← B. Alan Wallace

Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 29)

B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 1 h 21 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 0:16

    There's a very nice complementarity between the practices of mindfulness of breathing on the one hand and settling the mind on the other. The mindfulness of breathing doesn't tend to be intrinsically so interesting, fascinating, arousing, but it does tend to be very soothing, calming, stabilizing. The settling the mind, on the other hand, does tend to be rather interesting. You never know what's coming up, thoughts, emotions, it kind of arouses the interest. You can also sharpen the vividness, the clarity, as you're aware of the sometimes very subtle events that are coming up, sometimes very fleeting events. And that too sharpens or enhances the vividness of attention.

  • 0:53

    So what I found is many people find it beneficial to do, if we go back to the food metaphor, a combination plate. And that is to have the first session. To really mellow out. It could be in the supine position. If you like it, you don't get dopey. Supine position, really good. Just go into mindfulness breathing of any of the three methods you find appropriate, but with primary emphasis on relaxation and stability.

  • 5:51

    Shamatha is about retreat. Not as escapism, because you're really not escaping anything. You're just a yo-yo and then you have to come out again. But this is exactly what it is. You come in, you achieve greater sanity, clarity, stillness and so forth. And then when you relaunch, you should be able to engage with whatever's happening much more effectively. Happily, in a much more wholesome and virtuous way. So I like to think of shamatha as retreat and vipassanā as an expedition. And both of them have military connotations to them.

  • 7:30

    Our mental feet are stuck in old... Habit patterns, in rumination, in reification, in erotic thinking and so forth and so on. And so expedition of Vipassanā is really designed to get out of old habit formations that are unwholesome, that are destructive and break new ground so to speak. So meditation at its most trivial is just an avoidance like watching television. But retreat can have a very meaningful connotation and that's what I suggested here.

0:16 There's a very nice complementarity between the practices of mindfulness of breathing on the one hand and settling the mind on the other. The mindfulness of breathing doesn't tend to be intrinsically so interesting, fascinating, arousing, but it does tend to be very soothing, calming, stabilizing. The settling the mind, on the other hand, does tend to be rather interesting. You never know what's coming up, thoughts, emotions, it kind of arouses the interest. Report an error

0:41 You can also sharpen the vividness, the clarity, as you're aware of the sometimes very subtle events that are coming up, sometimes very fleeting events. And that too sharpens or enhances the vividness of attention. So what I found is many people find it beneficial to do, if we go back to the food metaphor, a combination plate. Report an error

1:02 And that is to have the first session. To really mellow out. It could be in the supine position. If you like it, you don't get dopey. Supine position, really good. Just go into mindfulness breathing of any of the three methods you find appropriate, but with primary emphasis on relaxation and stability. Report an error

1:18 And then, perhaps staying in supine, or coming up to the sitting position, and then going for the settling the mind into the natural state, where vividness just starts to naturally arise. And so those two together can be a very nice balance. And then if you have sometimes three sessions, you might even do like a triple-decker sandwich. And that is mindfulness of breathing and then arousing with the settling the mind and then mellow out again with the mindfulness of breathing. Report an error

1:44 But a lot of people have found it quite beneficial to couple those because they complement each other. And really the key to success, if we can use that awful term, in settling the mind is relaxation. If you're coming in with tightness, kind of like that, then you're much more likely to be caught up in. Report an error

2:03 The thoughts are carried away by them and that just becomes frustrating after a while. And you feel, oh I can't do it, I can't do it. Whereas the softer you come in, the lighter you come in, the looser you come in, then the greater the chance, if you're not dull, the greater your chance of being able to observe mental events as they come and go without being sucked up into them. Report an error

2:22 So, let's just have two sessions now. As if you're already at home and it's the evening and the television is off and you're still fresh enough to meditate. Choose your own. We'll have two sessions. I'll just be the timekeeper. And then you choose. It's entirely your choice. There'll be two silent sessions. But one possibility is some version of mindfulness of breathing in first, second or third gear. Report an error

2:44 And then in the second session, moving into fourth gear, the settling the mind in its natural state. Okay? Your choice. And so we begin. Report an error

· · ·

3:40 A few written questions. I'll attend to these first. Report an error

3:48 Here's the first one and that is, I find the state of being mindful and meditation very pleasurable, almost to the point of addiction. I know I sometimes use meditative practice as a way of avoiding the real world, so what do I suggest? It's very true. I mean, obviously, meditation can simply be an escape mechanism from an unhappy situation, relationships, so forth and so on. Report an error

4:13 And if that's all it is, it's not much. More significant than just turning on the television and zoning out for a while to escape from the rest of your life. Whereas if, but on the other hand, if one, especially in shamatha practice, treats this like a retreat in the very literal sense of the term. I understand in warfare, in warfare if you're waging a battle and you're clearly losing and it doesn't look like there's any way ahead except for just to lose some more, then the smartest thing, the militarily most strategic, And wisest thing to do is retreat. It's not chickening out. It's not a sign of failure. It's just that this is the wisest thing to do at this time. Report an error

4:56 For whatever reasons, you are overwhelmed by the enemy or weather or whatever it may be. Retreat. But the retreat is not just an escape. It's not like putting up the white flag and saying, we give and we're going to throw down our weapons. It's a time to regroup, to re-strategize, maybe replenish your supply lines. Report an error

5:15 And then just rethink the whole thing and come in from another angle. It's rather like, again, a much more benign example, like in basketball. If your team is just getting clobbered, then the coach will come in and say, time, time, time. Okay, you guys, now. And then what are you doing wrong? And take a breather here. And now consider this, this, this. So the time out is not an avoidance of the real world. It's not failure. Report an error

5:42 It's the time to regroup, to rethink, to retreat so that you can then relaunch all afresh. So I think that really is the use of shamatha altogether. Shamatha is about retreat. Not as escapism, because you're really not escaping anything. You're just a yo-yo and then you have to come out again. But this is exactly what it is. Report an error

6:00 You come in, you achieve greater sanity, clarity, stillness and so forth. And then when you relaunch, you should be able to engage with whatever's happening much more effectively. Happily, in a much more wholesome and virtuous way. So I like to think of shamatha as retreat and vipassanā as an expedition. And both of them have military connotations to them. Report an error

6:21 I'm quite happy with that. Because the military, of course, is never against sentient beings, but it's kind of a military expedition to vanquish your own mental afflictions. And that type of terminology comes up all over the place in Buddhism. An arhat. An arhat is a foe destroyer. Arhat. Foe destroyer. Report an error

6:38 Who are your foes? The infidels, the non-Buddhists, the Hindus. No. The foes are your own mental afflictions. And now you've conquered them. You've overcome them. And so if Samad is a retreat, then Vipassanā is an expedition. Because Vipassanā then, once you've stabilized the mind, make it very sound, your minister has his good bodyguard around him. He goes back to that metaphor or that parable. Report an error

7:01 Then you venture out and you really deeply explore the nature of your body, feelings, mental phenomena. All other types of phenomena. You venture out again and again the etymology is quite rich. Expedition, you might recall, ex means out as an exit, ped as in pedestrian refers to feet. So expedition is to get your feet unstuck from someplace where they've gotten, like fallen into a rut. So that's an expedition etymologically. And so we know we fall into ruts of all kinds. Report an error

7:30 Our mental feet are stuck in old... Habit patterns, in rumination, in reification, in erotic thinking and so forth and so on. And so expedition of Vipassanā is really designed to get out of old habit formations that are unwholesome, that are destructive and break new ground so to speak. So meditation at its most trivial is just an avoidance like watching television. But retreat can have a very meaningful connotation and that's what I suggested here. Report an error

8:02 And then here's the second one, often when I meditate I see, that is mentally see colors and or patterns. Sometimes I explore these and focus and go into them. Is that okay or should I ignore them and only concentrate on my breath? So good question and the answer hinges entirely on what practice you're doing. Report an error

8:22 So if you're practicing mindfulness of breathing, then whatever comes up, colors, lavender is quite common, seems to be one of the colors in vogue. But whatever colors, patterns, interesting images come up, you just let them be. But you not only let them be, you actually release them. There is a preference for them not to be there so that you can single-pointedly focus on the sensations of the breath. Report an error

