← B. Alan Wallace

Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 30)

B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 1 h 6 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 1:17

    And my strong conviction is that when we're spot on, that is, when we're right there in the moment and we observe it as soon as it comes up, our observation of the thought, the mental image, is in real time. And that is, right when it's occurring, that's when we can detect it. And like in a dream, when we're observing the appearance of a person in the dream, that appearance and our awareness of the person, of that appearance, are occurring simultaneously.

  • 2:57

    The thought is already retrospective. We're aware of something that's already occurred. Now maybe it first arose maybe only a tenth of a second ago or a twentieth of a second ago, what have you. But it's still retrospective. Whereas a thought, you may actually get that not retrospectively. That is an image, you may get it right exactly when it occurs. No time lapse. And of course there are no photons coming from the image, no sound waves coming from the mental sound. So there's no reason why it couldn't be instantaneous.

  • 4:46

    And that is, so I may be aware, oh Jack just said something rude and I'm upset, but then very quickly I see I'm upset, and then I can say, aha, I'm upset right now, maybe now's not the best time to respond or react, maybe it's better just to cool it, because after all I'm upset right now. So there's the trigger in the flame, excuse me, the flame, what's it, the spark in the flame, the spark in the flame, I recognize, oh I'm a bit upset at Jack for making that comment, and I say I'd like to say something. But now is probably not the best time. Why don't I kind of chill, relax a little bit and then later, if it's worthwhile saying, then I'll say it. But not when I'm upset because I'll probably say something that will lead to a regrettable episode.

  • 12:47

    And that is, once again, emotions often, but not invariably, have a referent. Just emotions general. Insofar as they have a referent, then I would say whether it's contempt, it's disgust, it's surprise, it's fear, happiness, sadness, whatever it is, then... That emotion is going to be fed from moment to moment to moment by attending to it. Because bearing in mind the emotion is a way of apprehending the object. It's not something dished up like a sound or a sight. It's a way of apprehending. And so if I'm going to sustain this particular emotion, then I need to keep on feeding it by maintaining something of a samādhi or continuous attention on the object that is arousing or catalyzing that emotion.

  • 24:25

    And that is, as much as we can, when the emotion arises, I try to use a metaphor here because I don't know how to speak very literally. But when an emotion arises, especially one that we find very afflictive, is as much as possible, whether it's anger, whether it's fear, whether it's whatever it may be, depression, but we find negative, that we don't like it, as much as possible when it arises, to try to, you probably see by my mudrā, this kind of this looseness, a spaciousness around it, so that at least we're not 100 % caught up in cognitive fusion.

0:05 So this morning we'll continue with the settling the mind in its natural state. And this is to Vipassanā, focus on the mind, what kind of setting up a telescope, mounting it, getting it in focus, polishing the lenses, getting it all set, what that is to astronomy. And that is first get it so you can really start looking clearly, establishing that stability, that clarity. And then once one has a clear kind of a fix or is well focused, With stability and clarity. Then that's when things start getting interesting. And I want to highlight just one brief point before we jump in. Report an error

0:42 And that is in terms of the types of phenomena, mental phenomena that arise within the space of the mind. They may be classified quite simply in two ways. Report an error

0:52 Some of these events that arise to our awareness appear within the context of the mind to arise rather objectively. So for example when you're just sitting there quietly and you hear a little stream of thought come by. Or just some image pops up. Then that's arising, of course, within this context rather objectively. I mean, it's really kind of, I'm attending to that, that just arose, there's an image, there's a discursive thought, what have you. Report an error

1:17 And my strong conviction is that when we're spot on, that is, when we're right there in the moment and we observe it as soon as it comes up, our observation of the thought, the mental image, is in real time. And that is, right when it's occurring, that's when we can detect it. And like in a dream, when we're observing the appearance of a person in the dream, that appearance and our awareness of the person, of that appearance, are occurring simultaneously. Report an error

1:44 So you're getting real-time. And so likewise, here we are, again, mental imagery, whether it's dream imagery or imagery during the waking state, this is real-time observation, and they are arising rather objectively. So rather like in a television, you have the visual and you have the auditory. And there we are. Report an error

