Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 26)

0:04 Alasso. We'll have two sessions. What I'd like to do is, for the first session, let it be silent, in case you'd like to kind of regroup a little bit and just go back to any of the forms of mindfulness or breathing. Just come back where you feel a bit more confidence, perhaps. Although if you feel confidence in the settling the mind, by all means, carry on. The first session will be silent. Report an error in the passage at 0:04 Highlight the passage at 0:04

0:22 The second session will return to settling the mind, a bit of instruction, more like just a refresher course. So, let's jump right in. Report an error in the passage at 0:22 Highlight the passage at 0:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:09 Alasso. So, just to pick up a little, a couple of strands from earlier questions, when it occurred to me I hadn't responded to from Cameron, and that is the head, whether if you're slightly inclined or just straight ahead, different strokes for different folks. Report an error in the passage at 1:09 Highlight the passage at 1:09

1:27 Theravāda tradition, pretty much straight ahead, as you do know from the Tibetan or Indo-Tibetan tradition, slightly inclined. Either way is fine. What I think is not fine, and I've seen some people when they really kind of go deeper into meditation, is they really... The head really goes down and this is throwing you out of your balance because it's making literally top heavy and I think that's probably not a good idea. Report an error in the passage at 1:27 Highlight the passage at 1:27

1:50 So to maintain that kind of poise, that balance, which is the big term for shamatha, the balance with either straight ahead or just slightly inclined is fine. And then in terms of the eyes, part of this is just getting accustomed to it. Especially if one has meditated a lot with eyes closed and then suddenly the eyes are open, it's very distracting. Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

2:10 And moreover, it's always distracting if within your field of vision, when you're doing this practice, within your field of vision, if there's movement. Because movement just tends to catch the attention and pull you out. So here, we have some control of the environment. Happily, it's a pretty good-sized room. So you might be able to find yourself a little nook and cranny, like you could put a mat over there and just be looking up at that dim ceiling. Report an error in the passage at 2:10 Highlight the passage at 2:10

2:33 That's pretty boring. That's good. So when you're really in control of your environment, that is on Monday when you go home or wherever you're going, then if you'd like to continue in this practice, what I strongly recommend is that you meditate in a dimly lit room where there's no movement, not even flickering of candles, nothing else moving, and just really frankly boring so there's nothing there that kind of catches your attention or your interest. Report an error in the passage at 2:33 Highlight the passage at 2:33

2:58 And if you still find that difficult, what you can do is go ahead and turn the lights off and let the room be quite dark and still have the eyes open. That's good too. But there is a fairly consistent instruction through different traditions about this practice and the one that will start on Sunday, and that the eyes should be somewhat open. Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:17 And there are some subtle kind of energy-wise, subtle physiology reasons for that. So it seems to be a really good idea. It does tend to bring more of a spacious quality to it. Also overcomes the notion that somehow I have to close my eyes in order to see thoughts, which is quite silly. So those are some of the reasons for that. Report an error in the passage at 3:17 Highlight the passage at 3:17

3:37 So what I'd like to do now is go to a classic instruction. This happens to be from the Nyingma tradition, the Dzogchen tradition of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism. But there are very similar accounts, very similar explanations of this practice in the Galupa literature. It's really quite uniform. No major differences. Report an error in the passage at 3:37 Highlight the passage at 3:37

3:56 It's utterly non-sectarian. And again, this tends to be the most commonly emphasized. Highlighted shamatha practice as a preparation for either Mahamudra or Dzogchen practice, which is all about fathoming really the ultimate dimension, the deepest dimension of awareness, which is variously known as the innate mind of clear light, pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, Buddha nature, all of the above. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:20 But the one page, and it's complete, the one page instruction I'd like to focus on here is from a text, again from the 19th century by another great Dzogchen master by the name of Lerap Lingba. And he gave an oral teaching, an oral commentary on a much more ancient text, The Heart Essence of Vimamitra. And this text is really a quintessential teaching on stages of practice leading to, up to Dzogchen, so it includes, well it actually starts with what are called common preliminaries. Report an error in the passage at 4:20 Highlight the passage at 4:20

4:53 I'll give you just a sneak preview here because it's helpful to have, to recognize there are different approaches. In this text he starts with seven common preliminaries and they're really fundamentally about moving one's priorities away from pursuit of hedonic pleasure towards genuine happiness, really developing authentic motivation for liberation and then developing an authentic, a trusting, a sound, very sane relationship with a spiritual mentor, your guru. Report an error in the passage at 4:53 Highlight the passage at 4:53

5:22 And to my mind again it's so similar to the situation if you were If you had a wagon and you wanted to head out west over a very unexplored territory that is potentially dangerous and you're joining a wagon train, then of course there would be the, whatever they call them, wagon train master. But a person who's gone back and forth on that trail multiple times really knows it. And so it's going to be a good guide or wagon train master to take the whole group across. Report an error in the passage at 5:22 Highlight the passage at 5:22

5:49 Well, for everybody with their own individual wagons, they'd want to be sure before they set out. Is this guy a phony? Is he a fraud? Does he know what he's talking about? Will he really care for us or split as soon as there's some kind of danger? And so forth. So it's that kind of trust. This person is competent, but also this person will really care for us, guide us all the way through, be very responsible. And so worthy of a very close and trusting relationship. Report an error in the passage at 5:49 Highlight the passage at 5:49

6:15 And likewise, this wagon-trained master would have to have a lot of confidence that the people he's guiding are really going to do what he says and not just bolt in all different directions and waste his time. So, those are the seven preliminaries, but the seventh of those common preliminaries is what you have here in one page. I find that rather interesting. Report an error in the passage at 6:15 Highlight the passage at 6:15