8:47 But then as you recall from that very brief description yesterday, as you really settle in, you get more and more into the flow, the mind becomes very concentrated. Then after some time, a very vague statement, then this acquired sign will come knocking on your door. And that won't just be a color, but it will be some form. And just go back to the attention revolution or back to the source, the path of purification, and you'll see an array, a kind of assortment of different acquired signs that have come up over the centuries. Report an error

9:15 And then when such a form arises, and that's why I won't repeat what I said yesterday, then when you are confident that this is the acquired sign that's coming up, then, as I said yesterday, then you disengage your attention from the breath and you focus on that. But until then, if you're focusing on mindfulness of breathing, then whatever images, patterns, shapes, colors, including very psychedelic ones and flashbacks to your old LSD experiences, whatever is coming up, you just release it and just come back to good old breath. Report an error

9:45 Having said that, if you're practicing settling the mind in its natural state, and now interesting patterns and shapes and colors are coming up, and they're arising in the domain of the mind, they're not visual hallucinations, then... They are grist for the mill. Because in this practice, you're focusing on the space of the mind and whatever arises in it without preference. So if it's shapes, colors, Beethoven sonatas, whatever it may be, you simply attend to it, observe its nature, let it be. Report an error

10:14 So it depends on the practice. So here's another one, a pretty different topic. I love the question, I must say. How do we go about establishing a contemplative observatory in Australia? I would like to spend some time one day attaining shamatha, vipassanā and so on, but this is not possible at this stage of my life as I have young children. Report an error

10:36 So that's one of the best reasons not to go into retreat. So the next best thing is to be involved in establishing and supporting such an observatory. So Namo, Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu, my respects to the motivation. It's a wonderful motivation. So, should it be teamed up, that is, having this vision of maybe helping to establish such an observatory, should it be teamed up with an existing retreat center, such as the Chenri Zee Institute on the Sunshine Coast, or Virupa Center near Canberra, or Siba in Gippsland, Victoria, is that right how you pronounce it? Report an error

11:12 Gippsland, Gippsland in Victoria. These latter two centers are associated with Lama Chuta Rinpoche. Who's been teaching shamatha in Australia for more than 20 years? Or does this run into conflicting intentions and is it better to set up something independent, such as on Kangaroo Island? So, lovely question. First of all, my understanding is that Kangaroo Island is not independent. It's very much part of the FPMT. Is that not correct? Report an error

11:39 Yeah. Yes, yes? Good. So it's a retreat center associated with the Vajrayana Institute, maybe other FPMT, but I think a queer... A clear link with the Vajrayana Institute right here in Sydney. So it's part of the overall, kind of this whole network of, gosh, more than 100 centers worldwide of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna Tradition. Report an error

12:00 So it's part of that. But if you folks are to set up an observatory here in Australia, does it necessarily need to be part of the FPMT? Absolutely not. If one of you has private land and you'd just like to create that and run it and you own it, And make it available? That's great. Or there's a woman I know, maybe I'll keep her anonymous right now, but anybody asks, I'll tell you. But a woman, very dedicated, and she has a gorgeous piece of land down in Tasmania. Report an error

12:29 Beautiful land. And she'd really like to make it available as an observatory. But she's bought the land, but doesn't have all the financial wherewithal to start putting up huts and so forth. But she's only photoed, as I said, it's really gorgeous. And then there's this other person I know who lives on the southwest coast of the North Island of New Zealand. I know it's not Australia, but I also know you have no visa problems going back and forth. Report an error

12:52 And it's gorgeous there. And if she knew there were other people interested, then that would give her inspiration and then she would say, oh, people would actually come. And so the fundamental idea, the vision that I have in mind for this kind of network of observatories worldwide is that they're created not as a business venture, And I know that was not suggested here. But not as a business venture to run a for-profit retreat center. And there are such. And they'll charge $30 a day, $60 a day, $100 a day. Report an error

13:23 And that's the right likelihood. If people want to come and they pay that much, then why not? But if people are coming in for a year, two years, three years, longer, then even $30 a day can be cost-inhibitive for a lot of people. Let alone anything above that. So the vision that I have in mind is really calling on people's, their own vision, their own inspiration, their own altruism to acquire land and one way or another to build retreat facilities that then can be used for, that is people who are really dedicated, they've been screened by someone, obviously it doesn't have to be me, but some qualified teacher, that they will not be just goofing off there, smoking dope or just listening to music, you know, just... Report an error

14:03 Putzing around. They're really going there because they're well disciplined, they're well prepared, good motivation, have access to a qualified teacher, and they're going there to really practice full time. Well, supporting such people is really a very meritorious act. And my aspiration would be that they could do so and pay only for food and utilities. In other words, this is not for profit at all. Report an error

14:24 You're creating a facility, but then they pay for themselves once it's up. So just food and utilities. In the United States, you can do that, you can just get by on $15 a day. In India, $5 a day. Brazil, $10 a day. Mexico, $10 a day. So it depends, you know, just food costs, and also how cold it gets. If it gets really, really cold, like Mongolia, then you're looking at pretty hefty utility bills in the wintertime. Report an error

14:49 So that would be all that I would hope for. And again, there's no question of ownership here. Absolutely, in this network, there's simply no hierarchy. There's no boss. If I can catalyze things, I'm happy to. But there's no way with Lama Zopa Rinpoche that I would somehow be above him. It's just silly. So if there's a Lama who's qualified, and from what I hear, he's very qualified, he would be the teacher there, he would be the mentor to which you could have direct access. Report an error

15:17 And this is not, as I said, it's so non-sectarian. It's not just Tibetan Buddhism. It doesn't exclude Theravāda Buddhism. It's for anybody who'd really like to practice and achieve shamatha. And I would simply hope that if an observatory is created, that it's opened all different types of methods. That the Lama may have a preference. Oh, I really like focusing on a Buddha image. Report an error

15:35 Great. But then everybody who goes there shouldn't have to do that if they'd really like to do settling the mind or awareness of awareness. And of course it's not limited to the three methods that I commonly emphasize. For some people, focusing on a Buddha image may really be the best. And I know how to teach it. I've done it. I could give guidance in that. Whereas other methods that I've never explored myself, probably find a better teacher. Report an error

15:59 Somebody who's experienced in another method. So that's the gist of it. And so if there's interest, you can get in touch with me. Tony Steele, he and I, when we drove here together, he expressed an interest of kind of developing Kangaroo Island up a bit. You can have more than one yogi there, give a bit of group energy. So I respect so much the question, appreciate it, and if there's any way I can facilitate you folks developing an observatory in your home country, we did check out to see whether visas could be arranged for foreigners, as in non-Ossis and non-Kiwis, and it looked very difficult. Report an error

16:39 But I have no qualms with that. I think 24 million in Australia, 4 million in New Zealand. You're covering 28 million people. That's not insignificant. And so even if no foreigners can come for long periods, well, that's the breaks. And, you know, start another one in Thailand, another one in Brazil and so forth. Report an error

16:55 But I think it would be marvelous. And then the networking could be really quite magical. So, that's my response to that. Thank you for the question. Oh yeah. So, there being no word for forgiveness in Tibetan, an FPMT booklet with the Six Session Guru Yoga states with the bodhicitta vows, Not sharing my wealth or the Dharma. Not forgiving even if others apologize. Good. Report an error

17:22 Good question. Very well informed question. And I do recall that. And I think the term is Zopa. Patience. Not showing patience. Not accepting. Not accepting their apology. That's a little bit different. I mean, we're talking nuance here. And again, do Buddhists never forgive anybody because they don't have a word for it? Report an error

17:41 No, that's silly. But in Tibetan we don't have a word for it, and I don't think it's Sanskrit either. But if somebody stepped on my foot and says, oh, I'm sorry, and I say, and I walk away. Well, what I'm doing, I'm just not accepting your apology. I think you're an oaf. And just go away. I can't bother myself with you. I don't, it's just harumph. Report an error

18:05 I think that's the word, isn't it? Harumph. It's just that I don't accept your apology. Maybe I don't think it's sincere. Maybe I don't care. Maybe I just don't like you. So it doesn't quite... And we would say, I'm not forgiving you. And they would say, I'm just not accepting your apology. Okay? So, good question, though. I would think this had been translated directly from the Tibetan text. Yeah, and I think it's a good translation. Report an error

18:28 But I'll stick by my guns. If I go and check the Tibetan, I doubt that I'm going to learn a new word. It's probably a word I'm pretty familiar with, and it's probably Zopa. To not forbear or simply not to accept the other person's apology. But very good, well-informed question. And the final written one. Oh, it looks like there's two. Report an error