2:03 But of course, as we're attending to the space of the mind, we're aware of more than what is simply arising to meet us, like coming from the front door, so to speak, like that. But as we're attending there to the space of the mind and whatever arises within that domain of experience, there are other types of events of which we can become cognizant that are arising more subjectively, so to speak. Report an error

2:26 They're arising more like through the back door. And that is namely such things as emotions, desires, intentions. And they don't come like, hi, here I am. They're not appearing to us objectively, but more coming surging up as subjective impulses. Now we can still be aware of them, but William James made the point that was made centuries earlier in Buddhism, and that is when we do become aware of these subjective impulses, emotions and desires would be top candidates, by the time we're aware of them, our awareness is always... Report an error

2:57 The thought is already retrospective. We're aware of something that's already occurred. Now maybe it first arose maybe only a tenth of a second ago or a twentieth of a second ago, what have you. But it's still retrospective. Whereas a thought, you may actually get that not retrospectively. That is an image, you may get it right exactly when it occurs. Report an error

3:18 No time lapse. And of course there are no photons coming from the image, no sound waves coming from the mental sound. So there's no reason why it couldn't be instantaneous. But when it's one of these subjective impulses, most clearly when it's an emotion about something. So not all emotions have a clear referent, but often they do. Report an error

3:36 So we're going to take our imaginary Jack, and I have no one in mind when I say this at all, but if I'm upset with Jack, Jack has just done something to irritate me, then where's my attention focused? On Jack. He's the focus of my attention. And then because he's just acted in some way I don't like, then there comes in response to him an emotion. Report an error

3:57 But I'm attending to Jack and then only retrospectively am I aware of the emotion that arose with respect to Jack. Simple point though, is that by the time we're aware of an emotion, it's already occurred. We're not getting it when it first occurs, we're not getting it after it occurs. And likewise for desire, I want Jack to go turn off the lights. I want him to do something, I want him to come here, give me money, take my money, whatever. Report an error

4:23 But again, the focus is on the referent and the desire is with respect to the referent. So, in short, by the time we're aware of desires and emotions, they've already occurred, which means probably some degree of cognitive fusion has already taken place. Report an error

4:39 Nevertheless, as soon as we are aware of them, then that cognitive fusion can start to thin. And that is, so I may be aware, oh Jack just said something rude and I'm upset, but then very quickly I see I'm upset, and then I can say, aha, I'm upset right now, maybe now's not the best time to respond or react, maybe it's better just to cool it, because after all I'm upset right now. Report an error

5:03 So there's the trigger in the flame, excuse me, the flame, what's it, the spark in the flame, the spark in the flame, I recognize, oh I'm a bit upset at Jack for making that comment, and I say I'd like to say something. But now is probably not the best time. Why don't I kind of chill, relax a little bit and then later, if it's worthwhile saying, then I'll say it. But not when I'm upset because I'll probably say something that will lead to a regrettable episode. Report an error

5:27 And so what I'd like to do for these first two sessions is first, as we've done in the past, do what's a bit easier. Frankly, it's easier to attend to, recognize, sustain mindfulness of the more objective events that come up. So the thoughts, the images, like watching television, really, it's so similar. There's a soundtrack and there's a visual track, you know, and so just be attending to those. Do the practices we've done. Report an error

5:49 But as we go to the second session, what I'm going to give you a sneak preview, I'm going to invite you to deliberately arouse an emotion or a desire. I think of someone you love, anything you like. You may as well, why not have a positive emotion? But if you'd like to trigger a negative emotion, you can do that too. Report an error

6:05 But trigger an emotion and then see how you can observe it. And then observe also when you're aware of an emotion or a desire coming up. What's the impact of your awareness on that emotion or desire? It's quite interesting. So it goes right back to, I think it was Eugene's point yesterday, was it not? About being aware of thoughts, but then they tend to kind of evaporate quickly when we observe them. Report an error

