Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 20)

0:10 So let's have one silent session following the method of your choice. Report an error in the passage at 0:10 Highlight the passage at 0:10

· · · silence, 1 minute

0:49 We have just a few minutes before five o 'clock. So here's a written question. Where will we find a teacher to obtain a one-on-one instructions on shamatha, just as I've described, preferably one that has already achieved it? Report an error in the passage at 0:49 Highlight the passage at 0:49

1:06 Well, first of all, you need to die and then be reborn in a pure land. That's one way of doing it. Hard to find. It's hard to find anybody who's even teaching it, let alone who's teaching it for a sustained period. Let alone one who's achieved it and will let anybody know. All of those compounded one on top of another. Report an error in the passage at 1:06 Highlight the passage at 1:06

1:28 One of the most accomplished yogis I've ever met was Gen Chambawandu. He actually lived on meditation pills for months on end, just little herbal pills. He didn't need to eat coarse food. He was really a yogi, like 35 years in retreat. And I got to know him. He's one of my teachers. And it was when I was up in retreat, he lived nearby in retreat. Report an error in the passage at 1:28 Highlight the passage at 1:28

1:49 I can't remember exactly what I asked him, but clearly the innuendo was, could you share with me any of your realizations, your attainments and so forth? I was kind of asking the $64,000 question. And he looked at me with just this incredibly happy smile and looked me right in the eye and said, I've got no realizations. Report an error in the passage at 1:49 Highlight the passage at 1:49

2:11 And that's normal. Ask the Dalai Lama, ask the Dalai Lama, Your Holiness, do you have bodhicitta? He said, oh no, I don't have bodhicitta. don't know. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

2:16 I have great aspiration to achieve bodhicitta, but I don't have bodhicitta. Do you have shamatha? Oh, no, no, no bodhicitta, no shamatha at all. Do you have realization of emptiness? No, some understanding, but realization? No, no, I don't. So poor Dalai Lama has been practicing all this time and didn't work out very well, I guess. And that's if we take them literally. Report an error in the passage at 2:16 Highlight the passage at 2:16

2:34 So this is just the rule of this is just normal. It's not to say that they never ever speak about the realizations. It's just that they'll do so in a very parsimonious way, only when they see it's really, really beneficial. But they never trumpet. They never just give public publications. Virtually never at all. And that's actually just part of an ancient tradition. You just don't talk about your realization, your experiences, unless you have a very, very clear sense that it would be beneficial. Report an error in the passage at 2:34 Highlight the passage at 2:34

2:59 But if there's any sense that it's kind of been coming out of, look at me, I'm something special, I, I, I, then just button up, you know, keep it yourself. Report an error in the passage at 2:59 Highlight the passage at 2:59

3:14 There aren't that many meditation teachers who've had a lot of experience and so forth. Who are staying in one place. That's a problem. Even for myself, you know, I'm not that experienced, but I have a little bit of experience. I'm zipping all over the world. But I do spend five months a year in Phuket, so we're doing these eight-week retreats. Report an error in the passage at 3:14 Highlight the passage at 3:14

3:31 I mean, clearly, you know, I don't think I'm misleading people. I'll put it that way. I say that triumphantly. I don't think I'm leading people astray. There is one, but I will mention one person. It's actually a Westerner. And she's English. She's been a nun for about 40 years by now. And I knew her 40 years ago. And when I knew her 40 years ago, we were both in our early 20s, I was very impressed by her back then. She was one yogini back then. And she's been an outstanding nun, a real yogini. Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

4:01 And she has very good experience. She studied under tremendous teachers, Dujum Rinpoche, Jinde Nobo Rinpoche, a number of Galupa teachers, Kaikupa teachers. She studied for seven years, trained in meditation in Thailand, under Buddha Dasa, Nachan Cha. Some really outstanding meditation masters in Thailand. Then she went off to Korea, studied for, I don't know, five, six, seven years in Korean Zen. So she's really been around the block. Report an error in the passage at 4:01 Highlight the passage at 4:01