18:48 What was His Holiness the Dalai Lama rationale or motivation in initiating the Cultivating Emotional Balance program? Thank you for the question. It was such a good conference and you can kind of vicariously enjoy it by reading Dan Goleman's book called Destructive Emotions. He did really a splendid job. Report an error

19:06 He didn't just give a transcription, an edited transcription. He brought in all of his really quite formidable authoring skills, writing skills as a journalist. And wrote just a very delightful, very engaging and interesting account with background information and so forth. And so this conference 12 years ago went very well. Report an error

19:26 But the Dalai Lama, I've known him now for more than 40 years, he's never just thinking about just Tibetans. And never mind Mongolians or Bhutanese or Sudanese or Brazilians and so forth. He just doesn't think in narrow channels, neither ethnically nor religiously. He doesn't think, okay, it's us Buddhists against all the other critters, you know, the Hindus. He just doesn't think that way at all. He doesn't think of, I'm a religious person, look out for those science guys. Report an error

19:55 Otherwise he would never have gotten this wonderfully prestigious award from the Templeton Foundation. And so as we're having this conversation and knowing that really it was very, how do we say, mutual. There was a lot of learning going both ways. These scientists and so forth had a lot to offer that was very interesting. And then he, in talking about destructive emotions, he and other Tibetans in the room had a lot to offer as well. Report an error

20:18 So it was really one of the best conferences we had. So he came so quite characteristic of him as an individual. He was looking at this and saying, wow, there's a feast here. We have a feast over here. How could we get those feasts together that could be of benefit not only to Buddhists but to anybody, religious, not religious? He's written a whole book called Ethics for the New Millennium. Report an error

20:40 So he's thinking, well, how can we re-envision ethics in a way that is relevant, beneficial, informative, inspiring to people whether they're Buddhist, not Buddhist, religious or not religious? Because really we all need to live ethically, otherwise we can't live in harmony. And so this... He really embodies what he teaches when he speaks of global responsibility or universal responsibility. And that's what he's talking about here. So in a way, the Buddhists are already taken care of, whether Theravāda Buddhism or the very rich traditions of East Asian Buddhism. Report an error

21:10 We've got a bounty of material. If you want to cultivate emotional balance, you don't really have to look outside. You can. It might be helpful. We have tons of material, right? But he was saying, well, how can we take some of the treasures of the Buddhist tradition, bring them into full collaboration or union with some of the cutting-edge evidence-based research, interventions, theories for modern psychology, so this can be of benefit to society as a whole. Report an error

21:35 And that was his motivation. And that's what we've done. And I'll be brainstorming with Paul Ekman and his daughter within a week or two to see how we can keep the momentum up of offering the teacher training. For people to become instructors in cultivating emotional balance, make it accessible to them financially, geographically and so forth. And then what is, why is it deemed important? Report an error

21:58 Again, very sincere question. Why is it deemed important to kind of bring that out, to secularize it? Secularize it so it's not just of interest to people who are religious or who are Buddhist. And then why do it? Because suffering from emotional balances is very painful. Report an error

22:18 It's just that simple. Suffering from destructive emotions, as Paul Ekman says, getting caught in the grip of emotions. And one of the really fundamental common grounds between the theory and the interventions and so forth that Paul Ekman introduced into this 42-hour program and that I introduced to the Buddha side was really honing in right exactly on what we're doing today. Report an error

22:43 But he's coming in from two very different perspectives, different methodologies, different starting assumptions. Paul is not religious, not Buddhist, doesn't believe in reincarnation. If he really reveres anyone in terms of great... I mean, he certainly has a great respect for the Dalai Lama, but Darwin's his guy. He really has tremendous understanding and appreciation of Darwin, not just for his theory, but for many, many of his insights and so forth. Report an error

23:06 He's studied him very extensively. So Paul's coming in from a very different angle. And the Dalai Lama is as well. But where we came to utterly common ground was the enormous importance of developing this kind of metacognitive awareness, not only of thoughts and images, but also of emotions and desires that arise. Report an error

23:27 So that before they manifest, your emotions, especially the destructive ones, malevolence, impatience, sarcasm, contempt and so forth, before these erupt and flow out your mouth. Out in your physical behavior, in making policies, in making decisions, before that happens, before these emotions, especially the destructive emotions, manifest in the world, if you can be aware of, through metacognitive training, if you can be aware of the impulse, the emotion, the desire, before it manifests in behavior, then as Paul says, between the spark and the flame, between the spark of the emotion arising and the flame, almost as if we're dragons, Report an error

24:08 And then we breathe out or express, we press out our emotions onto the world. Between the spark and the flame, if we can shine a bright light of cognizance, of awareness, recognizing this is an emotion, and now with discerning intelligence. I'm being judgmental, we know that's negative. But discerning intelligence, is this beneficial? If I were to express this, would it be helpful? Report an error

24:34 Would I be able to bring about the change I would love to see happen in the world? Is it helpful to me, helpful to others? I mean, go through your Rolodex, helpful or not. They're not being judgmental, it's being sensible, right? Not all emotions are created equal. Some of them, if you express them, they just create misery. Other ones, they create joy and alleviation of suffering and so forth. Report an error

24:55 So just having that awareness, there's the emotional impulse, recognizing it for what it is, and then before it It comes plunging out into the world, making a decision that might be wise. No guarantee. But there's a possibility of it being a wise decision because you're actually in a position to make a decision. Report an error

25:16 And that is, here's an impulse, shall I act or not? Then you make a decision. Maybe you'll be a good one, maybe not. But if you're not even aware between the spark and the flame, if the emotion comes up, and like being caught inside a burning house, it just engulfs you. And then without your being aware even that you're In the grip of this emotion, it comes roaring out your mouth, then you never made a decision. It just went from the spark to the flame and then you're a towering inferno of whatever's coming out, which then no decision was made, which means you're all set for what Paul Ekman deliciously calls a regrettable episode. Report an error

25:54 I really love that because it's so non-moralistic and it's so non-judgmental. It's by your own criterion. It's like, I wish I hadn't said that. I wish I could, you know, turn the time machine, turn it back. Too late. Oh man, what do I do now? Oh jeez. Regrettable episode. We all know that's why you're laughing, because we all know what it's like. And it's not being moralistic, it's not being anything. It's just like, whoa, some things, if we hadn't done it, it would have been better. Report an error

26:23 And if we'd had that metacognitive awareness between the spark and the flame, we could have saved ourselves from regrettable episodes. So there we are. So very good. Thank you for the question. And this, I think I scanned left to right last time, so I'm going to scan right to left this time. I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible. So yes, we'll start here, and then scan right across, way over yonder. Report an error

26:51 Alan, my name is Robin, and I'm really just wondering the format of the longer retreats, like the eight-week retreat, the one-year retreat. Report an error

27:05 What's the formula, and are you being mentored? Are you being mentored? Yeah, very good. So for the eight-week retreats, we're just about to start one in about less than two weeks on April 6th. And there, the format's very simple and it's the old aphorism, if it works, don't fix it. We have a format that seems to work really well, so I'm not messing with it. Report an error

27:30 And so we have the first group session for only half an hour. It's from 9 to 9.30 in the morning. And then from 10 to 11... Then I meet with three people, each one for 15 minutes. I have a five-minute break, each one, and that's for one-on-one, 15-minute weekly sessions. And then from 2 to 3, again, I meet with three more people. So I'm not getting tapped out. Six people a day, I can handle that just on a regular flow. I don't feel overwhelmed or tired or bored or anything like that. Report an error

28:00 It's fine. So that's 2 to 3. And then from 4.30 to 6, then... We once again have a 24-minute session, so that really pretty much occupies the morning session. That's a guided meditation. And what we'll be doing this year is we'll start in the morning with the four measurables. And then we go through a cycle of ten versions of the four measurables over obviously a ten-day period, but a guided meditation. And then as the weeks go by, then less and less verbiage from my side, and people are more and more guiding themselves in the meditation. Report an error

28:33 In the afternoon from 4.30 to 6, Then we have the first 24 minutes, half an hour or so, is guided meditation. And that's going through a cycle, a 10 meditation cycle of the three methods, mindfulness of breathing, settling in mind, awareness of awareness, and bring different nuances to it. We do that for the first half an hour or so. And then we have the last hour, it's just open discussion. And sometimes a really big juicy question will come up and I'll give a half an hour answer, but not usually, once in a while, a really long one, but usually it's a five minute answer. Report an error

