Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 28)

0:02 So if you'd like to try in this session the gentle Vos breathing, then I would encourage you to be sitting upright. But if you'd like to be supine, carry on. Let's have one silent session. And then at your leisure, anytime you feel like it, then you can always practice the gentle Vos breathing. But you might want to try it while you're here, that is while we're together, sometime during this week, so that if any questions come up, then we can get those cleared out before you leave. Report an error in the passage at 0:02 Highlight the passage at 0:02

0:28 So we'll have one silent session. Back to settling the mind. In its natural state. Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:11 To come back to a familiar theme, these two orientations of a discovery approach versus a developmental. This is now, as I said, really moving into the territory of discovery. And when we get to Sunday and Monday, we'll go even deeper into discovery territory, in which you are really hardly developing anything. Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

1:33 But the discovery here is that we're simply sustaining, doing so little. We're doing so little, just sustaining that flow, the natural clarity, luminosity of your own awareness, without the distraction, without the grasping, that especially as the mind is less and less cluttered by rumination, conceptualization and so forth, all the junk that we pile on top of the flow of awareness, then the natural luminosity of awareness just becomes unveiled. Report an error in the passage at 1:33 Highlight the passage at 1:33

2:02 It becomes discovered, not something you have to keep on ratcheting up. And trying harder and trying harder, just keep on removing the veils. And the very luminosity that is of the essence of awareness becomes unveiled. So in terms of the two fundamental qualities that are so-called developed in shamatha, stability and vividness, well the term that I translated as vividness is the same term as luminosity or clarity. Report an error in the passage at 2:02 Highlight the passage at 2:02

2:27 It's the same, just one word, Selva. But rather than having the sense of developing it, enhancing it, increasing it, it's more a matter of just unveiling, unveiling, unveiling, until when your coarse mind, your psyche has dissolved into the substrate consciousness, then you just have sheer unmediated luminosity of your own substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 2:27 Highlight the passage at 2:27

2:46 Bright. It's called in the Theravāda tradition the brightly shining mind. And that is its nature. So not something to develop, because you've already got it, but it's obscured. And then the other element of stability, and the word stability, I'll translate also as stillness, it's one word, stability, stillness. Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

3:05 Once again, developmental, we think, okay, my mind is so agitated, I have to develop stability, develop stability, have to try really hard. The discovery approach is to ask the question, what is destabilizing the attention? And what's destabilizing attention is grasping. That is, it's kind of like... Report an error in the passage at 3:05 Highlight the passage at 3:05

3:22 Standing by the railroad tracks and having your arm out and then the train goes by and suddenly you're in motion. But if you just keep your arms to yourself, the train goes by but you remain still. And so if you withdraw the tentacles of grasping, then you discover something that was there already. Awareness by nature is still. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:41 It's unmoving. It's still. It's stable. And it's set into motion, jerking this way and being carried away that way and so forth, only because of grasping. Reluce the grasping and you discover stillness rather than having to arduously develop it. So especially as one gets on in years, as I am, the notion of being able to do less and less and accomplish more by doing less and less is actually very appealing. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

4:06 When younger, the notion of getting out there and really doing something maybe has more allure. Let's go ahead and finish this instruction though. It's so short that it is very concise and I think every sentence is really loaded. So we're about halfway through, a little bit more. We pick up on page 10, excessive imprisoning constriction of the mind. So he's showing now extremes, ways of doing the practice incorrectly. Report an error in the passage at 4:06 Highlight the passage at 4:06

4:33 There's one of them. Excessive imprisoning constriction of the mind, just trying too hard and then not doing well and thinking, I know, I'll try harder. And then you just get tighter and tighter and then probably give up if you don't go crazy first. Report an error in the passage at 4:33 Highlight the passage at 4:33

4:47 Excessive imprisoning constriction of the mind, loss of clarity due to lassitude, just being flaky, lazy, unconcerned, complacent, and excessive relaxation resulting in involuntary vocalization, like little grunts and so forth, and involuntary eye movements. All of these are to be avoided. So this is where you want to be not judgmental, but you want to exercise good judgment. There are ways of doing this practice incorrectly. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:16 That at the very least could be a waste of time and at worst could really do yourself damage. So apply discerning good judgment and avoid these and follow the practice correctly. And then in between sessions he comments it does only harm to talk about such things as extrasensory perception, random dreams or to claim I saw a deity, I saw a ghost, I know this, I've realized that and so on. Report an error in the passage at 5:16 Highlight the passage at 5:16