6:29 If that's true for thoughts and images that are coming through the front door, how about for emotions? That is, if you're aware of an emotion, are you still experiencing the emotion when you're more attending to it? Or does the sheer fact of attending to an emotion already dissipate it? Instantly? Gradually? These are empirical questions. So we're entering into the laboratory or the observatory of the mind and it just gets more and more interesting. Report an error

6:57 So, please find a comfortable position. The first session I'll give a little bit of guidance but it will be very familiar terrain. The second session, just going to greater subtlety to highlight these more subjective impulses. And of course the point around that is when we experience the emotions, it's not to suppress them, like we shouldn't be having any emotions, that would be really, how do you say, mentally impaired. Report an error

7:21 Not to say that we shouldn't have them, but it's certainly healthy to be aware of the emotions that are coming up. And Paul Ekman's point here, as you're settling in, is that Paul Ekman's feeling, and it's his opinion, which I'm very sympathetic to, His feeling is that moods, we have feelings or emotions that tend to be quite short. They happen for a matter of seconds or maybe minutes and then something goes. Report an error

7:43 But a mood may last for hours. I'm in a kind of bad mood or depressed mood or grumpy mood and so forth. And Paul's view is really one of the world experts among psychologists on emotions. He feels that moods always give us a cognitive bias and we'd be better without them. Not better without emotions. Report an error

8:03 But a mood that just kind of sets in and then biases what we're attending to. If we could have no moods at all, that would be better. That's his view. It's interesting. But emotions, clearly, have a rich emotional life. Emotional balance is what our whole program is about. So, without further ado, let's just jump right in and have a first session with just a little bit of guidance. Report an error

· · ·

9:07 Remember from one of the earlier quotes, perhaps the earliest one, when the Buddha gave the analogy of the Report an error

9:19 Rain cloud that suddenly gives a burst of shower out of season and then suddenly in an instant it quells and disperses on the spot all the dust and grime that has risen up in the air. And similarly when mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated it quells on the spot unwholesome or destructive emotions, mental states that may arise. Report an error

9:39 So I've already commented on that, I'd just like to add one little footnote to that. And that is overall such practice, as I've mentioned before, It just kind of enhances your psychological immune system, and so the mental afflictions just have a much harder time getting a grip or invading your space, taking over your mind. Report an error

9:56 But on a subtler level, if some mental affliction, let's say anger, arises, it usually, but not always, has a clear reference. I'm angry at something, at someone, at some place, but it's got a target, it has a referent, I'm angry at that. Sometimes it's generic, I'm just pissed off. But it usually has a referent. And so in the Buddhist understanding here, I'll take, again, hypothetical Jack, no one at all. But if I'm angry at Jack, then as long as I'm attending to Jack and I'm really reflecting upon or absorbing my mind in his negative qualities and his behavior that I find so irritating, then in the Buddhist understanding, we really start bringing a micro-analysis to the arising of anger. Report an error

10:42 Then from moment to moment, and we're talking about really milliseconds here, clusters of milliseconds, from moment to moment as I'm attending to him and really focusing on the negative, probably exaggerating them, embellishing them, fusing him with his negative qualities, then from moment to moment, then my way of apprehending him is feeding my anger. Report an error

11:03 So it's just like pulses of food coming in, like on a food chain. So I'm attending, and from moment to moment to moment, I'm feeding pulse after pulse after pulse of anger, irritation, exasperation with Jack. In the moment, though, that I divert my attention over to Chiki, who is not bothering me at all, in that instant, as soon as I just shift away from Jack over to Chiki, and say, oh, she's a nice nun. Report an error

11:31 In that instant, there's no anger. Because there's nothing there to arouse anger. He's an old friend. And so when we microanalyze this, just getting your attention off the referent that moment by moment is feeding the mental affliction, in the instant you get it off, then that mental affliction is cut. Report an error

11:53 Now if it's got a lot of vortex to it, it's got a lot of energy to it, then my mind may wander over to Shukila and get some peace, and then, oh yeah, but Jack, and then I'm right back again. And then, oh then, here's this benign, oh yeah, but then it's back to Jack, you know. So it may keep on pulling us back. It's not to say that just getting your mind off the topic heals you of the anger. But it is to say in that instant, it's not arising. Report an error