4:26 She's a yogini. And she actually came to the fall retreat in Phuket with me and trained with Shammathu with me for eight weeks, coming in with an enormous amount of experience of her own. Her name is Ani Zamba. Ani Zamba, Z-A-M-B-A. And it was just wonderful having her there. She really adorned the whole Saṅgha. She lives in Brazil. I have her email address. And she's about to go into... Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:51 She's had a lot of problems with her health, with her back and so forth, but she's just a formidable yogi. And she's about to go into retreat, but she may be willing to come out enough to teach people. And she has about two square miles in north-central Brazil. So, if you're willing to head off to Brazil... Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:09 And trained with this woman, she's outstanding. She's really, really good. And she's had a lot of experience in shamatha, as well as Dzogchen and other practices. She's really very, very good. And then, of course, I don't really know exactly how much shamatha she's done, but I have tremendous respect for her. Denzin Palmo, the English nun, has her own monastery in the north of India. Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

5:27 She's very, very good. And the lovely thing about these two women is they stay in one place. I mean, they travel a little bit, but they live someplace. So that's a great advantage. Report an error in the passage at 5:27 Highlight the passage at 5:27

5:43 And then if, you know, if I were asking that question, just wanted to set out and really find, I mean Phuket's obviously a possibility, but apart from that, I'd probably go to India and start asking around. I went to Tibet in 1992, my first trip, to see after all of the demolition of Tibetan culture and especially its Buddhist heritage for more than 20 years, more than 30 years actually. Report an error in the passage at 5:43 Highlight the passage at 5:43

6:12 Whether there was still anyone, it was kind of a very cursory research expedition to see whether in Tibet, Eastern Tibet, Central, Western Tibet, whether there were still yogis who had achieved shamatha. I just was wondering how thorough was the demolition and the genocide. And I came away with quite a clear impression there were still some people back there who had achieved it. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:34 And I asked, and I asked some very knowledgeable people, and they said, yeah, it's rare, but people still do achieve it. But happily, Report an error in the passage at 6:34 Highlight the passage at 6:34

6:42 I've been in correspondence with the Holiness for 40 years now. He's my primary teacher. But over the last year or so, since a conference in Hamburg, a very good conference on mindfulness last summer, during which I gave the initial lecture, the keynote lecture, and then it's only Dalai Lama gave the concluding lecture. Report an error in the passage at 6:42 Highlight the passage at 6:42

6:59 It was wonderful. But from that time, then I wrote to him shortly thereafter, and I asked His Holiness whether he thought it would be a good idea to establish in India. Or at least in India, Bhutan, Ladakh, Sikhim, that area. Establish a retreat center, a long-term retreat center that would be specifically designated for the practice and achievement of shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 6:59 Highlight the passage at 6:59

7:21 And then don't stop there. Keep on going right into Vipassanā and proceed along the path. And I said, would that be worthwhile? And he said, absolutely, yeah, good idea. And then I said, where? And I'm kind of a romantic and I love mountains. So I was thinking Bhutan, Sikhim. Maybe Ladakh a bit dry, but still pretty austere, pretty impressive. And so I was thinking of these really romantic places. And his Holiness, and then I also thought maybe Mongolia, you know, they have a lot of support there. Report an error in the passage at 7:21 Highlight the passage at 7:21

7:47 There's land. They have land for a retreat center outside of Ulaanbaatar, the capital. His Holiness wrote back and said, when I asked him, okay, where should we try to establish it? He said, Bangalore. Report an error in the passage at 7:47 Highlight the passage at 7:47

8:00 Bangalore. Bangalore. Bangalore. Bangalore. Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:06 And I said, do you mean, actually I wrote back to him and said, do you mean Ulaanbaatar? He said, no, I mean Bangalore. Bangalore. It's in Karnataka state. It's in central, south India. And he really meant it. And I think actually for very good reason. I mean, it took a little while to sink in. But Bangalore is a very progressive city. It's in the Silicon Valley of India. Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:26 There's a lot of money there, a lot of entrepreneurship. More importantly, it's near thousands of monks and nuns. Binnur Monastery, the largest Nyingma Monastery, has I think 3,000 monks in it. There's the Seragand and Depong, they're all within eight, nine hours of drive, some closer I think. That's thousands and thousands of monks and nuns. And there's just lots of monasteries in that area. Report an error in the passage at 8:26 Highlight the passage at 8:26