5:41 So this is very very common for the whole Tibetan tradition. But with a caveat, and that is, if you have a close and trusting relationship with a guide, a spiritual mentor, a guru for your meditation, then in that relationship, this relationship is, frankly, it's entirely for the sake of the student. Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

5:58 It really is kind of a one-way relationship. It's not for the sake of the guru. It's an offering of generosity, of compassion and kindness from the guru. And so it's for your sake. In that case, this person is simply there to help you. Therefore, be totally candid. Share anything you like. If you have a dream that you think is really significant, Or your problem, you've had a marvelous experience, there's some breakthrough. By all means, unimpeded, unrestrained. Share anything you like with the Guru. And the Guru will be there to help you out and try to correct if there's something incorrect, encourage you and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 5:58 Highlight the passage at 5:58

6:29 So with a Guru and possibly, again, the optimal setting for people going off and achieving shamatha, especially if they're not already very seasoned yogis, the optimal is, number one, find a conducive environment, something that's really good. And they're not easy to find. Unless you have a lot of money, then you just buy one. But otherwise, they're hard to find. So that's why we need to create them, right? But once you've found a good environment, it's peaceful, it's serene, it's not dangerous, easy access to food, not too cold, too hot, and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

6:58 Basics, really simple, but all of those are met. Then the optimal is to have a few companions. A few companions who you really get along with really well. They're Dharma buddies. And also no complications of romance, so you don't get young people together, start having romance in the middle of that, really gets things complicated really quickly. So no romance, you know, if you want to have that, good, later, after the retreat, whatever, but not during. Report an error in the passage at 6:58 Highlight the passage at 6:58

7:24 And so just having good, clear, grounded, trusting, friendly Dharma friendship. But people who are really committed to very similar practice, share views, so they're not bickering, they're not debating amongst each other. But having three or four companions can be very, very helpful. Very helpful. And then if you have more people, if you have 10, 20, 30, 40 people, as we're anticipating, I hope within two years, we'll have a contemplative observatory up in Phuket. Report an error in the passage at 7:24 Highlight the passage at 7:24

7:49 And Klaus, we're thinking about 40 rooms, in which case then we'd have 10 clusters of four. So you would have just maybe three people that you get along with really well, and that's your little Dharma family. And you may not have much contact with the other people, because it's not a time for socializing anyway, but just a few buddies, a few buddies. Report an error in the passage at 7:49 Highlight the passage at 7:49

8:10 And so there's one cluster there and then one cluster here and you might then have ten clusters. And so that tends to be optimal. Once you're really, you know the ropes, you're very accustomed to practice, then like Gyanam Rimba and so many yogis I've known, you can go off to Salah for years and you'll be just fine. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:26 But when you start out having a bit of companionship, but not be lost in a crowd, so you kind of feel, oh, I'm the outsider here or anything like that. So in that regard, if you've got a few Dharma buddies, then Among these close friends, in order to learn from each other, share experiences in that group, then since everybody's clear, nobody's here to ego trip, to show, oh, look how special I am. Report an error in the passage at 8:26 Highlight the passage at 8:26

8:48 This is really that we can simply help each other in practice. In that context, too, simply speaking with candor and sharing experiences is fine. You can actually inspire the other. Maybe they can give some feedback that's helpful. But in terms of general proclamations of announcing to the world, hey, blah, blah, blah. Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:08 Avoid it. It tends to just kind of reify the ego and then it creates a lot of junk in the mind and then it just tends to make things complicated. So in that regard, cool it, keep quiet and just carry on with your practice. And then in terms of the presence or absence of any kind of pleasure or displeasure. In other words, you can have a wide variety of experiences arising through this practice. Report an error in the passage at 9:08 Highlight the passage at 9:08