12:17 So it's like just a baby that constantly needs to be fed. I mean, just one spoon after another. In other words, the baby just starts starving immediately. As soon as your attention is off, the object that is arousing that emotion, and it doesn't have to be negative, it could be positive too, in that instant, the resultant or responsive Report an error

12:38 Emotion ceases. So I think it's true. That is the Buddhist position. I do believe it's true, of course. But now let's come back here. And that is, once again, emotions often, but not invariably, have a referent. Just emotions general. Insofar as they have a referent, then I would say whether it's contempt, it's disgust, it's surprise, it's fear, happiness, sadness, whatever it is, then... Report an error

13:04 That emotion is going to be fed from moment to moment to moment by attending to it. Because bearing in mind the emotion is a way of apprehending the object. It's not something dished up like a sound or a sight. It's a way of apprehending. And so if I'm going to sustain this particular emotion, then I need to keep on feeding it by maintaining something of a samādhi or continuous attention on the object that is arousing or catalyzing that emotion. Report an error

13:31 And then I can have a little continuity to it. In the moment that I take my attention off of the referent, and as we did in this last session, direct it right to the emotion itself. Report an error

13:45 Well, the emotion itself is a completely different object than the referent that may have aroused that emotion. The referent may be a person who lives 5,000 miles away, maybe died 1,000 years ago, maybe you're really getting angry at Genghis Khan. It could happen. But as soon as you get your attention off of Genghis Khan and you're focusing on your own emotions, Then that emotion is right here and now, it's within your own mind stream, which means if the anger was arising towards Chinggis Khan, that anger is terminated because now you're focusing on the anger, which means since your attention is here, it's not in Chinggis Khan, which means the food supply, the supply line for your anger at Chinggis Khan has now just been cut. Report an error

14:27 Now it may go back again, but in that instant that you get your attention off of whatever your emotion was about, the referent of the emotion in that instant. It's cut, at least temporarily. This gets very interesting in this practice. And that is, it's kind of like instant liberation. Report an error

14:46 But just observe, this is absolutely not doctrine. This is one empirical claim after another. So this is either true or false, but you can test it with experience. It's not something that you need to be clairvoyant or rely on a Buddha to give us some clarity here. This is our own experience. But it gets very interesting here in this meditation to observe with some precision what is the impact when you... Report an error

15:10 Closely attend to an emotion, and again, whether it's happiness, sadness, or any of the whole range of emotions, what's the impact on the emotion when you attend to it? Report an error

15:20 Does it immediately stop? Then you can check. Or is it ever so briefly interrupted and then is your attention riveted right back to the object or the referent, which means you're no longer doing this practice. You've been caught up in distraction. But insofar as you, like working out in a gym, insofar as you can develop the muscle of mindfulness so that you can sustain for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, sustain your awareness on the mental state itself and not be jerked over to the referent, then for 5, 10, 15 seconds you may be liberated from an emotion that was really tormenting you by just being aware of it. Report an error

16:03 But does the emotion even last that long, 5, 10, 15 seconds? Or is it snuffed out just as soon as you observe it? So these are questions and they're not leading questions. I'm not hint, hint, I've got the right answer. Check out for your own experience. Now could it happen, for example, now this I think has enormous therapeutic implications for psychotherapists and so forth or anybody who experiences emotions. Report an error

16:27 And that is if you slip into depression and maybe you're depressed about something. Financial insecurity, loss of a loved one, whatever, environmental situations, whatever it may be. But if your depression is really about something, I'm depressed that this is happening, I'm depressed this person, whatever. Report an error

16:47 When it's got a clear reference to it, and then you immediately, but then you bring your awareness right in upon that first person's subjective experience of being depressed, depression arising. Is it the case that in that instant, depression vanishes? Report an error