8:47 The climate is very temperate. I was there, as you know, we were in pilgrimage together. That one day I took off, it was incredibly arduous, traveling down to Bangalore. It was to check it out. And there was December. Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

9:02 No, it was February, so midwinter, and it was just utterly pleasant. It was like 20 degrees, sunny, warm, pleasant. And in the summer, it's monsoon, but not very heavy monsoon, so it has a very moderate climate, which means utility bills will be really small. And so we checked it out, and a couple of, well, Ravi Verma, who organized our whole pilgrimage, he's just making that, like, I'm the quarterback, and he's the, in American football, he's the end. Report an error in the passage at 9:02 Highlight the passage at 9:02

9:26 I just threw him the pass, and he's running for the goal line, you know. Really try and do everything he can to set it up. And I think we'll succeed. And I asked him, after we kind of got the years in motion, I asked His Holiness, what would you like to be the focus of the meditation to be pursued in this monastery? Report an error in the passage at 9:26 Highlight the passage at 9:26

9:42 Or not monastery per se, retreat center. And he said, shamatha and vipassanā. Shamatha and vipassanā. So I'm actually optimistic. This really has the blessing, the endorsement of His Holiness. He said we can use His name. And we've already done some pretty professional... Preliminary investigation there. And go a couple of hours outside of Bangalore. You're out in the countryside. It's very open, spacious, rather clean. And we found a piece of land out there that would be big enough. Report an error in the passage at 9:42 Highlight the passage at 9:42

10:11 I think it's five or ten acres. And it's either adjacent to or surrounded by a national park or a national forest. So it's secluded, quiet. The cost of land is moderate. And so we tallied up the figures. What would it cost to create a long-term retreat center? For 40 people, 40 individual rooms, how much would it cost to purchase the land, to build it, would be about $2 million for 40 people. Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:42 Now we're talking Indian, so it's basic, but indoor plumbing, electricity, not much in the way of utilities because you don't really need heat and cold, just bear it, put up nets for mosquitoes. And then, I thought further, What we really need here is that all of the yogis who are coming there, I mean, if it's a person like you and me, we can pay our way. I mean, that's not a big deal. But if you're an Indian, if you're a Tibetan, then you go there, who's going to support you, right? Report an error in the passage at 10:42 Highlight the passage at 10:42

11:07 So we need something of an endowment. And I asked, what would it cost for nourishing, healthy, simple food? How much would it cost in India? Probably vegetarian, maybe a little bit of meat if you need it, but simple, nourishing, clean, healthy food. So no austerity, no starving, no bad health. I was told you can get by on US dollars, $5 a day. $5 a day in India. And I think it's reasonable. And then if you're a Westerner coming there and you want to have some surplus, well then good, have your relatives send you goodies. Report an error in the passage at 11:07 Highlight the passage at 11:07

11:40 So then I did the math. And that is to support 40 yogis who need full-time total support. 40 yogis at $5 a day for a year. How much are we talking about? How much does that cost to support 40 full-time yogis for a whole year? Ballpark, $80,000. So now at 4 % interest, how much is an endowment? $2 million. So for $4 million, you bought the land, you put up the structure and you got an endowment to support 40 yogis to go off and achieve shamatha and proceed along the path. Report an error in the passage at 11:40 Highlight the passage at 11:40

12:10 And a lot of these younger monks and nuns, they speak English. They already speak English. They're born and raised in India. So I think we have to be thinking ahead a little bit. That is, right now, if you really check out, you could ask Chujan Rinpoche. I would ask him. That's what I do. He's right here in town right now. If you could have an interview with him, say, Rinpoche, he's a very senior monk. Report an error in the passage at 12:10 Highlight the passage at 12:10