29:05 Three minute, ten minute, whatever, depending on the question. Sometimes observations, people don't just ask questions, sometimes they're simply sharing their experience. Also, in those one hour, if people would like to, maybe something come up, they won't see me personally for another five days, then they always have the option of writing a question or making an observation or describing their experience and putting no name on it. Report an error

29:30 And then I just read it and say, okay, someone says this. But again, there's no ego in it. So if it's something glorious, something marvelous just happened and I've had an incredible lucid dream and so forth and so on, it's not like, whoa, look at me, I'm special, look at me. No, it's an anonymous question. And so then it's perfectly clean. Make it public, but then nobody knows who it is. And then I respond to it. So that's it. Report an error

29:53 Then it winds up being just two hours a day. I've now established a rhythm. I meditate nine hours a day on my own. That's what I love to do. And then I'm teaching four hours a day. But if there's any emergency, anything really comes up that requires attention, then I'm more like a doctor who is on call 24 hours a day. And occasionally it does, occasionally even in the early hours of the morning. Report an error

30:15 Something comes up, a medical emergency where people want to touch base with me to, okay, what to do or something in meditation. But not too often, frankly. And then we do always have a trained and experienced psychotherapist on call as part of the retreat. Because I'm not trained in that way at all. I have zero training as a clinician. And there are issues that are a bit more psychological for which a person with that background will be better prepared than a person like me who is a former Buddhist monk and that kind of thing. Report an error

30:45 So if people want to consult with a therapist, then they always have that option. It's free. There's no extra charge for that. And the person is also a meditator, so it's not just an outsider who happens to be on call. So we have that as well. So that's for the eight-week retreats. And we did the same thing. We started this format back five years ago when we ran the three-month retreats in the Shamatha Project. It went well, so we continue with it. Report an error

31:07 And we do find that it's quite sufficient. People do not feel neglected or stranded or isolated or lonely. And we're maintaining silence, but if people decide they'd really like to go out for a walk and talk about practice, they're always welcome to do that. Nobody judges. Nobody cares. Just do it on your own where other people don't have to hear you. In terms of the one-year retreat, this is 24 years ago, where it was a group retreat. Report an error

31:33 Then people just met primarily with Gen Lam Rimpa and then occasionally with me, or sometimes I'd be interpreting for him, whenever they wanted. Because we're just there on call. And I think they just went whenever they wanted to. That was just it. When people come from an eight-week retreat and then want to go into a long-term retreat from there, Overall, I found that they are well prepared. There was only one case of all the people who have gone through it where it didn't turn out so well. Report an error

32:03 The person, very sincere, ethical, all good, and then went off to, and really liked the practice, wanted, and then wanted to continue, and then went off, but just was too tight. Just too tight. And he was practicing in another country, and I offered my very best from afar, but none of my words helped. It just kept too tight. Report an error

32:24 Aurora, like that, getting headaches and clamped down. And I said, go for walks and chill and loosen up. It didn't work. So I said, okay. So he said, how about I break the retreat? And I said, good idea. Yeah, break the retreat. This is best. Chill, relax, loosen up, and then come back when you're really happy to come back. Report an error

32:42 If and when. If and when. But that's one out of quite a few. Most people, they slip into it and they do fine. So it would be, but again, very briefly, As I watch how people do in their solitary retreats after a kind of boot camp or your basic training in Phuket, it's pretty clear to me that if they could come in clusters, if they could cluster like in four or five, something like that, I think they'd get a lot of benefit out of it. Report an error

33:09 I think they really would. And then over time, I think we could set up something. It's not that difficult, but if there are little clusters, like one in Australia, another one in Brazil, another one in Mexico and so forth. Then it wouldn't be very difficult on a regular basis, at least once a month, once a fortnight, for me to get on Skype. Because it's so, it's free. And if you have broadband, you're all set. Report an error

33:31 And then we could, you know, we have a little cluster here. Okay, here's a half an hour for Brazil. And let's just talk with the folks there. But if there are just one here and one there, then it does start to add up to a lot of time because there's 20 different Skype groups, right? So I think there's a lot of potential there. Report an error

33:46 And of course, if you have a person like Ani Zamba, who's actually there physically, then all the better. That can happen. So, that's that. That's the answer. Good. So, scanning right to left. Yes, please. Report an error

34:02 Hello, Ellen. My name's Helen. And it's further on to what you were talking about before. First of all, I got one of your CDs online, and I've been using that at home. And it's made a complete difference to my life. So glad. I'm much, much calmer now. But what I'm suspicious about is that am I repressing anything? Report an error

34:28 Because now that I'm much calmer and I don't get upset about things so much with everything that's going around, I'm just sort of doubting perhaps maybe I'm repressing some emotions that I really probably need to. Because years ago I'd be doing analytical. Meditation and really pounding it. Right, right. Getting the boxing ring and getting the left jab and the right hook. You know, just doing the shamatha and calming down and my blood pressures down. Report an error

35:00 Cool. All of that. So I'm thinking, hey, you know, is this real? So, yeah, just the thoughts on that that I'm doubting. Perhaps I'm not attending to everything I should be attending to. Yeah, yeah. Certainly it's a valid concern. In principle, it is possible that if one is spending a lot of time in shamatha, and again, if it's like mindfulness of breathing especially, where thoughts and memories and so forth keep coming up and you say, bye, bye, releasing them, releasing them, releasing them. Report an error

35:30 It's possible. Something could be repressed. But then one would want to look, and speaking with a person with no background in clinical psychology at all, And I know at least one person, probably more here, they have real professional training, which I lack. But just intuitively, my thought would be this. And that is, if on occasion, somebody does something, and you have an emotional response that is really exaggerated, like, whoa, slow down there, Helen, what's wrong? Report an error

35:59 I know he did something, but it wasn't. Like a really exaggerated response. Whether it's for anger, whether it's envy, whether it's some other afflictive or destructive emotion, where it's kind of erupting in a really unusual way, then to my mind, that would indicate, well, maybe you're kind of really holding that down and then somebody scrapes the surface and, boom, we've got a geyser coming up. Report an error

36:19 But if that's not there, if you're not seeing any peculiar anomalous eruptions that were out of character, that weren't there before, then on the surface, and maybe I'm being superficial, but I wouldn't see any real reason for concern. Now, if we consider what is the purpose of shamatha, not just for, I mean, especially, okay, develop stability and vividness, but the purpose is to overcome, to subdue, to make, go into hibernation, the mental afflictions, such as the fixation, the addiction, the total indulgence in the pursuit of etonic pleasure. Report an error

36:55 It has its place, but then we go overboard and it's called attachment. Is that subsiding? And then ill will of all kinds, malevolence, resentment, hatred, and so forth and so on. And then of course the attentional imbalances, laxity, dullness, excitation and guilt. Those should be subsiding. And then just the debilitating uncertainty, the waffling, the self-doubt, the vacillating and so forth. Just getting your act together and proceeding with more confidence. Report an error

37:21 The idea of shamatha is that it's really subduing those five. Not repressing them as in, I can't look at it, I won't look there. You know, like that. No, it's just that they are getting subdued. And why? Because the mind's becoming so healthy. It's becoming so balanced that they just don't get much of a grip on you. Report an error

37:42 So, in a way, literally speaking, the practice of Shama is designed to suppress mental afflictions. But not suppress them so they're growling and lunging and just ready to leap up. They're suppressed because you've kind of disempowered them. Kind of like make them groggy, like you gave them a... A groggy drug. There's just not much power to get to you. They're still there. And if your Shamat ability tapers off, you start just getting, oh, just kind of losing that and then getting really involved in hedonic pleasures and hopes and fears and so forth, you'll find, oh, they wake up and they're just spry and fit as a fiddle, ready to beat you to a pulp all over again. Report an error

38:23 So it's good only as long as you're maintaining that wonderful balance that should persist not only during sessions but between sessions. If you're maintaining that overall heightened psychological immune system, then that's just to your benefit. But it will take Vipassanā to come and make them so they can't arise again, that they really are gone. But in the meantime, Shantideva is a good second best. Report an error