17:04 Is it or is it not? That's an open question. If it vanishes immediately, then that's a pretty quick cure for depression. Obviously, it's not going to heal you from depression altogether, but if it does give you an immediate respite, a break, an interlude, then that's worth something. Is it possible that you could be depressed about being depressed? In which case your referent is internal, it's subjective, but it just depresses the hell out of me that I'm so subject to depression, and that's depressing itself. Report an error

17:38 Yes, that also is depressing. Yes, indeed. I'm really depressed about the whole thing. And so could it loop on itself? So I've been practicing Dharma for 40 years now, 42 years, and I still get irritated. That just pisses me off. I mean, I should be above. It just makes me so impatient, so irritated that I'm still subject to irritation. Report an error

18:03 So could that also be a loop? A loop, a loop of being irritated about being irritated. And so you can just feed. Like a self-perpetuating machine. So this really gets quite interesting. And I think a lot of implications for our own mental health, our own mental balance, emotional balance, as well as being able to, if you have the professional training, helping others really explore their emotions so often. Report an error

18:28 And I've just written a fairly, well, rather short paper just on depression and the interface between, you know, the pharmaceutical industry and depression. Report an error

18:38 That so often when it comes to emotions that we don't like, and depression is a really big one and for very understandable reasons, so often when some emotion, general anxiety disorder, there's an unpleasant one, depression another one, people are just prone a lot to anger, resentment, malevolent rumination, that's really unpleasant. Report an error

18:56 And insomnia, that's also, you know, your mind is just topsy-turvy, restless, it just doesn't give you a break, you can't fall asleep, you find that really unpleasant. So when we have these unpleasant mental states, unpleasant emotions, the natural immediate response, the habitual response, is just like a kid. Report an error

19:15 Make it go away. Just make it stop. Give me something to make it stop. Easier the better. Give me a pill, any pill. If it's a placebo, give me a placebo. Just don't tell me it's a placebo. But anything, you know, to make me feel, you know, just make it go away. Report an error

19:35 This is an old habit. The Buddha addressed this when he first started teaching the Dharma in the Book of the Four Noble Truths. He addressed the first noble truth, and it's not a noble truth, it's all, it's this reality, this reality of suffering. And he said contrary, he said just give contrary advice to our natural predilection. Our natural predilection is when suffering comes up, just kill the messenger. Report an error

19:58 Just whether it's physical pain, give me an anesthetic. If it's mental pain, knock it out, suppress the symptom. Or let's give it a nice euphemism, manage, manage the disease. Which means shoot the hell out of it, you know, just smother its symptoms. Because we just want it to go away, we don't like it. Report an error

20:17 And the Buddha's admonishment here was, here is the reality of suffering, recognize it. So it's a tall order. He's asking us to do something, or suggesting, proposing that we do something we don't want to do. And that if suffering arises, and he's saying, don't smother it, don't anesthetize it, Don't simply avoid it. Don't try to simply escape from it by closing your eyes, running in the opposite direction. Understand it. Recognize it. Fathom it. Report an error

20:44 Comprehend it. And in so doing, I believe in homeopathic medicine. I know very little about it, but in homeopathic medicine, my understanding is that the homeopath will try to understand as exhaustively as possible what is the whole range of symptoms. The whole range of symptoms. And based on that, then look in their arsenal or their array. Report an error

21:05 Of homeopathic medications, but it's really symptomatic. It's symptomatic, and then you get the whole symptom, the whole array of symptoms, and then you try to match. And so in a similar fashion here, the Buddhist approach to reality of suffering, which we already care about, is to try to understand it as thoroughly as possible. Report an error

21:24 And that's why in Buddhism we have so many lists of different kinds of suffering. Blatant suffering, suffering of change, ubiquitous suffering, six types of suffering, eight types of suffering, and so forth. Just to try to understand the whole bandwidth. And when we've kind of scoped it out very much like a physician, when a person comes in and says, I feel terrible. And then the doctor says, okay, well, let's talk about it. Report an error

21:45 Let's run a whole series of tests. Let's run every relevant test that might have shed as much light on the symptoms as possible. And then we can talk about a diagnosis. But we won't say, oh, you feel bad? Oh, good. Here's an anesthetic. Oh, you feel bad? Oh, I have an anesthetic for you. You feel bad? Oh, here's an antidepressant. You feel bad? Here's an antide... You know, just in other words, just shoot the symptom. Report an error