12:30 He probably doesn't spend enough time in any place to get sustained training from him. That would be my expectation. I don't know. But my guess is. But he's of that old generation. There are not many of them left. He probably knows. He probably knows, at least for the Galukha tradition. And then if you can find a comparably senior person, For the Nyingma, who knows really the lay of the land in Bhutan, Sikkim, India, you're probably going to find them there. Because the ones who are living in the West are just so busy and they're traveling around so much and doing so much teaching, they probably don't have time just to plunk down and give one-on-one, let alone having achieved it already. Report an error in the passage at 12:30 Highlight the passage at 12:30

13:04 Not that many people are even trying. That's the problem. They're going off doing three retreats in which maybe you do one month of shamatha. But you don't achieve shamatha in a month. You'd have to be a prodigy. Not many prodigies around. So not many people are trying. And then, as we found, and I've been watching this for, well, my whole life, my whole Dharma life, but also for the four years that I've been leading people in full-time retreat, so hard to just find, waiting for you, a conducive environment. Report an error in the passage at 13:04 Highlight the passage at 13:04

13:32 It's almost impossible. People find that one after another, just one place after another, goes south. I've seen this, oh, it's so, so sad. You know, just finding, all I want is a quiet place where I won't have to be harassed and noise and... Rattlesnakes and black widow spiders and rats and so forth and so on. We'll see later on what are the prerequisites of Shantide, the outer and inner. Report an error in the passage at 13:32 Highlight the passage at 13:32

13:58 And there it is. It's pretty simple. So hard to find. Incredibly hard to find. Unless you're just rich and you buy it. But not that many yogis are all that rich. So that means we just have to create it. We have to create it. And so there are a few people here and there. But you might need to speak Tibetan or then find a really good interpreter. Report an error in the passage at 13:58 Highlight the passage at 13:58

13:54 Just, where's the, Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:17 Because if they're that senior, they probably don't speak English. They were meditating instead of learning English. So that's that. But I think if we look ahead, you know, look five years down the road, ten years down the road, if we can really get momentum up, and we may get help from the Karnataka state and even the federal government of India. Report an error in the passage at 14:17 Highlight the passage at 14:17

14:33 They actually do this kind of thing, support retreat centers. Amazing that it is, but they do. So Ravi's quite optimistic. And then there are a lot of wealthy people in that area. So my feeling, this should be an Indian-born thing. The Westerners can come and catalyze it, but let the Indians and Tibetans run it. Let them do it. We'll step back and applaud, and then go to them for teaching. So my aspiration here, my vision of suggesting that to His Holiness in the first place, was let it be really heavily populated by Tibetans who have devoted their whole lives to Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 14:33 Highlight the passage at 14:33

15:01 And then, I already have liaisons with a man you met, Geshingama Samden, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Higher Tibetan Studies. He tells me that we can probably get visas for foreigners. Through the university, you'll come as a researcher or something like that. We'll pull some strings and be able to get long-term visas for Westerners, for foreigners coming in. Report an error in the passage at 15:01 Highlight the passage at 15:01

15:23 And then you can pay your own way, $5 a day, $10 a day, you know, we can handle that. But then you'll be surrounded by other people devoting themselves single-pointedly to Samādhi Vipassanā and set it up in an absolutely non-sectarian way. So it's not kalupa. It's not Nyingma, not Sakya, not Gelu, you know, not that, because Samatha isn't sectarian. It doesn't invite sectarian attitude. And so let it be something totally ecumenical. Report an error in the passage at 15:23 Highlight the passage at 15:23

15:46 But everybody's coming there to achieve Samatha, achieve Vipassanā and set out on the path. So that's the vision. And so, one in India. One in India. And then on the drive out here with Tony Steele, you know, Tony Steele, you have Kangaroo Island right here, just off the coast. And this very wonderfully heroic nun, Tenzin Sepel, She's been on retreat there for about two years, very persistent, just doing the hard work, all by herself. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a little cluster of fellow yogis and yoginis, a bit of group energy there. Report an error in the passage at 15:46 Highlight the passage at 15:46