9:32 Sometimes moments of bliss, sometimes depression, sometimes fear, boredom, ecstasy. Serenity, all kinds of stuff will come up. But whatever comes up, pleasant, unpleasant, sensation of motion, whatever it is, all kinds of experiences, somatic experiences, psychological experiences, often entwined psychosomatic, this is not uniform. Report an error in the passage at 9:32 Highlight the passage at 9:32

9:54 There's no real predicting what will come up today in terms of just what is unveiled through this practice for there are great differences in the dispositions and faculties. One could say also physiologies from one individual to another. What is certainly true of this practice though is, and boy we know this, this is a fact, is that doing this practice, especially when you start going 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 hours a day and doing this day after day, is that the one liner that pretty much characterizes this practice is you're dredging your psyche, like dredging a bay or dredging some swamp and then seeing that the ears, Here's vegetation and rotting animal substance and tires and plastic bags and all kinds of things that have been swept downstream and have kind of coagulated in a bayou down like Mississippi. Report an error in the passage at 9:54 Highlight the passage at 9:54

10:47 But as you dredge it, you're going to get all kinds of stuff coming up. And not much of it will be pleasant. Some of it might be kind of bizarre and interesting. Well, you are dredging your psyche. So the question of myoclonic jerks came up. A couple of days ago, I think it was. That will be dredged up. So somatic stuff, as you're breaking through, then surges of energy coming up. That's very likely. And then a wide variety of somatic experiences. Report an error in the passage at 10:47 Highlight the passage at 10:47

11:10 And no telling. It's just an awful lot of variety. And they're called nyam, that is they're catalyzed, they're dredged up through doing correct practice. Other things will be dredged up by doing incorrect practice, mostly trying too hard. And that you want to avoid. But through correct practice, you can have a lot of strain, sometimes very bizarre somatic experiences. But they're called nyama, these meditative experiences, because number one, they're not indicative of a medical condition that needs treatment. Report an error in the passage at 11:10 Highlight the passage at 11:10

11:38 And two, they tend to be transient. They kind of go right on through in a matter of hours or days, and then they're just memory. And they leave nothing behind. It's just kind of something welled up and then floated right on through. And likewise, psychologically. You may just have some depression coming in, really heavy depression, and you're wondering, what am I depressed about? And you're looking around, there's no reason. Report an error in the passage at 11:38 Highlight the passage at 11:38

12:00 But the depression is as real as any other depression that could be from the loss of a loved one or some catastrophe. But there it is, and you say, wow, am I going to have this forever? And then you can start fearing it and identifying with it and so forth, and then you can get really bogged down. Fear can also arise with no referent, just dread. Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:19 That can arise. And then it just kind of floats on through. And sometimes euphoria and sometimes silliness, even silliness can arise. So all kinds of things can come up. And that depends on temperament, background, many, many factors. You are dredging in the psyche. And so the overall response, and that is, unless you think what you're experiencing might be a medical condition, and it could be. Report an error in the passage at 12:19 Highlight the passage at 12:19

12:43 One of my students is down in Mexico. He was doing, I think, this practice. Very serious, very dedicated. He's up in New Mexico now. He's found a really good place for meditation. But he was down in Mexico, in Baja, California. And he had appendicitis. Well, there's no guarantee you won't get appendicitis when you're in a really strict meditation retreat. But that doesn't mean, oh, intense pain, intense pain, I'll just let it be, let it be, and then you're dead. Report an error in the passage at 12:43 Highlight the passage at 12:43

13:08 You know? So... If there's any concern that what you're experiencing might be a medical condition, then be sensible. Go off to a doctor. Or another student has some problem with his teeth. And then in the Shamatha project five years ago, an elderly person came to me. It was a three-month retreat. And he said, oh, he's well into the retreat. And he said, you know, I'm going kind of blind in one eye. Do you think that's a nyam? He said, no, I think you should go to a doctor right now. Report an error in the passage at 13:08 Highlight the passage at 13:08

13:33 So don't take leave of your senses getting all mystical. Just be really sensible. But if you do go and the doctor says, I don't see anything wrong with you. None of my tests show up anything positive. Then pay your bill with a big happy smile and say, thank you for your work, good diagnosis, and now I know it's a nyam. Report an error in the passage at 13:33 Highlight the passage at 13:33