6:34 It's developing authentic motivation, sound relationship with the teacher, and then it just goes directly to Samatha. Then after that come, for those of you who've studied Tibetan Buddhism, after that come what he calls the uncommon preliminaries, and that's Vajrasattva practice and Mandala practice and Guru Yoga and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 6:34 Highlight the passage at 6:34

6:53 But now direct preparation for Vajrayana. But the shamatha comes before that. And then these preliminary practices. And then he goes into state regeneration, completion and then the two phases of Dzogchen called Tekchut and Tutgal or the breakthrough and the direct crossing over. But right now let's just focus on shamatha. And he does call this practice settling the mind in its natural state. And again, he's one of those yogis way out in the... Report an error in the passage at 6:53 Highlight the passage at 6:53

7:22 In the, how do you say, the wilderness of Eastern Tibet, there were a lot of really hardcore yogis out there and he was one of them. And so you can imagine him having a cluster of his hand-picked disciples and then giving them this oral instruction for them to go off and achieve shamatan and move right along the path. Report an error in the passage at 7:22 Highlight the passage at 7:22

7:39 And these were his oral instructions that one of his students had the foresight to write down and then they were edited and that's what we have in front of us, obviously in English translation. So let's just jump right in here. We'll find, as with the teachings on mindfulness of breathing, they're actually quite simple. So the depth is not in the sophistication of the technique. Report an error in the passage at 7:39 Highlight the passage at 7:39

8:00 The depth is in the depth of your own awareness, your own mind, to which you're applying the technique to unveil the profundity of your own awareness. So here are the instructions. He says, simply hearing your spiritual mentor's practical instructions and knowing how to explain them to others does not liberate your own mind stream. Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:22 So it's not enough just to parrot the teachings, passing them on like luggage. So you must meditate. But then, not only meditate, but how do you meditate? Even if you spend your whole life practicing a mere semblance of meditation, meditating in a stupor, cluttering the mind with fantasies and taking many breaks during your sessions, due to being unable to control mental scattering, no good experiences or realizations will arise. Report an error in the passage at 8:22 Highlight the passage at 8:22

8:47 So it is important during each session to meditate according to your mentor's oral instructions. So in terms of mentor, I should mention, so I received both the empowerment as well as the oral instructions, the transmission on this practice right here. It was about 14 years ago, it was a long time ago, from a man who is widely regarded as really the most accomplished yogi in all of Tibet. His name was Kempo Jikmet Pinso, and it's worth a couple of minutes to mention a little bit about him. Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

9:16 He's passed away now, but he was a monk, and then when the whole genocide took place, he just kind of disappeared off in the mountains. He made himself invisible, and kept a really low profile, and meditated just by himself, probably in some cave someplace. So the Jainese didn't even know he was there, so he just went invisible. Like Chujan Rinpoche, going invisible in the home of some friends of his in Lhasa, appearing to be a crazy guy, and then just hung out in the room for 19 years and meditated. Report an error in the passage at 9:16 Highlight the passage at 9:16

9:46 He just went off to the wilderness. And then when the heat was off, the gang of four were rounded up and that whole era of intense misery came to an end, 1980 in particular. Then he came out of retreat. And metaphorically, now he was a fine scholar before, then he went off for something like 20 years of meditation. And then he came to a little village in eastern Tibet, I've been there actually, called Setar. Report an error in the passage at 9:46 Highlight the passage at 9:46

10:13 And metaphorically speaking, he put up a little sign saying, Lama ready to teach. Obviously he didn't really do that, but basically that was the effect of it. And so then one monk, one nun, some lay people started gathering around. And 10, 15 years later, there were 10,000 monks, nuns, lay people, Tibetans and Chinese. Report an error in the passage at 10:13 Highlight the passage at 10:13

10:37 Quite a number of Chinese, monks and nuns, but also Chinese lay people, gathering around him. Well, it's hard for one person to teach 10,000 people, so other senior monks and yogis and so forth clustered there, and so then teachings were given. But in 12 years, 12, 15 years, it grew into the largest contemplative settlement in all of it, and it wasn't even called a monastery. Report an error in the passage at 10:37 Highlight the passage at 10:37

10:59 Because it wasn't just monks, it was just a whole bunch of people coming in and pitching their tents or putting up their yurts or building little cabins and it just clustered around very, very rapidly. And then in the late 1990s, 98 or so, then the Chinese government got really freaked out. They thought, oh no, they're too many, like they're afraid of critical mass. Report an error in the passage at 10:59 Highlight the passage at 10:59

11:19 So they came in and bulldozed about two-thirds of all the cabins and so forth. Didn't kill them happily. They said, vamus, get out of here. We're going to be freaking us out here. And so they left only one third of them and then they buried it off so no Westerners could see what they had done. And then I've heard just recently, they just kind of like see, okay, it's off and now it's building back up to seven, eight, nine thousand again. And the great Lama has passed away, but there are replacements there. Report an error in the passage at 11:19 Highlight the passage at 11:19

11:47 And so this Khenpo Jit Mipunso, he was actually regarded as the Chulku of Lerab Lingba. He and both Sogyarambuche, both. They're both considered to be tulkus of the same led-up limba, which is interesting. So in any case, I receive the instructions on this text, these teachings from him directly in New York City about 14 years ago, and so I'm passing on that lineage, that transmission. Report an error in the passage at 11:47 Highlight the passage at 11:47

12:15 So he now goes right to the instructions themselves, which as you can see is very concise. He says, in solitude sit upright on a comfortable cushion. So preferably, very clearly. It's best to be sitting upright, cross-legged, comfortable. But he does say comfortable. So now if you can't sit upright and be comfortable at the same time, then you need to have some give here. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:37 Something has to go. Find a better chair. Find a recliner chair. Go supine. But he does say sit upright and comfortable. If you do both, great. But don't sit upright and be uncomfortable because it's counterproductive. Report an error in the passage at 12:37 Highlight the passage at 12:37