16:19 And then, you know, if you can find some Lama, a Westerner, it doesn't make any difference, anybody's qualified, then correspond by email. You know, they have email there. So Kangaroo Island could turn into a real contemplative observatory, right here on your home turf. Or there's a friend of mine, Rachel Rose. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

16:35 who has gone to an eight-week retreat in Phuket, very dedicated. She was a nun for years. She's not a nun now, but very dedicated to Dharma. She'd like to set up an observatory in New Zealand. And she's looking for land. She has some money. She'd really like to offer it. But she's looking around, is anybody interested? Report an error in the passage at 16:35 Highlight the passage at 16:35

16:52 Or am I trying to set up something that nobody would come anyway? So we have these isolated people, Ani Zampa in Brazil, but hardly anybody really training with her intensely. And then Sepel... All by herself in Kangaroo Island. And then Rachel Rose, beautiful place on the North Island, on the West Coast. Gorgeous area. She can set up something there. Report an error in the passage at 16:52 Highlight the passage at 16:52

17:12 So it just takes people to say, oh, I'm not alone. And start congealing, creating these little clusters. And then if you don't have Lama nearby, well, they can get one-on-one by Internet or Skype. You can actually see and talk to the person if you have broadband. So I think we have to be kind of drawing on modern technology, but also think not what's good for the next month or two. Report an error in the passage at 17:12 Highlight the passage at 17:12

17:32 But start thinking about the next 5 or 10 years and thinking about the next generation. Because you and me, Betty, we could afford $10, $15 a day with no problem. A lot of us can of our generation. But I'm training people in their 20s. They don't have, in America it's $15 a day. $15 a day for food and utilities. We can do that. Report an error in the passage at 17:32 Highlight the passage at 17:32

17:51 If you don't have to pay any rent at all and you don't have to worry about, you're just not thinking about health insurance. So I'm supporting some yogis at that rate. At $15 a day. Well, again, you and I could support, we could afford that, but young people can't. You know, that's $5,000 a year, American. Well, it's not a lot if you have, you know, had a successful career, but if you're just starting out, you don't have that money. Report an error in the passage at 17:51 Highlight the passage at 17:51

18:11 So, how can we create suitable environments? How can we support such people? And then, the vision of the so-called International Shamatha Project is to establish one. Klaus Heben, sooner or later, he wants to establish one in Phuket. He just needs to get some income coming in from that $1 million he spent on the On the center there. Did I say 100 million? That's what I meant to say. He needs to get some income coming from that. He can't lose money indefinitely. But when he gets some income, then he wants to create a 40-room contemplative observatory in Phuket. Report an error in the passage at 18:11 Highlight the passage at 18:11

18:40 And for anybody 50 or over, you can get retirement visas. And you stay there indefinitely. 20 dollars a year, something ridiculously small. So Thailand is a real possibility. Easy, easy if you're 50 or over. A bit more difficult, but I think we can arrange it if you're younger. He's going to set that up, but we have to wait a year or two. But one in Thailand. Mongolia is going to happen. They have the land. It looks like a benefactor. They're going to create one. Report an error in the passage at 18:40 Highlight the passage at 18:40

19:05 But you have to be ready for 30 below zero in the winter. And then Brazil, Ani Tsongkhapa already has land, just waiting for yogis to come. And she's an outstanding teacher. Mexico is really roaring. They've got the land. They're building eight cabins right now. And so they're getting off. And they already have them filled. They have people lined up, ready to go, ready to launch. Report an error in the passage at 19:05 Highlight the passage at 19:05