13:53 And then go back to your cushion without any concern. Maybe I'm being foolish because I didn't go to a doctor and not getting needed treatment. But as soon as you have confidence, either because it's just intuitively obvious or you have checked with your doctor. That is not a medical condition, doesn't need treatment. Then whatever comes up, then just remember the Beatles. Let it be. Let it be. Just kind of let it come on up. Report an error in the passage at 13:53 Highlight the passage at 13:53

14:15 Relax around it. Don't fixate on it. Don't get into hope or fear or maybe this. Just leave it. Just let it be. And focus on the practice and let it unravel and work itself through. So that theme I mentioned earlier in the mindfulness of breathing practice, the analogy of the paper cut, the broken bone and how the body mind has an extraordinary capacity to heal itself. Report an error in the passage at 14:15 Highlight the passage at 14:15

14:38 In mindfulness of breathing, this is taking place by way of or in close conjunction with your respiration and your whole prāṇa system. So it's really healing in that way. And that balances the mind as well as sorting out the body and establishing real sweetness and mellowness in the body. But now, with no deliberate attention focused on the respiration, on the prāṇa system, all in the mind, what we're finding is kind of going right from the level of mind out, from the mind to the prāṇa system to tissue, that from the mind out, there is right there, we're coming into the nucleus of where is this healing coming from. Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

15:14 I'm now speaking from a Buddhist perspective. That from the Buddhist perspective, we are not fundamentally animals. I just read an article by a friend of mine, actually. I don't know him well, but we are friends, colleagues. A very fine psychologist named Jonathan Haidt. He's rather well known. And he was trying to understand religion in terms of evolutionary biology and how this is good for our survival and procreation and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 15:14 Highlight the passage at 15:14

15:36 And whenever I read that, I think, well, I guess that's just how you have to think. You know, because you're trying to understand all of human existence in terms of survival and procreation. And I just think that's an article of faith to believe that everything has to be explained in terms of that. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

15:53 but people who Hold those articles of faith. Okay, more power to you. Carry on. Try. But if we consider that we do have an animal nature, of course we have instincts, biological drives to survive, to procreate. That's kind of obvious. We are animals. But then there's more to us than that. And the pursuit of genuine happiness, the pursuit of virtue, the pursuit of wisdom and understanding, not just so you can survive and procreate better. Report an error in the passage at 15:53 Highlight the passage at 15:53

16:19 But something coming from a deeper source, and likewise in terms of healing, that it's not just antibodies and immune system and so forth. In the Buddhist view, that which is on the surface is this outer shell of the body, of tissue. Go deeper and you find an energy system. Psychologically, what's the outer shell is your psyche. Go deeper and you have the substrate consciousness, which is by nature pure, luminous, the brightly shining mind, but it gets obscured, and then penetrate through that substrate consciousness and you're into Buddha nature. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

16:49 And then it's called the energy of primordial consciousness, yisheiki lung. There's an energy there that is concomitant with Buddha nature, the energy of primordial consciousness. Well, in the Buddhist view, now this is a hypothesis, we don't have to believe this, but there's a hypothesis, is that the fundamental source of healing is not coming out of evolution. Report an error in the passage at 16:49 Highlight the passage at 16:49

17:10 I mean, that's very important. I do believe in evolution. I just don't believe, I don't take it as a religion. That it explains everything. I think it explains very well how we survive and procreate. I don't think it explains very well at all why we have Mozart and general theory of relativity and why we have Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and so forth and so on, let alone how we have the Dalai Lama who is celibate. Report an error in the passage at 17:10 Highlight the passage at 17:10

17:35 In other words, he's a dead end. He's a total catastrophic failure because he's not passing on his genes. He's a dead end, down with the Dalai Lama. Down with monks, down with nuns. No, we have to procreate, otherwise you're not successful. That just seems silly to me. But the point here, and it's a hypothesis, is that as we're going into settling the mind, we're really going more and more towards the nucleus of healing, which is at a very, very deep level. Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