38:48 Okay? Good. It's right here. Report an error

38:54 Hello Ellen, my name is Susan and just in relation to the settling the mind, I'm finding that there's a little self-talk going on in my mind while I'm doing it. Yes, that was a dog barking, now let it go, let it go. Will that eventually go away or is that something that's always going to be there? I'm always going to be talking to myself. Well one thing is I never say always because that's an awful long time. And I will, I'm going to just scoot back just for a moment. Report an error

39:23 And that is back to Helen's question. And that is, if you're settling the mind in this natural state, there actually isn't any repression at all. Because you are allowing the emotions, the desires, the thoughts, memories, all of it to come up without censorship. So by that, it's just the opposite of repression or suppression. Report an error

39:41 But now, are we just falling in the same ruts of rumination and daydreaming? Well, clearly not. We don't need to come here to learn what we already know perfectly well. and so as you well now as you know We know well by now that we are allowing these thoughts, images, emotions and so forth to flow freely in the settling the mind practice. We simply attend to them without the grasping so we're not compulsively sucked into them. Report an error

40:07 But this is not repressing them or suppressing them. It is cutting the cord of grasping that facilitates or ignites the cognitive fusion. So that we get totally sucked up into the emotion. So there's very little chance of suppression or repression if you're practicing settling the mind because you're doing deliberately doing just the opposite of not suppressing. Report an error

40:33 So, and back to you, I kind of got sidetracked because I saw the connection. With respect to settling the mind, the internal commentator. Report an error

40:43 The nine stages are still relevant to this practice because that is said to be the organic development or growth. Maturation of attention skills, no matter what method you practice. So in that regard, you might recall that in the second stage, you achieve that second stage by the power of thinking. And that power of thinking, one aspect of that, could be something of an internal commentator guiding you in the practice. And that can be deliberate. Report an error

41:12 Deliberate. But, my sense was, when you were describing this, it wasn't so much a deliberate coaching or guiding or mentoring yourself in the practice. As he said, like threading a needle. In the instruction we just finished. But more just obsessive kind of commenting going on, the commentarial coming in. Report an error

41:33 And does it go on forever? Well, it depends on how effectively you practice. Do you want it to go on forever? Would it be a good thing if it went on forever? Not in this practice, no. And here's the deal. And that is when the commentary is going on, if you feel that you are the thinker, Report an error

41:54 If you have a sense, thinking this and that, then there is a cognitive fusion that is a fusion of your own awareness with that thought line. And so you are doing the thinking and you're thinking about that. The dog, the this, the that. Which means your attention is going off to the referent. The referent, right? Report an error

42:13 Now, where's the way out? And the way out, first of all, when I'm guiding people in meditation, I say this until they... I say it a lot, just put it that way. The key is to relax more. I keep on coming back to that one. Not get exasperated, not mentally say, would you please shut? Report an error

42:37 You know what happens when you do that? You shut up. No, I said it first, you shut up. No, no, I said it first, you shut up. Report an error

42:46 It gets pretty weird pretty quickly. So that doesn't work. Responding with grasping, either aversion or I like the commentary, keep it up, this is really sharp, I'm going to hire you. Either the grasping of pro or con, it's still grasping. And either way, it perpetuates it. Almost like a naughty child. If you reward a child, then they'll want to do it again. But if you're a naughty child, if you do that again, they're just waiting to do it again. Report an error

43:16 They really want to do a little power play, the naughty kids. And so if you really show that you really don't like it, then they're kind of waiting to do it again and see if they can get away with it. So the mind's kind of like a naughty kid. And responding with either aversion or desire. It's bound to just fuel whatever is taking place, one way or another. So what's the way out? Is when you see the commentary going on, just treat it like any other mental process. Report an error

43:43 So some thoughts, some of you may have already experienced this, some thoughts that arise can be very much like sitting in a hotel room with rather thin walls and simply overhearing a conversation in the next room by two strangers that you don't know. But you just hear... A phrase here, unconnected, you don't know context at all, just a phrase here and then there's maybe an answer and maybe their voices calm down again and you don't hear them. Report an error

44:09 And then another loud voice and then something unrelated comes up and you can hear it clearly, you can understand it. But you have that sense, I'm not thinking that at all. I don't even know where it came from. It's just a stray, like a stray puppy, just kind of wandered in the room and wandered out again, or like a stray cat, more likely. Report an error

44:29 But they just kind of stray. They're strays. They come in, they weave out. But no sense that I did it. More the sense I just happened to be there. And it came into my mental hearing, so to speak. Or images that come up. And it's just, you weren't part of narrative. There was no storyline there. This is, well, it just came up. Report an error

44:49 You know, it just came up. The knowledge that comes up for this one is when I sometimes watch television with my wife and she has the remote. Report an error

45:01 She likes to surf. Well, I'm trying. I'm trying. We try to go 50-50. But when she has it, she really likes to surf. Which means I'm just kind of watching. I'm settling my mind. It's a natural state. I don't know what's coming up. She may be really interested in an infomercial. She may go for a documentary. She may go for a chick flick. I mean, I don't know. But she has the control, so I just... Report an error

45:28 I don't know, I don't know. I love you honey, whatever, you know. But I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not in control. I'm not writing the script. I'm not director. I'm not producer. It's just happening and I'm here. So many thoughts will occur that way and some of them you feel you really, I thought that. And so, treat them all the same. Report an error

45:49 That is, whatever comes up, as soon as you note it, then relax. So, relax, release and return. And if it's the commentary, just note, ah. And you don't even say, hello, you're a commentary. You don't need that. Because this is one of those things, as I gaze at your shirt or your blouse, I don't need to think pale green. That's unnecessary. Report an error

46:10 I don't need to think shirt, but especially just green, boom. I don't need to think anything. I already know what color it is. No commentaries need it at all. And likewise, this stuff comes up, you just know it already. You don't need to say, oh, that's commentary. You're already aware what it is, you know, with your lips pursed. Report an error

46:32 So what do you do when you see that? Just let it be. If it captured you, then release it and then come back. But if you're just aware of it rising, then treat it like any other. Just be aware of it and let it then dissipate of its own. And then you take the energy out of it. That's the key. Say again? Yes. Yes. And this is the thing, that one phrase, without distraction, without grasping, insofar as you can really persevere in that, if you're getting distracted, then you're just reinforcing the rumination habit. Report an error

47:05 You've fallen off the wagon. But grasping also exacerbates. And it's the grasping of desire and the grasping of aversion. But if you're just present, and again, the metaphor is like space. If you're the space, if you're the sky above Sydney, then whether it's clouds, whether it's airplanes, whether it's butterflies, skydivers, smog, whatever it is, space, space. Report an error

47:31 It just arises in space, it vanishes in space. But the space doesn't recoil, it doesn't go back and forth, it doesn't respond, it's just open, present with whatever's coming up. And it's still. And that's the quality of awareness to be called. Report an error

47:45 Yes, please. Report an error

47:51 Alan, my name's Eugene. I remember, yes. Thank you. With regards to the settling the mind in its natural state, I find that when I'm paying close attention, I have very few thoughts. Yes, right. And when I metaphorically look away, then the thoughts come in. It's a bit like, Sitting outside watching a mouse hole and you're waiting for the mouse to come out and nothing happens and then as soon as you look away they all run out. Yeah, right. Report an error

48:19 Why does that happen? Yeah, I call that the cockroach syndrome. Report an error

48:27 And that is when you turn on the light they all run out of the refrigerator. Turn off the light and then all over the kitchen if you live in such a house. It's very common. I really could not count the number of times I've heard this report because... That's just a very common thing to take place. Why does it take place? If we gave an example of a stern parent, an old-fashioned 1930s father, that seemed to be quite generic back then. Report an error

48:56 My father was kind of that generation. Back then, my father's pretty, he's really mellowed out now, but boy, back in the 50s, 60s, mellow was not a way I'd characterize my dad. And that was, I think, true for a lot of people of that generation, the World War II generation. They're pretty men's men, pretty tough dudes. And so, Report an error

49:14 With such a stern parent, then if the parent checks in with the kids playing and they're goofing around, they're having a good time, and then dad looks in, they go, like, you know, a bit frayed, frankly. A bit. We're okay. We didn't do anything. I didn't do it. You know, like that. And so we're a bit like a stern parent. As soon as we look in, then, what? Report an error