22:09 Well, that's not a physician, that's an anesthesiologist. And so the approach here is to really try to understand the nature of suffering, including depression and so forth, by carefully examining it. And then when we really move beyond the shamatha approach, which is this simple naked attention, Report an error

22:31 Then when we've established kind of a beachhead, if we think of the war on mental afflictions or just a base camp of ascending to greater and greater mental balance and health, when that base camp of stability and clarity, then we can start really venturing into the Vipassanā and that's probing into the origins of suffering, the nature of suffering. Report an error

22:51 Is it permanent, impermanent? Suffering isn't static or stagnant. It's not immutable. It does fluctuate. You have good days and bad days. Even people who are psychotic, I think it's not homogenous. They'll have really bad days and then somewhat better days. I've seen that myself in my extremely limited experience of people with psychosis. Report an error

23:11 And so to observe its fluctuations, to observe how the suffering dissipates, how it vanishes, how it attenuates, how it surges back again. And through that careful investigation, that Vipassanā mode of investigation, then we may be able to ferret out. What are the fundamental sources of suffering? And they get to the root of the problem. Whereas the pharmaceutical industry, especially for mental disease, is almost 100 % devoted to symptomatic relief. Report an error

23:41 And symptomatic relief is really good. That is, if you're really suffering from acute misery because of anxiety, depression and so forth and so on, to get symptomatic relief is really that. It is relief. But it is just that. It's a temporary salve. And then if you stay there, the pharmaceutical company laughs all the way to the bank, but you're left with an indefinite drug dependence, which is exactly what they wanted. Report an error

24:09 They call a spade a spade. So, this is more interesting than anesthetizing our dismay, suffering through the whole range, trying to understand them, and something that's very slender, very challenging, but doable. And that is, as much as we can, when the emotion arises, I try to use a metaphor here because I don't know how to speak very literally. But when an emotion arises, especially one that we find very afflictive, is as much as possible, whether it's anger, whether it's fear, whether it's whatever it may be, depression, but we find negative, that we don't like it, as much as possible when it arises, to try to, you probably see by my mudrā, this kind of this looseness, a spaciousness around it, so that at least we're not 100 % caught up in cognitive fusion. Report an error

24:56 Where your whole identity is absorbed, like an amoeba that swallows another amoeba, that you're not totally absorbed or 100 % caught in the grip of the emotion. But more like being out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at least your head is above water. So everything in the neck down, well that's in the emotion. But at least I'm aware that I'm in the emotion. Report an error

25:18 At least I'm aware that the emotion has arisen, which means I'm not completely submerged. And completely submerged means... It's focusing entirely on the referent that's making me feel the emotion or arousing the emotion. And it's all about him, her, it, that, something else. And I can't even see the emotion because I am 100 % in samādhi on it. Report an error

25:38 And then I want it, I don't want it, what have you. But at least the head's above the water. We can recognize, ah, this emotion has arisen. Maybe it's giving rise to, again, what modern psychologists call a refractory period. Report an error

25:51 A refractory period occurs when we are really immersed in an emotion. And it gives us a cognitive bias with respect to whatever the emotion is about. So if I'm angry at Jack, then in that moment I'm in a refractory period with respect to Jack, which is to say I can only see Jack's negative qualities. Report an error

26:13 Because I'm so angry at him. I can't see anything else. I really can't see. Even if he's handsome, I don't care. Even if he's pleasant with everybody else, I don't care. That's not my business. It's just a charade. It's fake. He's a phony. He's really a stinker. And I know that because I'm seeing him with 20-20 vision through the lens of anger. Report an error

26:33 And so refractory periods, when as soon as that sets in, then you see only that which feeds the current emotion, which is in accordance with the current emotion. So if I'm infatuated with, I'll say Jacqueline, I'm just infatuated with Jacqueline, then I can't see any of her negative qualities. They're invisible. Report an error