17:59 And so as we're going here, then as you're observing these thoughts coming up and unraveling and twisting and mental things coming up and then unraveling and dissolving, you're watching your mind heal. And from that inner healing of the mind, That unraveling, that softening, that settling, that clearing, that balancing of the mind right down to the substrate consciousness, that's having its impact on the energy system, that's having its impact on muscles, but it's coming from a deep core and the healing is coming from the center out rather than thinking it's all just, I don't know, the immune system in. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:33 So it's a different way of viewing human existence. So, let's continue a little bit, there's not much more, but this only clutters up your practice. To talk about stuff and then you have all these nyam coming up. Let them be, let them float right on through and watch your whole body-mind heal, balance itself. Report an error in the passage at 18:33 Highlight the passage at 18:33

18:53 Not because you're being so clever, but because you're being clever enough to get out of the way. That's the discovery approach. Then due to maintaining the mind in its natural state or settling the mind in its natural state, just doing this practice, it's rather like having Shama to happen to you. Rather than going out there as a hunter and gatherer and saying, where's Shamat? I want a spirit and bring it home. You're just resting there in stillness, just sustaining that and then letting everything come to you rather than going out and foraging and trying to get it. Report an error in the passage at 18:53 Highlight the passage at 18:53

19:24 So just allowing it to arise, it is a discovery. Due to that, there may arise sensations such as physical and mental bliss. That can happen. A sense of lucid consciousness, just radiant clarity. The appearance of empty forms, that is, both during meditation as well as in between sessions, you may have a sense of just the appearances arising, but then the central theme of the Heart Sūtra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, apart from form there is no emptiness, apart from emptiness there is no form. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:54 The quintessence of the Heart Sūtra. It suddenly becomes no longer some Buddhist thing or some philosophical thing, it's like a description of what you're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 19:54 Highlight the passage at 19:54

20:04 that All forms, sensory, mental and so forth, they have no substance, they have no tangibility, no inherent existence from their own side. They're just this matrix of forms all arising independent origination and where the inner and outer are all entwined but all empty of inherent nature. And that can just arise spontaneously. It's an experience of empty forms. And then what else? Oh, this is the most interesting one. Report an error in the passage at 20:04 Highlight the passage at 20:04

20:32 It takes a little bit of unpacking. Oh, we're almost out of time, okay? I'm going to finish by five or so. A non-conceptual sense, but the wording is very interesting and it's very careful. A non-conceptual sense that nothing can harm your mind regardless of whether or not thoughts have ceased. On the surface it looks like it must be a typo. Report an error in the passage at 20:32 Highlight the passage at 20:32

20:51 How can it be non-conceptual if thoughts are still going on? Thoughts equals concepts, so therefore if you're still having thoughts then it's conceptual. But that's not right. And that is in the Buddhist understanding. When you're When your conceptual mind is operating, then you're attending to certain objects like something from the past, the future, something far away, and you're attending to a person, a thing, a place by way of concepts, by way of mental images, by way of discursive thought. Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:19 And so right now, I am thinking about my mother who lives in Southern California, the retirement home where she's living, so I'm attending to her. I may practice, send her thoughts of loving kindness because I do indeed love my mother. And so I'm attending to her. Alan, what are you attending to? Where's your focus? My mother. I'm not focusing on an image of my mother. I'm really thinking about my mother. Right? And that's true. Report an error in the passage at 21:19 Highlight the passage at 21:19

21:40 I'm not sending loving kindness to an image or to some fabrication in my mind. She's a person. She's way over yonder. And I'm attending to her by way of concepts. Right? And so that's a conceptual mind that operates by way of images, by way of thoughts and so forth. And so we use it and it's very effective. Report an error in the passage at 21:40 Highlight the passage at 21:40

21:59 In this practice, we are not cultivating a conceptual mind. We're not thinking about or attending to the reference of the thoughts and images that come to mind, which are there and then. So right now, an image of my mother just came to mind. And so if I'm doing this practice, that image that comes to mind, I'm just attending to the image as an image. Report an error in the passage at 21:59 Highlight the passage at 21:59

22:20 In other words, I'm attending non-conceptually to the image. Or if I think my mother is 86 years old. That thought comes up. Then I'm simply attending to the thought. My mother is 86 years old, but I'm not attending to my mother or how old she is. I'm just attending to that little script that ran by. Report an error in the passage at 22:20 Highlight the passage at 22:20