19:26 We're trying to start something in Santa Barbara. It's a very expensive area, but we're hoping. And then England, there's one friend of mine. She'd like to start something in the UK. She'd really like to. She could succeed. Italy, they have something that could develop. It's kind of like sitting there, but not many people coming, you know, in Tuscany. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:47 So that's really the vision of a constellation of centers. Each one autonomous. No hierarchy. Nobody in charge. Nobody owning. If you own one, okay, you own it. But no idea that somebody's in charge in the hierarchy and like that. None. Everybody has their own place. They own it. They run it. But then through collaboration, through the internet, through password-protected chat rooms, then yogis in Brazil and in Mongolia and in India and Thailand and... Report an error in the passage at 19:47 Highlight the passage at 19:47

20:16 And so forth. They could be all collaborating with each other and sharing. And so if you don't have one, I think we have to be creative here and not give up. People who have achieved shaman nowadays are rare. They're not impossible. And why is that? The circumstances are rare. Very few conducive environments. Very few people practicing it really intensely until you... Report an error in the passage at 20:16 Highlight the passage at 20:16

20:35 Achieve it. No, they're doing all kinds of other stuff. They're doing Vipassanā but with no shamatha. They're doing Sazen, fine, but no shamatha. They're doing three-year retreats, great, but no shamatha. They're doing a million mantras of this and a million mantras of that, but no shamatha. It's all good, it's all virtue, but hey, what about shamatha? What about the path? And so, if you can't, if you look for, okay, where's the Lama that has achieved shamatha, will give me one-on-one, and you don't find it, you need to give up or say, okay, well now, what can we do? Report an error in the passage at 20:35 Highlight the passage at 20:35

21:03 Well, how about more reliance on Saṅgha? Finding the best teacher you can, who can give instruction, but then imagine a network of people who are well, you know, have a good grounding in Dharma, they're dedicated, good ethics, strong motivation, aspiration, all of that, but you have three here and five there and ten here and fifteen there and two there, but they're connected by internet, so then they can take refuge in the Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 21:03 Highlight the passage at 21:03

21:28 Because some of these people have already been practicing in retreat for four years. And gained a lot of experience. And dealt with so many obstacles and learned how to overcome obstacles. Environmental, psychological, health problems and so forth. They already have, people I've been training, they have a lot of experience. And some of them have done very well. And just recently some of them are doing exceptionally well. So tapping into them, you know, sending out a question. Report an error in the passage at 21:28 Highlight the passage at 21:28

21:52 We just set it up. We have 30 people now on a password protected chat room. And it's Yogi 1, Yogi 2, Yogi 3, Yogi 4. So they can maintain their anonymity. So over the course of time, when one achieves shamatha, then they can say, yes, I've achieved shamatha. And oh, who is that? Yogi 15. So anonymity is protected. Report an error in the passage at 21:52 Highlight the passage at 21:52

22:11 You're not heralding, oh, look at me, I'm a big special person, look at my ego. There's none of that, but you are letting it out that this is not an exercise in futility. It's not something, you know, the unreachable goal. You know, we're getting some people very close. But then we could have our cake and eat it. Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:28 We can have people sharing their direct experiences, but doing so anonymously, but then you can ask them questions over the internet. And then others sharing. Other people have achieved stage 4, 5, 6. Some have achieved stage 7. One was moving into stage 8. This isn't bad. And really, really flourishing. It's not just they got a number. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

22:47 I mean, they're really flourishing in the practice. So, if we consider that, I think there's something very healthy about it. Very healthy and especially kind of in tune with modernity, with our egalitarianism, with democracy, that we're not into kings anymore. You know, the king, the all-knowing, the authority that we all kowtow to and do whatever he says or the queen says. Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

23:09 But much more, you know, populist movement and peer counseling. That's a very popular thing. It has a lot of wisdom in it. So in place of, if you can find somebody who's absolutely achieved shamatha, great yogi, willing to take you on one-on-one, absolutely go for it. But if you don't find it, then how about taking refuge in Saṅgha? And if you don't have a whole bunch of them in one place, well, how about having 30 of them scattered around the globe but are willing to participate in a chat room and then learn from each other that way? Report an error in the passage at 23:09 Highlight the passage at 23:09

23:39 And so a friend of mine, he was my mentor in physics at Amherst College many years ago, he, together with a French philosopher, they're both very dear friends of mine, one's a physicist, one's a philosopher, but we're all on the same page, we're all the same generation also. Report an error in the passage at 23:39 Highlight the passage at 23:39