12:49 And then he gives a one-liner here, which is not self-explanatory. And so I'm going to explain it right now. Gently hold the pot breath. Until the vital energies converge naturally. Gently hold the pot breath. If any of you have seen the movie Yogis of Tibet, then you've seen one very, very buff young monk, probably about 25, 28, something like that, engaging in some incredibly demanding physical exercises, including jumping up straight up in the air, going in full lotus and coming down in full lotus, and then breathing exercises and physical exercises and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 12:49 Highlight the passage at 12:49

13:23 And meanwhile, he's holding what's called the pot, the pot breath. Where you hold a fullness in the abdomen, you constrict the sphincter, and I've done it, it's very demanding. You kind of want to start that when you're a teenager. You need to be very healthy, very strong. And so we saw a monk doing it impeccably. That's called the pot breathing, and it's specifically for the sake of tummo, which is generating this inner heat and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 13:23 Highlight the passage at 13:23

13:49 That's called the pot breathing. And if you do it incorrectly, it can really louse up your whole energy system. It can actually damage you pretty seriously, as pranayama can in general. Do it right can be very helpful. Do it badly, poorly, incorrectly. Do some real damage. It's much easier to do damage than to repair the damage. So, word to the wise. Report an error in the passage at 13:49 Highlight the passage at 13:49

14:09 This practice is not dangerous, and it's very, very gentle. It's called the gentle pot breathing. And I would not recommend it if you're in the supine position. Only if you're sitting. And here's what it looks like. I'll just be sitting here in the chair. I don't need to go back to cross-legged. But you'll be sitting quite erect. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:28 So as we've done before, settle your body in its natural state. Erect, relax and so forth. But now just to accentuate this, I'm going to put my hands on the belly, which you don't do, but I'm just going to show you how the belly moves. And it's easier maybe if I show the hands on it. So you don't... Manipulate the breath in the sense of trying to breathe rhythmically or breathe deeply or quickly or slowly. You let the breath flow completely of its own accord without trying to modify it. Report an error in the passage at 14:28 Highlight the passage at 14:28

14:56 But you are modifying one thing. And that is, first of all, when you breathe in, you're sitting like this, then the natural happens, the belly expands. Report an error in the passage at 14:56 Highlight the passage at 14:56

15:08 And then when you're breathing out, then the belly falls back. So I hope that was obvious. Report an error in the passage at 15:08 Highlight the passage at 15:08

15:15 So normal, nothing special there at all. That's just breathing. But now if you're doing the gentle vas breathing or pot breathing, either way, then you continue breathing normally. You breathe in and the belly expands. Report an error in the passage at 15:15 Highlight the passage at 15:15

15:31 But as you breathe out, you hold that fullness. It's very gentle. It's very gentle. Hardly any effort at all. But you just kind of hold that fullness there and you let the breath completely go out. So you breathe in, it expands. Breathe out. Report an error in the passage at 15:31 Highlight the passage at 15:31

15:52 Breathe in, it expands a bit further. But when you breathe out, you still hold kind of a roundness and it's called pot. A pot belly. You're holding kind of a round pot shape in your abdomen there. And then you just do that all the way through. So when you're first learning it, it's kind of multitasking. You're going down there and checking the breathing and then you're watching the mind. But then after a while, like chewing gum and walking, you really can't do both simultaneously without having to multitask. Report an error in the passage at 15:52 Highlight the passage at 15:52

16:19 Or riding a bicycle and chewing gum, whatever. And so here, once you get into the rhythm of it, then... You really don't need to give any effort to it anymore. It just goes naturally. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

16:38 So when the breath goes out, it falls a little bit back, but still retains that fullness. So overall then, through the whole course of the respiration, there is an ongoing fullness, a looseness, an openness in the abdomen. And the effect of that is to counteract a lot of constriction, knots, tightness. Report an error in the passage at 16:38 Highlight the passage at 16:38

16:58 That does occur, that is already present for virtually everyone, in this navel chakra. The navel chakra is four finger widths beneath the navel itself. There's a very, very powerful energy system there, or chakra, an energy center there. It's never been fathomed, it has not yet been fathomed. There's just no understanding from a Western biological or medical perspective. Report an error in the passage at 16:58 Highlight the passage at 16:58

17:24 A Harvard physician who's a research physician named Herbert Benson went off and did some quite extensive research both in Ladakh as well as northern India. He studied people who are very, very adept in Tumo. This is something of a tangent, but I'll be quick. But he studied this, and he confirmed medically that what these people were doing was just inexplicable. Report an error in the passage at 17:24 Highlight the passage at 17:24

17:44 He said there's no medical explanation for them, for what they could do. And that is, he went to one place, Dashi Jong, Dashi Jong, northern India. And there were maybe, I saw the video. I was at a conference where we were sitting together and he showed me the video and he showed everybody the video. He was giving a commentary. I think it was maybe 15 or 20 monks who were all very adept in tumult. Report an error in the passage at 17:44 Highlight the passage at 17:44

18:05 And you may have heard this. It's kind of an interesting story and I'll try to be quick. But they stripped down to a loincloth. And this is winter, so the temperature centigrade may be 8 degrees. It's chilly, not freezing, but it's chilly. They stripped down to a loincloth. And then each monk... has a bucket of ice water right next to him and an attendant. And the attendant takes a sheet and soaks it in the ice water and then wraps it around the yogi. Report an error in the passage at 18:05 Highlight the passage at 18:05

