, something like that. Report an error

1:03:54 So these are hypotheses, but I think there's some focalism behind it, early to bed, early to rise business. The monastic ideal of trying to center your sleep on midnight. But check for yourself whether you find yourself more rested if you're getting more hours of sleep before midnight rather than less. So it's an interesting issue. Report an error

1:04:12 But most important, get a good night's sleep. See you tomorrow morning, hopefully well rested. I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9 o 'clock. Report an error

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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.

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