22:39 These are two different things. You are the falcon. You are the falcon hovering in the immediate present of the moment. Discursive thoughts, images and so forth, they rise, they introduce themselves to you and they fade out, but you remain unmoving. As soon as you attend to the referent of the image, the thought, then you're off. Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

22:58 And you're thinking about somebody far away, which has its usefulness, but it's not this practice. So this practice is not one of attending to the referent of the thought or image. It's non-conceptually attending to the thought or image that's arising right now. Which means as you make this a habit, knowing that you're perfectly welcome to enter into a conceptual mind any time you like, it's still useful. Report an error in the passage at 22:58 Highlight the passage at 22:58

23:19 But we're cultivating another mode of awareness here. A non-conceptual awareness of concepts. And as you get into that flow and you're not entangled in or caught up in what psychologists call cognitive fusion with the thought, where you are the thinker and you're attending to the referent of the thought by way of concepts. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:39 No, you are the perceiver attending to the concepts arising as events in the space of your mind. When that happens, I know I'm speaking rather quickly here, but I hope that was clear. When this happens, something very remarkable happens. And that is you develop a non-conceptual sense, an immediate knowing, like that fetus in the womb, an immediate knowing that nothing can harm your mind. Report an error in the passage at 23:39 Highlight the passage at 23:39

24:02 Your mind, that is whatever image comes up, whatever memory, whatever impulse, it can't harm your mind. And why? Because you're not grasping onto it. It's like watching a horror movie on television and just watching it, but not getting into the drama. Just, you're watching images on the screen, or if you want to go another step, you're watching actors getting... Report an error in the passage at 24:02 Highlight the passage at 24:02

24:23 A lot of money who are doing what they're doing. But you know, whatever appears on that screen, there's just no way it's going to harm you. I mean, they're just images. Just flat. They're just images. One step further, it's just actors reading their lines, doing their stuff. Report an error in the passage at 24:23 Highlight the passage at 24:23

24:44 What part of this is going to hurt you? Unless you start getting into the drama of identifying with him and hoping and fearing and getting excited and angry and resentful and so forth, then you can be harmed. But that's only because you're grasping. If you're not grasping, nothing on television is going to hurt you. And likewise, if you're not grasping, nothing in the three-dimensional hollow deck of the space of your mind, of that dimension, nothing is going to harm you, can harm you. Report an error in the passage at 24:44 Highlight the passage at 24:44

25:10 The powerful analogy, enormously close analogy, is if you are very, very lucid in a dream. You have clearly, clearly understood that you are dreaming. You fathom the nature of the dream. Well, whatever happens in the dream, whether it's a five-meter crocodile about to chomp you into two, or going over a waterfall and falling a thousand feet into an abyss, or falling out of an airplane, or being stabbed with a sword, whatever it may be, if you're lucid, there's nothing that can hurt you. Report an error in the passage at 25:10 Highlight the passage at 25:10

25:39 You are an apparition. You're like a rainbow. The crocodile, the airplane, the waterfall, they're rainbows. Nothing can possibly hurt you. But if you're not lucid, everything can hurt you. Somebody can say, you're such a dope in the dream. Somebody else in the dream says, you're such a dope. And you can feel, oh, I hate it when people say that. You hurt my feelings. Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

26:02 There's nobody there. There's not even anybody there that said it. It's just an appearance. You are a dope to whom it may concern. But if you're grasping onto it, you can wake up, oh, I had such a bad dream. I was being insulted. I really don't like what happened. I wish you hadn't done that. So you're suffering only because you're grasping. Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:23 Release the grasping and then you know. Whatever people say about me in the dream, I mean, whatever. And if it's a five-meter crocodile, have a nice lunch, whatever. Get over it. Be done with it already. I'll just reform my body when you're finished. Because it's a dream crocodile. What's he going to eat? Air? Dream food? You know, there's no problem. So, in a lucid dream, and it's such a strong parallel, in a lucid dream, you are recognizing the dream as a dream, and therein lies your freedom. Report an error in the passage at 26:23 Highlight the passage at 26:23