18:32 And then, it's kind of a macho thing, then all these yogis see within a given period, one hour or whatever, how many sheets can they dry off in a given period. And they do. I mean, I saw the video. You see steam billowing off their shoulders. And the whole room is turning into like a, I don't know. Steam bath, because it's so full of steam, because these guys are generating such intense heat in the body that it's drying off one sheet after another. They say next and wrap it up and next, next. Report an error in the passage at 18:32 Highlight the passage at 18:32

19:01 So it's kind of a complicated form of a laundromat. That wasn't really the primary reason. And interesting enough, the primary reason is not just staying warm, because after all it's easier to buy yourself a wool jacket than put in all the effort to develop this. But that's the outer display. And he also studied, just by the way, he studied yogis up in Ladakh, but here it's now about 5,000 meters. And he followed some yogis, they were doing something kind of a public display. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:32 It was only about three or four yogis, as I recall. They went up to about 5,000 meters in midwinter in Ladakh. And they're wearing cotton nighties, just really a cotton, like Milarepa. And when the sun is going down, they lay down on the bare earth in their cotton nightie. And they spent the night in a supine position, practicing Dumo, and when the sun came up, they got up, stretched and walked down the mountain. I don't know exact temperature, but I would imagine something like 10 or 20 below. Report an error in the passage at 19:32 Highlight the passage at 19:32

20:01 And they're lying down in a nightie, and they're sleeping. So they actually maintain the Dumo through the sleep. So Herbert Lensa looked at this, he photographed it, he measured the whole thing, he actually invited one yogi to his laboratory at Harvard. And the long and the short of it was, they definitely do it, and we have no idea how they can do this. Report an error in the passage at 20:01 Highlight the passage at 20:01

20:19 And so that's Dumo itself. And the whole idea of that actually is to bring the energies into the central channel so that you can realize the innate mind of clear light or Ritpa. That's the purpose. Not just so you can keep warm. Well now we're doing the gentle version of that. But the idea and principle is the same and that is you're creating this looseness, this openness in the abdomen so that these knots of nadis, the constriction, the knots, the blockages in the nadis, in this chakra down there. Report an error in the passage at 20:19 Highlight the passage at 20:19

20:46 They, just as you're getting more and more relaxed in the practice and keeping the belly open, loose, soft, porous, that they just start to unravel and the energies do start to come into the central channel and that can facilitate your achievement of shamatha. So this is kind of the minor league. This is kids league. And it's not dangerous because you're not doing anything invasive, you're not doing anything really strange, you're just kind of holding a fullness of the belly and breathing normally. Report an error in the passage at 20:46 Highlight the passage at 20:46

21:12 So I'm teaching this with a clear conscience. If you should practice this when you go home, the chances of it harming you are negligible. Whereas if you did the other one, this really holding the breath, this really macho approach, and you did it wrong, that could harm you. So I'm not teaching that, just mention it. And I mention this whole thing about the Tumo people, because I know from my own experience also, I mean, this is something I can say I've discovered in my own experience, the energy center down there is as real as galaxies. Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:41 I mean, it's there. You may not be able to measure it scientifically, but that doesn't bother me at all. Most of the most important things in my life you can't measure scientifically. So, that's the gentle pot breathing. And you just gently hold that until the vital energies converge, they come into the center and then start coming up the central channel. And that just naturally just brings you into samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 21:41 Highlight the passage at 21:41

22:03 Now, final point on this, is this an essential aspect of the practice? If you're doing settling the mind into natural state, must you do this? The answer is no. It's not indispensable. So I would encourage you to experiment with it, see whether it's helpful. I don't encourage in the supine position because it's too contrived. You really have to exert some real muscle power to keep the belly up. Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:24 And so you don't want to do that. So just flake out in the supine position. But if you're sitting, you might experiment with it during this retreat afterwards. And if you find, and quite a number of people do, whom I've taught, that it is helpful, then good. Practice as much as you like. If it's not helpful, just more distracting or just whatever, forget it. Report an error in the passage at 22:24 Highlight the passage at 22:24

22:42 No problem. So, that's gentle vast breathing. Then he says, let your gaze be vacant. Well, this clearly implies, as other teachings say quite explicitly, that the eyes should be open, but vacant, very much, again, as if you were daydreaming. But in daydreaming, your attention is really going off to the lines of thought that come to mind. And here, your attention isn't going anywhere. And there is a metaphor I like a lot for this, and that is the quality of awareness that you're sustaining here. Report an error in the passage at 22:42 Highlight the passage at 22:42

23:10 There's an image I like a lot and I'll share it with you. And that is falcons, like the smallest falcon that I know of is a kestrel, also sometimes called sparrowhawk. It's a beautiful small bird, very elegant design. And kestrels like many other falcons, maybe all falcons for all I know, will do something called kiting and that is they'll face into the wind. Report an error in the passage at 23:10 Highlight the passage at 23:10

23:32 You've probably seen it. Probably in real life it's not that uncommon. Some other carnivorous birds do so as well. But they'll face into the wind and then with very minor adjustments of their tail feathers, the pin feathers of their wings spread out, they'll make these minor adjustments and then the sparrowhawk or the kestrel is looking down for mice or grasshoppers or whatever for its prey. Report an error in the passage at 23:32 Highlight the passage at 23:32

23:53 But he's remaining quite stationary with respect to the ground. But not by holding on to something in mid-air. But just making these minor adjustments as the wind is flowing over the wings, that he's not being swept backwards or set forwards, but just these minor adjustments remain stationed. So he can kind of look at a certain given plot of ground and find his lunch. And so in quite a similar way, it's a nice image, a beautiful image actually, you're facing into the wind. Report an error in the passage at 23:53 Highlight the passage at 23:53