49:41 Like that. Whereas if we develop a lighter and lighter touch, then it's like a really benevolent mama. Just kind of looking with a smile and the kids are goofing off and they know they're not really being bad. They just continue goofing off. Because there's a mama, she's not going to punish us. She gives us food. Report an error

49:56 So if you lighten the touch, soften the touch, here's the lovely metaphor for it. This is an old tradition. They've got lots of good metaphors. Here's a nice one. Since you're a man, both men will just deal with male gender. That doesn't make any difference. An old man sitting on a park bench watching other people's children play. Report an error

50:19 So let's imagine you're like 80 years old and you're watching little five-year-olds and their parents are there. The mother's there and on a playground. And you're, you know, you're 50, 100 feet away. But you enjoy watching kids play. It's just a sweet, gentle, kind of nice thing to do. You enjoy watching kids play. It's that simple. But none of them are your kids and the parents are there. Report an error

50:39 So no matter what happens, there's no scenario in which you're going to be on demand. They've got their cell phones. They're all set. So what do you have to do? You just watch the kids play. Really light. And you're far enough away that parents are not concerned about you, and the kids don't even notice. Report an error

50:58 And so there you are. So it's very non-impactful. Very gentle, and yet it's interested. And it's kind of some fun, and it's kind of fun to watch kids play. So that's the kind of quality of it. Just a little bit of a smile, just observing, well, what's coming up now? But lightly, very non-judgmental. Just attending quietly. And the lighter the touch you can bring, then the less impact will your awareness have on that which you're attending to. Report an error

51:25 I won't say that it has no impact. I think it's rather like performing a measurement in a quantum mechanical system, trying to measure elementary particles. Well, no matter how soft your touch is, if you're measuring an electron or a photon, the sheer act of measurement will influence it. But that doesn't mean that the measurement is now... Report an error

51:45 Sour, that it's not valid. It just means you take that into account, that this is not an absolutely objective, totally, how do you say, non-contact type of measurement. You are measuring, and you are influencing, but you can still make some very valid observations in the midst of that. So likewise, we're dealing with an entangled system, and that is your awareness within this framework, within this system of your mind, and of course it's body-mind, but here focusing on mind, your awareness on the one hand, Attending to the thoughts and images and that other, these are of course not two things that are slapped together. This is part of an integrated system. So the sheer act, even right now, my speaking to you, my addressing you, that's influencing your behavior. Report an error

52:27 And why not? I mean, I'm not intimidating, but it is. And I can see you're really engaged, you're attentive, and it seems like at least some degree of agreement. So that influences me too, that maybe it's worthwhile for me to say a comment or two more. So it's an entangled system. But the short answer is, The lighter the touch, then the freer the flow and the less impactful. If we come in there, as we often do, kind of heavy and intense and highly focused and like that, it does tend to subdue or to even cause to vanish that which we're attending to. Report an error

53:01 So one more analogy, it's like trying, if we come in with that real intensity, and I know what, I'm kind of an intense person, so I know what that's like. That if we come in with the intensity, it's like trying to, on a bright sunny day, Trying to examine snowflakes through a large magnifying glass with the sun right over your shoulder. Report an error

53:23 But as soon as you look at them, they're melted. It's kind of like that. So a lighter touch. And then it actually gets more enjoyable. Because then it's more, you just kind of see them playing and playing themselves out, but not that sense that there's control or any kind of heavy-handed impact of your awareness upon that which you're attending to. Report an error

53:44 Scanning right to left to Ken. Report an error

53:53 Related to the practice of attending to the space of the mind. Yes. Just wondering if I got it right. What I do is shift my attention to the nostril. To the nostrils? Yes, from the nostrils to a space of mind, basically. I feel I just walk into a space, but somewhere in the head or beyond the head. And I just stay there and wait for the thoughts to come up. But the attention is still attending to the nostril, but that becomes a background. Report an error

54:34 So if I found I am carried away by thoughts, and then I get back to the nostril, and it becomes a foreground, and I stay there. Until I get clear and then I step back to the space. Basically, I feel I was creating a space or something. I missed that. I feel I create a space for me to stay there. Create the space. Yes, understood. Report an error

55:09 Thank you. You create the space. Am I doing it right? You're doing something of a hybrid. And that's not necessarily bad, but it is a hybrid. And that is... It's kind of something of a blending of mindfulness of breathing, focusing on the nostrils, the tip of the nose and so forth, and attending the space of the mind. See, these are actually two different practices. Report an error

55:30 So what I would suggest is that get really clear on each one individually, because each has its own integrity and each one is quite independent of the other. You don't have to practice mindfulness of breathing to become adept at settling the mind in its natural state and vice versa. Each one is actually quite sufficient. Report an error

55:50 That is mindfulness of breathing with the three signs, preliminary and so forth. That will take you all the way to shamatha. But maybe you're not interested in that. You'd really like to do settling the mind. That will take you all the way to shamatha. You don't need both. But you may use both. So what I would suggest is when you're focusing on the tactile sensations of the breath at the nostrils, that you'll just let that be your single-pointed focus and let it fill your awareness with just an ongoing flow of sensation of the in and out breath. Report an error

56:17 Be as single-pointed there as you possibly can. But again, even though it's very narrowly focused, very sharply focused, it's loose, it's relaxed. And everything here is open, soft, loose, not at all contracted. So no tightening of the jaws, the eyes, the muscles around the eyes, forehead, none of that. Just soft, open, but in a slender fashion, just focusing on the sensations of the breath. Report an error

56:42 And then you may do that as a preliminary exercise to get the mind to calm down a bit so there's not so much turbulence. Report an error

56:50 Then you may shift to another practice of settling the mind in its natural state. And here, the object of mindfulness is entirely different. It's not the nostrils at all. Nostrils are irrelevant. Now you're focusing just on that domain of experience, that space of the mind, and whatever purely mental events arise, but not tactile sensations, only thoughts, images and so forth. Report an error

57:14 And there... You're attending to that. Now we're going to explore this much more tomorrow. I'm going to give this a bit short answer because we will return to it tomorrow. But for the time being today, we're really primarily attending to what I would call the foreground of the mind. So I'll return to this tomorrow, a sneak preview tonight. We may liken the mind to a stage on which players, like in a playhouse, players come and go. Report an error

57:37 Players appear on the stage, they perform their roles, and then they exit offstage again. So it's a metaphor, of course. But the mind may be likened to a stage in the sense that it is a domain of experience. It's a domain of experience. And it's one of six domains. We have the visual, the auditory and so forth. And in this domain then thoughts crop up. Images crop up. Memories, fantasies, emotions, desires. Report an error

58:03 A wide variety of players appear and they come and then they go. And what our practice was today is to focus primarily on the players. Report an error

58:14 When there don't seem to be any players on the stage, and that is on occasion, you may be attending, just as Eugene was suggesting, that is you're attending there, but then pretty quickly the thoughts vanish. And then you may think, well, now I can't meditate, there's nothing there. Yes, there is something there. It's called the space of the mind. Attend to that. And then you attend closely and then you ask yourself, the space of the mind, is it nothing or is it something? Report an error

58:40 Nothing is nothing at all. It has no characteristics. It's nothing. Doesn't exist. Whereas the space of the mind, I will suggest, does exist. It is the locus. It is the domain. It is the space in which thoughts occur. And it has qualities. I mean, I'm going to propose this. It has qualities. And so, in between thoughts, if you get these intervals where you can't discern any particular mental event, then attend to what's left over and attend closely to that space of the mind. Report an error

59:11 And then, sooner or later, another thought is bound to emerge and then you attend to that. Now, having said that, and here's where I'll stop, because we will return tomorrow, and that is, it can happen that when you're doing this, you just get a bit disoriented, a bit vague, a bit spaced out, not quite sure what you're attending to. Report an error

59:30 It's kind of losing traction, almost like driving up a very steep hill and it's so muddy that your tires are just spinning and maybe you're sliding backwards. Then you need to get out the four-wheel drive or something, but you're not getting traction and you're just sitting there getting frustrated and thinking, I don't think I'm doing anything here. Just, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Report an error

59:48 In which case, downshift. And then come right back here. Or back down to the abdomen. Or to the full body. But downshift to the point that you get some traction again. You see, traction means, oh, okay, now I've got this one I can do. Yeah, there's the sensations of the breath at the nostrils. And I'm breathing in, breathing out. Report an error