26:56 A non-lucid dream, you don't recognize the dream as a dream, you take the dream as being real, and then you can suffer all over the place, and people do. Here in the waking state, you're recognizing mental events as mental events, you're lucid with respect to your own mind in the waking state, and therefore you can be fearless, And invulnerable. Don't recognize your mental states as mental states. Mistake them for reality. And then people are literally tortured to death by their minds. Report an error in the passage at 26:56 Highlight the passage at 26:56

27:23 Literally tortured to death. Where they just can't stand it and finally commit suicide. And they can be in great health, perfectly good health, even beautiful bodies, and still commit suicide because the mind is torturing them. But the mind can't torture them. The mind cannot harm them unless they grasp. Unless they're non-lucid with respect to their own mind. Report an error in the passage at 27:23 Highlight the passage at 27:23

27:41 So I imagine there are probably some people who are so beset by recurrent nightmares. That could, I imagine, has probably driven some people to suicide. One nightmare or another, I can't stand it, I can't stand it, and then I want to end it all because of nightmares. Well, that's because you're not lucid. And some people are doing the waking state. So become lucid and then there's your freedom right there. This is a very powerful statement. Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

28:03 Whatever kinds of mental events occur, be they gentle or violent, subtle or gross, of long or short duration, strong or weak, good or bad, Observe their nature and avoid any obsessive evaluation of them as being one thing and not another. In other words, non-judgmental. Clearly, that is non-judgmental. Report an error in the passage at 28:03 Highlight the passage at 28:03

28:22 With respect to the contents of the thoughts and so forth that are arising. Let the heart of your practice be consciousness in its natural state, limpid and vivid. Limpid again means transparent and luminous. There it is, right there. It's discovery. Acting as your own mentor. When you're on your cushion, You're not going to be there with a cell phone ready to phone up your guru as soon as something comes up. You have to be your own mentor. If you can bring the essential points to perfection, and they are on this one page, if you just do this, as if you were threading a needle, the afflictions such as craving, hostility and so forth, the afflictions of your own mind stream will subside. Report an error in the passage at 28:22 Highlight the passage at 28:22

29:02 Number one, they're just going to calm down. You will not be beset with them so frequently or so intensely. But even more importantly, you'll gain the autonomy of not succumbing to them. So even when they rear their heads up and try to engulf you, you will not succumb to that. You'll not slip into their vortex. And your mind will be constantly calm and composed, which is not to say that you'll have no more emotions, but you won't be caught in the grip of your emotions. Report an error in the passage at 29:02 Highlight the passage at 29:02

29:27 You'll not be carried away by your emotions or rumination and so forth. In other words, you will be exceptionally sane. And this is a recipe for sanity. Not so much for developing it, but for discovering it. And now we come back to Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 29:27 Highlight the passage at 29:27

29:44 It's kind of like the first reference to Buddhism now. This is a sound basis for the arising of all samadhis of the stage of generation and completion. So right now we're back to mainstream Vajrayana. If you'd like to go into the stage of generation with the development of the generation of the mandala, the deity and all of that, having a really clean bill of health, being exceptionally mentally sane, could be a really good prerequisite. Report an error in the passage at 29:44 Highlight the passage at 29:44

30:08 Whereas with people... Enter into these practices, these visualization practices, divine pride, thinking that they're a Buddha, they're a deity and so forth. And they're bringing their own mental afflictions and neuroses to it. Report an error in the passage at 30:08 Highlight the passage at 30:08

30:22 It's pretty obvious that Vajrayana can exacerbate your mental afflictions. It just makes you crazier. You used to think you were a really pretty cool guy, kind of arrogant and condescending. And then you get into Vajrayana and now you're just transcendentally condescending. After all, I'm a Buddha, you schmucks. And so really, people can get really quite wacky, wacko, when they practice Vajrayana. If they don't have a really sound basis of exceptional sanity, it can just make them crazier. Report an error in the passage at 30:22 Highlight the passage at 30:22

30:53 And that's why it's not considered to be entry-level practice. So, Report an error in the passage at 30:53 Highlight the passage at 30:53

31:02 good. Well, it's only a wee-tad. It's only three minutes after five. Let's come back at seven o 'clock and maintain sanity. It's a really good habit. I'll see you at seven. Report an error in the passage at 31:02 Highlight the passage at 31:02