24:23 Of thoughts, images, memories, fantasies, all the stuff that your mind is throwing up. You're facing into the wind. In a way, your eyes wide open. That is, you're not trying to clap down. You're not closing your eyes. You're not trying to make them go away. You're facing right into the wind of thoughts and all of these mental events. Report an error in the passage at 24:23 Highlight the passage at 24:23

24:41 But with this total looseness and the sensitivity in the present moment, you're not being sucked forward into actually moving in and imagining the future. Nor are you being blown back into the past and going down memory lane. You're just hovering there right in the immediacy of the present moment, sensitive, just my moment arising, arising, arising. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:03 It sounds a lot like, and it is a lot like, John Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness, but with one major caveat. John's not teaching shamatha, no pretense that he's teaching shamatha. In this modern definition of mindfulness, it's open in all directions. That is, whatever arises. So birds chirping, twinges in your knee and so forth. That has its value. It's not shamatha. This is shamatha. So the one really primary difference there between this practice and that definition of mindfulness, or that type of mindfulness, I should say, is that this one is selective. Report an error in the passage at 25:03 Highlight the passage at 25:03

25:35 This one really is focused only on the mental domain, which is to say that other sensory impressions, of course, are going to arise. You don't suddenly find yourself in a sensory deprivation tank. But you don't deliberately give any attention to them. So it would be like, for example, having dinner in a very crowded, noisy restaurant. Report an error in the passage at 25:35 Highlight the passage at 25:35

25:55 You probably all had that experience. And having a conversation, let's just say, with one companion. But it's a really interesting conversation. But there's four people talking over here and laughing over here and there's a beer party down there and there's children crying over there. It's one of those Italian restaurants. Lots of noise. And so in that case... Report an error in the passage at 25:55 Highlight the passage at 25:55

26:16 All that noise is there. It's part of being an Italian restaurant. But you're really interested in this conversation. So what do you do? That's where your interest goes. And the other noises, they're making their impression, but you don't deliberately give any attention to them. So in a similar fashion, we have the visual coming in, the auditory, the tactile. But they're really not that interesting and they're not the focus of interest right now. As you become more adept, especially if you go into retreat, do this full time for a while. Report an error in the passage at 26:16 Highlight the passage at 26:16

26:44 Then just by the sheer persistence, the effectiveness of your training, then your awareness is more siphoned off, away from these other sense fields, goes more purely into the mental. And then, and this does happen, it happens roughly about stage 7 or so, and then it happens more deeply stage 8, more deeply stage 9. But on stage 7 you'll start finding this kind of wavering in and out, and that is you'll be there in the groove. Report an error in the passage at 26:44 Highlight the passage at 26:44

27:11 And then the attention lightens up a little bit and then you'll hear noises. And then you'll retrospectively be aware, oh, there are noises. I didn't hear them for the last ten minutes. But they weren't fresh noises. And so then you retrospectively notice, ah, my awareness was just pulled away from the noises. Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:29 Or a lot of people have experiences in the visual field where you're just withdrawing your attention from the visual field. It will go monochromatic. That's a common experience. You're really withdrawing your attention from it. Report an error in the passage at 27:29 Highlight the passage at 27:29

27:42 Your visual appearances start to change. And it loses color. Or it goes kind of dim. Or it just goes dark. That can happen. Eyes wide open. But the attention fully withdrawn. And likewise with the body. You're aware of it, especially retrospectively. But when you're really there in the zone and then come out of it, then it's kind of like, oh, I am embodied. Report an error in the passage at 27:42 Highlight the passage at 27:42

28:03 And having the tactile sensations of the rising. But then being aware, oh, I wasn't experiencing those earlier. I was so... Honed in on that one domain of experience that the others kind of faded out. Well, as you go on to stages eight, nine and so forth, that just becomes more continuous. And so again, it's very much like falling asleep lucidly, where the five senses are shutting down, the mind is getting calmer and calmer, but your awareness is getting brighter and brighter. Report an error in the passage at 28:03 Highlight the passage at 28:03

28:30 So in that way, it's radically unlike falling asleep. So let your gaze be vacant. And then, with your body and mind inwardly relaxed, So here there is, this is Dzogchen approach to shamatha. So they really are quite explicit about something that especially is important nowadays for people living in the modern world. Report an error in the passage at 28:30 Highlight the passage at 28:30

28:53 But this was also important for nomads living 150 years ago in Tibet. With your body and mind inwardly relaxed and without allowing the continuum of your consciousness to fade from a state of limpidity and vivid clarity, sustain it naturally and radiantly. So I mentioned before that There are different approaches to shamatha, the kind of a developmental approach where you generate an image that wasn't there already and you develop stability and vividness that weren't there already and then you try to really develop and sustain that, right? Report an error in the passage at 28:53 Highlight the passage at 28:53

29:25 So there's a developmental approach and this is much more of a discovery approach and that is you're taking what he calls this state of limpidity which means transparent and luminous, vivid clarity And a kind of a radiance, a luminosity of awareness, it's already there. That is, it's not something you add on to consciousness. You just, you sustain it so that it doesn't fade. Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

29:54 But you allow that natural clarity of awareness just to be sustained without impeding it, cluttering it, obscuring it with anything. So it's more of a discovery of the clarity, the luminosity, the brightness of your awareness rather than trying to generate it. Report an error in the passage at 29:54 Highlight the passage at 29:54

30:12 So now you're on the cushion, you're right in the midst of the practice. And now further instructions. Do not clutter your mind with many critical judgments. That is, absolutely don't raise the issue of how fast am I progressing? On what stage am I? Am I going slow? Am I good at this? Am I bad at this? How long will this take? Just leave it. All of that stuff, just leave it. So this is without judgment. Just do the practice. Report an error in the passage at 30:12 Highlight the passage at 30:12