1:00:07 So, okay, this one, I got this one. So you get some traction again, get stabilized, get in gear, and then if you feel the mind's getting a bit stable again, then if you wish, then you can upshift and go back to settling the mind. So right now we'll leave that, but we will return tomorrow, and we'll revisit this whole issue of the space of the mind. Maybe one more, so we'll do the left hemisphere tomorrow, but one more tonight, and that's right here. Report an error

1:00:33 Yes, indeed, yep, right here. You told me your name, but please tell me again. My name's Lorraine. Lorraine, you didn't tell me your name, first time. Thank you. This might be a bit out of left field, so please feel free not to answer the question, but it really pertains to population health. It pertains to? Report an error

1:00:50 Population health. Population health. Population health. Yeah. One of my, I won't go into too much details, but the federal government's divided the country up into these Medicare locals, which organisations, which I suppose to manage primary health care. Not being a native Aussie, you can speak a bit slower because the accent's a bit hard for me. All right. So the government has divided the country up into regions and called them Medicare locals. Report an error

1:01:16 And these organisations are supposed to manage primary health care in the regions. Manage what kind of care? Health care. Non-hospital care for the regions. Report an error

1:01:27 And we're supposed to do something about population health. Good. I would suggest that what we're talking about here would be the most significant thing in terms of population health. I just missed that sentence. What we're talking about here is? It would be the most significant thing in terms of population health. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Because essentially what's happening to our community relates to our addiction to hedonistic happiness. Report an error

1:01:53 It relates to our lack of compassion, our lack of loving kindness. All of the things we're talking about. Today, in fact, are the number one cause of poor health in our population. And I can go through a whole range of things. What captures the imagination of the government are things like lifestyle diseases, like obesity. Report an error

1:02:13 I just missed that. Like obesity? Obesity, yes, yes. Quantitative, measurable things they can get with a machine. Absolutely. But, I mean, if you look at lifestyle diseases, I'd suggest that the underlying cause is, again, the things we're talking about now. Yeah, yeah. We're fortunate in South Australia in that we've had Martin Seligman has been our thinker in residence in South Australia. Yeah, I know he was at the Geelong primary for some time. Report an error

1:02:39 Yes, he's got two schools in South Australia which he's bringing the same program into. So I guess this long-winded question... No, it's a very good observation, thank you. This long-winded question is, I'm chair of one of these Medicare locals, so we look after 350,000 people. And we're looking for... I'm looking for something that would really have a significant impact on population health. Yeah. Report an error

1:03:06 And so I guess what I'm asking you is, is there some idea, some mechanism you have whereby we could use what we're talking about now or the 42-hour program to implement it some way in our region to improve population health, but more than that... To do a scientific study to improve that we do improve population health so that other people will become interested and that concept will be permeated. Report an error

1:03:34 Wonderful. I found your observation so interesting and very, very interesting and inspiring actually. And it's so true what you said that insofar as, this is a gradient, but insofar as we're just fixated on the hedonic. And again, of course it doesn't mean that we don't enjoy. Why not? Family and ice cream and sunsets and music and so forth. It's not a matter of enjoying. It's a matter of fixation. But this self-centered fixation, especially on the wealth, the power and the prestige, the three jewels of the mundane world, your point that that really actually undermines compassion, I think it's really true. Report an error

1:04:13 Because it tends to be so much about I, me, mine. I, me, mine. And also, here's a big deal. This is a really important point. In our pursuit of hedonic pleasure, It tends to be, there are exceptions, but it tends to be one side wins, another one loses. Somebody gains, somebody else loses. It tends to be that way. Report an error

1:04:31 It's not always the case. A whole bunch of people can enjoy the same sunset and if more of them enjoy it, nobody gets less. So there are occasions where there's no, but so much of the rest when it comes to natural resources and many other things. If one person gets more, somebody else got less. And that's just going to undermine compassion. Report an error

1:04:52 Empathy is going to arouse fierce competitiveness, and that goes from individuals, cities, provinces, countries, continents, and right up international problems. And it's all about this fixation on hedonic pleasure is the only way we can possibly find happiness. Just to elaborate on one point in this theme, but the point you're making really touches me, and that is what we're cultivating here is attention. Report an error

1:05:16 I mean, to be simple. And I think I might have mentioned this very dear friend of mine who is a Benedictine monk. We'll be doing a workshop together next July, I think. June, June, July. He lives in England. But we've done workshops together before and he made this comment. It's really become a mantra in my mind because I think there's such truth in it. Report an error

1:05:35 He's a very sincere, he's a very fine monk. I have a lot of respect for him and affection. But he said the greatest gift we can give to another person is our attention. Report an error

1:05:46 I'll just hold on to that as a mantra. I think there's so much truth in that. And so if we take that seriously, that's exactly what we're cultivating here. And I want to share. I've not said it in this retreat. The word attention is really something like a fine wine to be rolled around in the mouth and savored. As we go back to it, you notice I kind of like to go back to etymologies. Report an error

1:06:06 Where does a word come from? And attention is a good Latin-based word. And so it's true for all the romantic languages. And it means to tend to. Attend means to tend to, like a flight attendant. Or as a shepherd tends to his sheep, to tend to, to look after, to care for and to watch over. That's the connotation, the etymology of to tend to attention. And flight attendants on an airplane are exactly doing that. Report an error

1:06:37 They're tending to, watching over, caring for and looking after the passengers on the airplane. That's what they're paid to do. And they generally do a very good job. And then mothers do it and shepherds do it for their flock and so forth and so on. Friends tend to watch after, look after each other. And it all has to do with attention. Report an error

1:06:54 If you're not paying attention, then forget it. It's not going to happen. And I've been on a few flights where the flight attendants are all just cubby up there reading their People magazine. So they're attending to People magazine, but they're just doing as little as possible. That's rare. Mostly they really are very attentive. Report an error

1:07:11 So if we consider that this fixation on hedonic is undermining empathy, it's undermining compassion and setting us all up for fierce competition and win-lose scenarios, which then invariably entail conflict, then cultivating this ability of attention, attending to. Somebody comes into our presence, a person in the business world, a person on the freeway coming right in front of us and so forth and giving full attention. Report an error

1:07:39 As we attend closely, if we ask, how can we become more compassionate? I think a lot of people would like an answer to that question. We'd like to be more compassionate, don't quite know how. More loving, more affectionate, more concerned with the well-being of others, more altruistic. These are clearly virtues that everybody on the planet pretty much would accept. And then if we ask a really wonderful question, well, how can I cultivate that more? Report an error

1:08:02 I would like to be more, all of those things. And of course there are many, many answers to that. It depends on context, your belief system and so forth. But there's one key that cuts through all the belief systems. That is, it's equally relevant for atheists to devout Christians. And that is, if you'd really like to develop that, attend more closely to others. It's so simple. But attend more closely. Report an error

1:08:26 And I'll come to another of my favorite mantras, and this one I've not shared yet in this retreat, but I share in almost every retreat I ever teach. It's William Jane's, for the moment what we attend to is reality. Report an error

1:08:38 Psychological truth. And so if I'm attending to you closely right now and I see you suddenly wince, how do I not experience empathy? How is that possible? Unless you're my enemy and I want you to wince because I don't like you, but that's rare. I don't know you well, but if I see you wince or you're seizing your arm and I'm attending closely, what am I going to do besides feel empathy? Report an error

1:09:05 I mean, that's just kind of like, what else would you do? Because you are so real for me as I'm attending to you, you are real for me and reality is facing me with a clear indication of being in pain. How can I not care about that? Whereas if I don't attend to you, it's easy. It's dead easy not to feel empathy for people you're not attending to. Report an error

1:09:25 Just ignoring. That's so easy. But as soon as you're attending, empathy seems to come right on its trail. And as soon as there's empathy, then concern. Loving kindness, compassion can easily arise as well. So I think we're really tapping into very core issues here. Now finally, we're running on, but to answer your question, it was precisely in light of the possibility of such questions that 12 years ago the Dalai Lama turned to these scientists and said, can you do something that could be helpful for everyone? Report an error

1:09:58 A population of 350,000, among whom there may not be even one Buddhist. There may be, but then it's such an insignificant number, it's kind of like, who cares? Report an error

1:10:09 Okay. Report an error

1:10:13 Jolly good. There we are. So, 350,000 and one. But, you know, generally speaking, except for places like Thailand or whatever, the Buddhists are tiny minorities, so it's good to take care of Buddhists. To attend to Buddhists, that's also worthwhile. But the Dalai Lama does actually take universal responsibility seriously. So we have 350,000 people. Report an error