23:51 They're calling it, it's their name. It's called the Human Phenome Project. And Phenome as in phenomenological, that is really drawing on contemplative inquiry, first-person experience, but recognizing that as a human genome project was something really worthwhile and it was a thoroughly collaborative endeavor, enterprise. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:13 That is, MIT didn't win and just beat out Caltech or beat out Cambridge or beat out the Sorbonne. No one won and defeated the other ones to get there first. It was all of them working collectively, and then collectively they took a bow when they mapped the human genome. It was too important for them to be petty and say, well, we want to be first, we want more money, we want to beat you. Report an error in the passage at 24:13 Highlight the passage at 24:13

24:32 That's too important. And likewise, shamatha by itself is pretty important. But reaching the path, marga, well, if you ask me which is more important, mapping the human genome or achieving the marga, oh man, I'm going to go for the marga every day of the week. Because that really calls about, we're talking about here, about irreversible transformation and growth. Report an error in the passage at 24:32 Highlight the passage at 24:32

24:52 I don't see much that's more important than that. And shamatha is the stool, the footstep, the footstool to step into that carriage. It's just a footstool. So there's the carriage, the carriage that will take you on the path to liberation and enlightenment. It's the great carriage, it's the Mahāyāna carriage, Vajrayana carriage, Dzogchen carriage. Report an error in the passage at 24:52 Highlight the passage at 24:52

25:14 But how do you get into the carriage? Well, you need the footstool, otherwise you'd just be dragging behind, getting run over by the wheels. So Shantideva is a footstool to get into the carriage. That means Shantideva is really important, not by itself, but as a footstool to get into the carriage. It's enormously important. Report an error in the passage at 25:14 Highlight the passage at 25:14

25:29 So His Holiness, as you well know, probably know, he's been talking about this over the last year or two, in Queensland, in Darwin, in Estonia, in Washington, D.C., again and again and again, saying, just recently, this hasn't been going on for 40 years, not in public talks, Shantideva is indispensable. Report an error in the passage at 25:29 Highlight the passage at 25:29

25:47 You should really start practicing shamatha, achieve shamatha. It's really important. And then in wonderfully typical Dalai Lama style, saying, of course, I haven't done it. It's a bit too late for me. I'm too old. But you should really do it. You should really do it. So there we are. So that's a long-winded answer. Report an error in the passage at 25:47 Highlight the passage at 25:47

26:06 But I think it's nuanced. It's not simple. Like, oh yeah, here's the email. Write to him and he'll give you one-on-one because he's a totally accomplished yogi. There are there, but the really accomplished ones, like Chujan Rinpoche's 80, I understand, one of my premier teachers, Yangtana Rinpoche, Gya Chujan Rinpoche, 87, 83, you know, it's hard. Report an error in the passage at 26:06 Highlight the passage at 26:06

26:29 And few of them speak English. And few of them are in one place. And Gya Chujan Rinpoche hardly teaches anymore. He's pretty much retired. He's 87, quite frail. Yangtana Rinpoche lives in Sikkim, doesn't teach much. So that generation, we're kind of seeing the final, the ship is sailing off to Avalon, you know, they're going. But what can we cultivate here, fresh? Report an error in the passage at 26:29 Highlight the passage at 26:29

26:56 And if His Holiness believes in us, believes in people living in the modern world, that we can achieve shamatha, then I think, why shouldn't we not think? As some do, oh, time is finished, can't achieve it, don't even try, don't bother. Well, that's one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. You believe that and you're guaranteed you're right. Report an error in the passage at 26:56 Highlight the passage at 26:56

27:16 You'll not achieve it. You'll not achieve it because you believe you can't. You've sealed your own coffin. But if we think it's possible, then we explore. Okay? There's my answer. Good. Now I know we run over time. It's 5.20, so let's come back at 7.20. Enjoy the evening. I'll see you at about two hours. Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16