30:41 And do not take a short-sighted view of meditation, which is very easy to do, especially in modernity, in our modern society where everything is so fast. Report an error in the passage at 30:41 Highlight the passage at 30:41

30:51 Avoid that. It will just clutter, obstruct your practice. So, for example, going into a 24-minute session, and then as soon as you come out, say, okay, how was that? You try to grade yourself. And then grading yourself, oh, I don't think I'm very good at it. Oh, I think I should give up. I'm probably not. This is probably not for me. I'm probably no good at it. I'm not getting anywhere. Report an error in the passage at 30:51 Highlight the passage at 30:51

31:09 I'm not progressing. After 24 minutes, we've had decades to habituate ourselves to obsessive compulsive delusional disorder and then if we get depressed because in 24 minutes it didn't go away, it might be a bit short-sighted. Or likewise for one week. And so to have the longer view and the way to get there to my mind is actually quite simple. Report an error in the passage at 31:09 Highlight the passage at 31:09

31:35 And that is when you're doing the practice, you're right in the midst of the practice of just sustaining To my mind, I would just call it sustaining sanity, a kind of wholeness, a clear presence, a stillness, a sense of ease, of awareness and sustaining that and being aware of whatever is coming and arising in the mind, coming and going, coming and going, both in terms of more objective appearances as well as more subjective impulses like desires, emotions, but sustaining that just ongoing flow of clarity, of that, here's a good word, composure, a collectiveness. Report an error in the passage at 31:35 Highlight the passage at 31:35

32:11 Not being swept away, not losing your mind, not falling into rumination, not getting dull, not getting agitated, not, not, not, not. And what's left over is sanity. That presence of mind, that stillness, that clarity, that imperturbability. And you're sustaining that. Report an error in the passage at 32:11 Highlight the passage at 32:11

32:30 Here's a really simple question. And that is, when you're doing that, and you're not only doing it, which is not doing much, you're really being present. With whatever is arising in the space of the mind, when you are so being present, Report an error in the passage at 32:30 Highlight the passage at 32:30

32:45 do you have a sense that this is meaningful? Or is it meaningful if and only if something good later happens? There's a prize. There's something else later that may or may not come. That can already make you a bit edgy. Maybe it'll come. Maybe it won't. How long will it take? Are we there yet? And all of that. And if you're there, then the practice probably won't get off the ground. Report an error in the passage at 32:45 Highlight the passage at 32:45

33:11 Because you're going to always be caught up in that. Is it working? How long does it take? I wish I could be doing something well. I don't think this is... Whatever the thing is, you're probably not going to take off the ground. Get off the ground. But if you're right there, when you're doing it correctly and you know you're doing it correctly, if you already sense this is really meaningful, no matter what's coming, no matter what future benefits there may be, this is really meaningful. Report an error in the passage at 33:11 Highlight the passage at 33:11

33:36 This is a cultivation of a habit of sanity. This is a quality of awareness that would be good to get used to. It's better than the opposite. All the other things that could be going on, getting carried away, cluttered, dull, agitated and so forth and so on. This is really meaningful already, let alone what it leads to. This is sound. If you have that confidence, then that's the way you really flourish in the practice, without anticipation. Report an error in the passage at 33:36 Highlight the passage at 33:36

34:04 So once again, when you're doing the practice, then you suspend. You set aside all notions of path, of progress, of achieving this, achieving that. I had this message really hammered in years ago when I spent six months doing just this, out in solitude in the high desert in eastern California. And once in a while, every three or four weeks or so, I'd hop in a pickup truck and drive to the nearest town about 20 miles away, 20 minutes away really. And there was a public library with a telephone. Report an error in the passage at 34:04 Highlight the passage at 34:04

34:38 This was kind of... This was before cell phones or on the cusp. And I would phone up my Lama, my guru, Ghatra Rinpoche, who lived about a thousand miles away, and I'd phone him up and I'd ask for guidance for my practice and report in, here's how it's going. And then I'd just hop in the pickup truck and go back up the mountain again. And at one point Ghatra Rinpoche told me, Alan, you're practicing with too much desire. Report an error in the passage at 34:38 Highlight the passage at 34:38

35:05 And I really didn't know what he meant because I didn't feel it was true. I said, when I'm practicing, boy, I'm not thinking about sex, money, fame, blah, blah, blah. I'm not. When I'm doing the practice, man, I'm just doing the practice. And so I kind of countered to him, I don't really know what you're talking about. There's nothing else I want to do. This is it. And he said, I'm not talking about your desire and other things. Report an error in the passage at 35:05 Highlight the passage at 35:05

35:32 What I'm talking about is when you're doing the practice, you're doing the practice with too much desire. You're there with kind of this eagerness, this desire, I'm going to get something, I'm going to get something, I'll continue, something good's going to happen. Like that, that desire. Not desire for something outside of the practice, but that kind of that pushiness, that desire, that insatiability, that lack of contentment, right in the moment, waiting for something good to happen. Report an error in the passage at 35:32 Highlight the passage at 35:32

35:58 You've got to suspend that. You've got to lose it. Lose it. But I've had a long, ongoing dialogue with him, because that's how I learn, not just by listening, but by engaging. So I came back to him and I said, well, okay, I hear you, I'm going to follow that. Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:18 But, how many times, for those of us trained in Tibetan Buddhism, how many times have we learned about engaging in prayers of aspirations, prayers through the guru lineage, developing bodhicitta, which is, boy, that's a desire. May I achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Renunciation to desire to achieve liberation. Develop desire as if your hair is on fire to achieve liberation. Boy, that's not a desire. That's a big time desire. Report an error in the passage at 36:18 Highlight the passage at 36:18