1:10:34 That is a very significant number of people. And so how could we be of service to them, help them cultivate greater emotional balance, greater happiness, learn even what genuine happiness means. And it's not a weird, esoteric, exotic, foreign idea. It's really part of our lives already, we just maybe haven't given a name to it yet. Report an error

1:10:54 But people, if you examine, do you ever experience joy in just being of service or lending a helping hand? The answer is, sure, we'll call that genuine happiness. Because you didn't get it from the world, it's a kind of happiness, it comes from what you bring to the world. That is, a five-year-old can understand that. It's not complex, but it's not simplistic either. Report an error

1:11:15 And so, it was exactly in anticipation of questions like that, the Dalai Lama asked us to do this cultivating emotional balance. And I know at least one, but I just don't, we've had 110 people go through the cultivating emotional balance teacher's training, 110, 55, 55, for the last two years. I know there were Australians, and I know there are more than one, but no, I immediately know of two. But you have folks right here that are well trained, and they're all prepared to offer a secular training of this sort. Report an error

1:11:46 And they can give the full 42 hours if people are that interested, or they can pare it down and give more just a quintessence here, like a lecture or a workshop. I do that frequently myself. But better to have homegrown people who are, they know this culture from the inside, they're not an interloper coming from out, Report an error

1:12:03 And so if you drop me an email or just write to Santa Barbara Institute, it's so easy, Google it, then we could very easily find out, okay, how many Aussies have gone through that training? And I know them and they're very altruistic people. They didn't take that training for money. They really wanted to be of greater service and primarily where they live, which is right here in Australia. Report an error

1:12:26 So I think that might be right spot on because that's exactly what we designed that training for. Hola, so. We'll do the left hemisphere tomorrow, but tonight let's just bring this evening to a close. And we have this wonderfully, this delicious question or comment at the end to kind of perhaps inspire us, but now very individually. Report an error

1:12:46 Once again, your own most meaningful aspiration. What can you imagine might flow from this time we've had together, your participation here, individually, collectively? What good things might happen? And then dedicate, direct, whatever virtue, goodness and so forth there may be from this time. To the realization of your own most meaningful aspirations. So let's spend just a couple of minutes there, in quiet. Let's Report an error

· · ·

1:14:22 bring this session to a close. Report an error

1:14:27 There's a bit of core wisdom in one classic text called the Seven Point Mind Training, which an extraordinary teacher who lived about a thousand years ago commented that in terms of any meaningful endeavor, and that's a very broad band there, any meaningful endeavor, it can be, it just brings all the more meaning to it, all the just significance, meaning is the best word. Report an error

1:14:50 To implement something at the beginning and the end. It's called in Tibetan, there are two tasks, the beginning and the end. And so before beginning anything that is really worth doing, to set your motivation. That is, you're about to do something. Go to work, send your children off to school, write a book, whatever it may be. But to consider, how might this be the most meaningful? Report an error

1:15:15 So you could take a task like... I'm thinking of something very specific I knew when I was at Stanford University. A person who was working in the bookstore selling office supplies. That was her job. She sold office supplies. And one could say, well, that's about as mundane as it gets. I mean, that's not wrong livelihood, but that's not Dharma, right? Report an error

1:15:37 That's selling pencils. That's just really ordinary. So she has to get home before she can start practicing Dharma because selling pencils, come on, where's the Dharma in that? Pencils, whatever. But this woman I'm thinking of, she turned selling pencils and so forth into Dharma. And I noticed it when I went in there. I never knew nothing about her. Report an error

1:15:58 But I went in there to buy some office supplies. And there was such graciousness, such warmth, such attentiveness, that it made quite an impression on me. Whoa, that was really nice, dealing with this person. And she was just selling pencils, etc. There was nothing more. And it was simple, but she was just warm, she was gracious, she was attentive. Report an error

1:16:17 Just like, whoa, that was really nice. And I thought maybe that was just my observation. And then it was only a month or two later, after I'd gone in to buy some office supplies, whatever, paper, whatever, that I saw she was written up in the Stanford Daily newspaper that a lot of people had noticed. Report an error

1:16:35 That there's one exceptional woman over there in office supplies in the bookstore. She's really nice. Hang out there. You'll benefit from the experience. Report an error

1:16:45 I suspect that she, you know, that was part of her motivation, that she's not going to piss away seven, eight hours a day doing something meaningless. She's going to turn that, whether she is Christian or Buddhist, I don't know, and I don't care. She was turning that into a really wholesome endeavor. And she touched the lives, including my life, she touched the lives of many, many people. But with her motivation, may this be as meaningful as possible, may I offer my best. Report an error

1:17:11 As I'm going to what would otherwise be a flat-out, boring, dead-end, low-paying, dumb job. Right? And she turned it into something really quite wonderful. So if that's possible for selling pencils, I suspect for every profession in the room, I doubt any of you are mass murderers or doing anything that's by nature bad. Report an error

1:17:31 So just take that which may already be very benevolent. As a psychologist, that's a service profession. And I'm sure many of you are involved in service, but they're kind of built in. There's altruism should be there already. But even selling pencils can be a service profession. So the simple point there was, at the beginning of any meaningful endeavor, set the motivation. Report an error

1:17:50 And even something as utterly ethically neutral as selling pencils is no longer ethically neutral. It's now, it's really benevolent. It's an act of Dharma. It is furthering you along a path of spiritual awakening because of your motivation. So motivation at the beginning, Dedication at the end. It's kind of a sandwich. And whatever comes in between will be made all the more meaningful by the way you set out, by way of motivation, and you bring it to closure by the dedication. Report an error

1:18:19 It's quite sweet. So, we brought this day to a close. Just dedicated merits. And now we launch. Ah, I get to give you new homework. You thought you were off the hook. Report an error

1:18:31 Dream on. And I do mean, actually, dream on. There is, for those of you who find it easy to fall asleep, Some people, head hits a pillow, five minutes later they're out like a light. And I'm sure that's not true of everyone here. Wind people tend to not be that way, but phlegm people do. Report an error

1:18:52 And it has nothing to do with mucus, by the way, or very little to do with mucus. But in any case, some people find it easy to fall asleep. If you're one of those people, then tonight, when you've finished the day, and you slip under the covers, and you go into the supine position, you might try tonight, Settling your mind in its natural state. And now you can have your eyes closed or open. It's your choice. It's dark anyway, but you may as well close the eyes because you're about to go to sleep. But as you're lying there now with your eyes closed, then do the whole practice just exactly as we've done it. Report an error

1:19:23 Settle the mind in its natural state, totally loose, relaxed, but full attention coming to the mental. Just do the practice as we've done it. And then see how long you can just keep that still, clear, quiet, non-reactive awareness illuminating the space of the mind. See just how long you do it, whether it's five minutes, half an hour, but it can be very peaceful, very relaxed and soft because the day after all is kind of over. And then if you do feel that kind of vagueness, that kind of drowsiness coming over, then you can mentally snap your fingers, say, okay, that's finished, roll over and get a good night's sleep. Report an error

1:19:57 But as you become more adept at that, again, if you're an easy sleeper, then you may find that you can go further and further along the trajectory of falling asleep. And still keep the light on. And that is not just black out or get groggy or dull and so forth. But your body's falling asleep, your mind's falling asleep, but you're keeping the light of awareness on and actually falling asleep consciously. Report an error

1:20:22 And if you experience that, you might surprise yourself, I have, to actually fall asleep and then having fallen asleep, but still your awareness is on, then hearing yourself snore. Report an error

1:20:36 That's funny, I don't recall having fallen asleep. But the body fell asleep, the mind fell asleep, but your awareness is still there. And then you may go directly from that into a lucid dream, and that gets pretty sweet pretty quickly. Now, if you find it difficult to fall asleep, doing this will just keep you awake. It'll just be a recipe for insomnia. So then I say, don't try it. Report an error

1:20:58 Most important, get a good night's sleep, in which case right back to mindfulness of breathing, full body awareness, bring your awareness out of the head, down to the waist, the legs, the feet and so forth and just get a good night's sleep. That's most important. Okay? Alasso. Have a good night's sleep. See you tomorrow morning. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ShamathaRetreatWithAlanWallace2012. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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