36:43 Right? And so, and then prayers of dedication. I mean, Buddhism is saturated by desires. You know, it really is. It really is saturated. Meaningful desires. And now my guru is telling me, so when you're practicing no desires, cool it. So I said, well, okay, which is it? Report an error in the passage at 36:43 Highlight the passage at 36:43

37:01 Desire or no desire? Because I've had a lot of instruction about developing meaningful desires. And then he came right back at me and said, yeah, do that in between sessions. All the desire business. Because what that does, I mean, it's very practical. And in between sessions, if you're really arousing the yearning, the sense of the benefit, the aspiration, the vision, the ideal, devoting yourself to this practice, making all the necessary sacrifices, because you could be having a lot of hedonic fun in the meantime. Report an error in the passage at 37:01 Highlight the passage at 37:01

37:27 But you're not. You're setting that all aside, going into total simplicity, no television, no entertainment, no nothing. It's just boom, just really focusing on the nature of the mind. Then you're going to have to have a strong motivation to do that. You won't do that just because you're bored. You have to have a strong motivation. So in between session, really focus on it, develop the motivation, the aspiration and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 37:27 Highlight the passage at 37:27

37:51 But then as soon as you get on the cushion and you are doing the practice, then set all that aside. And just be absolutely in the moment and just doing the practice and taking satisfaction in the practice moment by moment by moment. So it's a very nuanced kind of thing. On the one hand, is this a path? This is a path, practicing shamatha, settling the mind in its natural state, accessing the substrate consciousness, on that basis going to Vipassanā, exploring the nature of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 37:51 Highlight the passage at 37:51

38:19 Going beyond mind, beyond substrate consciousness, going to pristine awareness and the stages of the path of that. Is this a path? The answer is absolutely yes. It certainly is a path. You're not just going around in circles. You're not just doing the same thing. And there is a transformation taking place. Well, that's what a path is. On the one hand. Report an error in the passage at 38:19 Highlight the passage at 38:19

38:36 On the other hand, when you're right in the middle of the practice, when you're doing it, discard all notion of path. All notion of I'm going to get something. I want to change. I want to achieve. How long will it take? So it's quite nuanced there. When I asked Yachar Rinpoche, I made some reference years ago. I made a reference to the stage four, stage four, stage five, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 38:36 Highlight the passage at 38:36

38:58 And in the midst of it, but in reference to this practice, settling the mind. And he's studied Dharma since he's three. He's had a lot of training and years in retreat. And knowing about the nine stages of shamatha is like elementary school. I mean, anybody who's studied it at all knows about it. But he turned to me in an object lesson and he said, stage four, what's that? He just kind of was setting all the nine stages, just setting it aside. Report an error in the passage at 38:58 Highlight the passage at 38:58

39:28 Say, look, you don't need to think about that now. Just come back to the practice and just do it. Just do it. So, let's go back and do a little bit more. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

39:42 So do not take a short-sighted view of meditation and avoid great hopes and fears that your meditation will turn out one way and not another. Report an error in the passage at 39:42 Highlight the passage at 39:42

39:51 So again, this is nuance. This is a subtle practice. It's not complicated, but it is subtle. And that is, there is a purpose for doing this practice and it is to settle your mind in its natural state, relaxation, stability and vividness. It's to observe your mind dissolve into the substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 39:51 Highlight the passage at 39:51

40:08 That's what it's for. And so as you're practicing, you should be noting whether it's working or not and just kind of not practicing with your eyes, you know, metaphorically closed, blind to what's taking place. So you do, you are evaluating the practice to see am I practicing correctly, how's it going, am I, so, just that. Report an error in the passage at 40:08 Highlight the passage at 40:08

40:26 But then not get caught up in the hopes and fears, just come back, having that confidence, are you doing it correctly? Good, that's all. Then just continue. Simply continue. At the beginning you have many daily sessions, so this is now classic meditative advice. If you're living in full retreat, in solitude, as he said, you have many daily sessions, like 18, like Gyan Lam Rinpoche suggested, but each of them of brief duration, so 24 minutes perhaps, if you like it shorter, that's fine. Report an error in the passage at 40:26 Highlight the passage at 40:26

40:55 And focus well in each one. And the point here is that it's always quality over quantity. So I know that I spent some time at a Vipassanā retreat center many, many years ago. And they would just start off with one hour sessions from the beginning. For people who are ranked beginners, they've never had any background in meditation. They start off with one hour sessions, which is quite a long time for a beginner. Report an error in the passage at 40:55 Highlight the passage at 40:55

41:20 And I would note when I was sitting there sometimes in group meditation and being a little bit naughty, I kind of... I'd open my eyes and watch the other people. And it was so cute, because I would be sitting in a row of people, and this is especially the after lunch, the two o 'clock session. And you've all seen this, I'm sure. Report an error in the passage at 41:20 Highlight the passage at 41:20

41:37 It was like the little ducks, you know, little bobbing ducks. And I'd watch and go, bloop, bloop. Report an error in the passage at 41:37 Highlight the passage at 41:37

41:48 Many people gaining this nodding acquaintance with meditation. Because they've had a full lunch, and it's warm, and they've got one hour. In other words, they've got time to kill. If you've got one hour, oh man, this is easy, we'll take 20 minutes to get in, you know, and then hang out. But if I'll daydream for 5 or 10 minutes, I've got plenty of time left over. Report an error in the passage at 41:48 Highlight the passage at 41:48

42:05 And so if you have that very leisurely quality to it, then you can really make some really bad habits. And habits of all kinds are hard to break. Good habits are hard to break, bad habits are hard to break. So what he's saying here, I think, is good sound, practical advice. Keep your sessions of a duration that it feels short to you. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:24 Or as I mentioned, the first teacher, the first Lama that taught me shamatha, he said, when you come to the end of the session, and now this is when you're setting up your own schedule or the duration of your sessions. Here is 24 minutes, we're all together. But at home, whatever you like. But he said, when you come to the end of the session, break the session, bring it to an end, when you're still a bit hungry, and that is when you can still practice more, when you're not tapped out, you're not exhausted, when you feel, oh, I wouldn't mind. Report an error in the passage at 42:24 Highlight the passage at 42:24

42:55 A bit more. Good. Stop then. Stop then. And then you'll, when you leave the meditation, then you'll leave with the sense, oh, I would have enjoyed a bit more, but I cut it off. It's psychologically quite clever, I think. And so you kind of think, oh, when I can get back, I was really enjoying that and I cut myself off. Whereas if you just stay there until you're just exhausted. Report an error in the passage at 42:55 Highlight the passage at 42:55

43:16 Then Geshing Lama Taige, this Lama told me, if you do that, make a habit of that, meditating until you just tapped out. He said the very sight of your meditation cushion will give you a sense of nausea. So not such a good idea if you want to continue meditating. So focus well on each one and then whenever you meditate, bear in mind the phrase without distraction, without grasping and put this into practice. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:41 So that's really, that is the quintessential instruction. Maintain your mindfulness on the space of the mind and its contents. Without being either distracted off to the various sense fields, there's one way to get distracted, or by being carried away by thoughts, that's another way of being distracted. Report an error in the passage at 43:41 Highlight the passage at 43:41

43:58 But being distracted is kind of binary. Either you're on the object or you're not. So there we are. That's kind of straightforward. Grasping is a whole gradient. Grasping is not just are you doing it or not. And grasping generally is not something we can simply decide not to do at all and then not do it at all. Because it's too subtle for that. Report an error in the passage at 43:58 Highlight the passage at 43:58

44:18 And so grasping comes from very, very coarse to very, very subtle. But overall we're seeking to attenuate or sustain the awareness with as little grasping as possible. Which means we're just present with whatever's coming up. This very much is bare attention. Just attending clearly, discerningly to whatever's coming up. Report an error in the passage at 44:18 Highlight the passage at 44:18

44:38 But without preference, without hope, without fear, without judgments of good or bad, without superimposing sense of mine or I. Report an error in the passage at 44:38 Highlight the passage at 44:38

44:48 And with no labels. Labeling just clutters up. We don't need them. So we're sustaining that more, as I said, kind of a primal way of knowing that's knowing before the articulation, knowing before the conceptualization. And I say it's really, primal is probably the best word I can come up with. I've heard it said, and I believe it's true, just because I think my source was good, that unborn babies during the last trimester According to neurophysiological studies that have been done, very sophisticated ones, unborn babies in the third trimester can distinguish their mother's voice from someone else's voice, another woman, let alone a man. Report an error in the passage at 44:48 Highlight the passage at 44:48

45:28 But the mother's voice, they respond to it neurophysiologically and therefore mentally, respond differently to their mother's voice. Well, that implies a type of recognition, a type of knowing, right? A type of knowing. Report an error in the passage at 45:28 Highlight the passage at 45:28

45:42 But until we have reason to believe otherwise, I would assume that that's a pre-verbal knowing and it's a non-conceptual knowing. But it is a knowing. And so we're going there. And that's a simple voice. Well, what else does an unborn fetus know? Well, we don't know. But that's one thing's known. But it's this very immediate, direct, non-conceptual, non-verbal knowing that we're sustaining here and getting into flow of. Report an error in the passage at 45:42 Highlight the passage at 45:42

46:08 And then see whether that might be a portal that opens up to a whole, Bandwidth of knowing that normally gets obscured because we're so habitually caught up in knowing by way of concepts. So with as little grasping as possible is the real message here. Put this into practice. As you gradually familiarize yourself with the meditation, increase the duration of the sessions, but do so only as you wish to, not because you feel you should. Report an error in the passage at 46:08 Highlight the passage at 46:08

46:38 And here's something now very familiar to you because I've said it many times. If dullness sets in, arouse your awareness. Very simple antidotes, one-liner antidotes. If laxity or dullness sets in, arouse, focus, sharpen up your awareness. If there's excessive scattering and excitation, loosen up. So this again is a way to develop stability by way of ease and relaxation rather than stability by way of contraction and tightening up. Report an error in the passage at 46:38 Highlight the passage at 46:38

47:07 And then some really practical advice. Determine in terms of your own experience the optimal degree of mental arousal. That is, some effort is needed. This is not effortless. But how much effort? How much arousal? Enough so that you're clear, not so much that you start getting tight or agitated. So the classic analogy is like stringing a guitar or a lute. Too tight? You may snap a string. Too loose? It doesn't sound good. Report an error in the passage at 47:07 Highlight the passage at 47:07

47:36 And so you're tuning your mind and also determine in terms of your own experience as an individual, the healthiest diet and behavior, and that would include exercise. And so it's very, very practical. And so all three of those within the cushion, how tightly to focus the attention, in between sessions, watch your diet, the amount of food, the type of food you eat is easily digestible, and your behavior. Report an error in the passage at 47:36 Highlight the passage at 47:36

48:02 So just walking around, just generally exercise. But behavior in general, make sure that it's conducive to and supportive of your meditative practice. So, let's take a break. It's now, oh, let's say it's ten till. Let's come back at five minutes past the hour. We'll go right back to the practice and then we can finish off. Report an error in the passage at 48:02 Highlight the passage at 48:02

48:23 There's only two more paragraphs. We can finish off this instruction. Report an error in the passage at 48:23 Highlight the passage at 48:23