26:55 Even her neutral qualities, like sitting like this. Oh, isn't that just adorable? Report an error

27:04 Whatever. But I'll see something completely neutral. Oh, pitter-patter goes my heart. Because I'm seeing her through that refractory period. But meanwhile, as it was in America, meanwhile back on the ranch, there's Jack. And that guy just pisses me off. It's just, how can anybody like Jack? Nobody could like Jack. If anybody says anything positive about Jack, I have to correct them. Report an error

27:31 Jack doesn't have any positive qualities. I checked. Report an error

27:39 So when we're in the midst of a refractory period, we can call that temporary insanity. Because really no one, even however hard we may strive, no one has the ability to be 100 % negative. Report an error

27:52 There are moments when we're just totally fixated on something negative, sure. But a lifespan? Who can really keep it up that long and that continuously? I don't think anybody can. And so... Recognizing the refractory period, getting your head above water, recognizing, ah, right now my mind is dominated by mental affliction, by a certain emotion and so forth. Report an error

28:12 And even if it's retrospective, it does break it up a little bit. As I said earlier, get your mind off Jack and at least, ah, I see right now I'm in a really negative mode. I can't think straight. I can't perceive straight. There's a major cognitive bias going on and I'm not going to believe it. In other words, I'm not going to slip into the D part of the OCDD. Report an error

28:32 The delusional aspect. That whatever I think about Jack is true. And not only true, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That's where it's flat out delusional. Not just mistaken. It's cuckoo, cuckoo. You know, you're really out to lunch. So, very interesting this. It turns out this little simple practice, which is really simple. Report an error

28:50 We got the whole deal in one page. Turns out to be very nuanced and rich with insights. And I noticed also here that I failed just to read the last two lines. Because they're on the top of page 11. So just for the sake of completion, I love it the fact that he uses a cultivation metaphor, as I've already spoken of genuine happiness being all about cultivation, whereas the hedonic pursuit is all about hunting and gathering. Report an error

29:17 So this quality, this meditation we've just finished doing, he said this is like tilling the soil of a field, and of course that field is the field of your own mind, and cultivating the seeds of genuine happiness, of mental health and balance. Report an error

29:31 So it's really a matter of cultivation. So from the outset, avoid making a lot of great, exalted and pointless proclamations about how well you're doing, the incredible insights and so forth and so on. Rather, it is crucial to do all you can to refine your mind and establish a foundation for contemplative practice. Report an error

29:52 So, I think no truer word is said. I think it's really well said. So, what I'd like to do now, see it's just about exactly one page, is to go a little bit into some background. And I'm drawing from one text. It's a classic text from the Dzogchen tradition. I mentioned it before, the Vajra Essence. It came out in the 1860s. Report an error

30:14 It's been a classic ever since then. It's very representative. It's not an iconoclastic treatise. Very representative of the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism by one of the greatest masters of the 19th century, Dujum Lingba was his name. Report an error

30:31 And it's a large text. It's about 400 pages long. Again, I don't want to elaborate a lot about background. I'd like to focus just on these excerpts because this text, as I was first taught it and then translated it and then worked through the translation again and again with my Lama, the Venerable Gyacharamachi, I just found it just to be a gold mine in many areas. Report an error

30:52 But this one in particular, and for the following, and so the many, many ways, I find it just immensely rich. It's still the case that if, to take that kind of hackneyed, I need analogy. If I were stuck on a desert island and could only have one book, it actually would be this book. This is the one book I carry with me. Because in this one book, the Vajra Essence, in fact, everything you need to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime is right there. Report an error

31:20 I actually believe that. And that's what it says. And so, but in this text, there is just, to my mind, quite a brilliant and extraordinarily precise and illuminating discussion of this substrate consciousness, or Allayavich Jnana. Allayavich Jnana. Those of you with a background in Buddhism, specifically Buddhist philosophy, especially if you have a background in Galupa, you might think, oh, now Wallace is going off, it looks like he's left Tsongkhapa behind, because the Galupa tradition, Tsongkhapa and really all of the followers of Tsongkhapa, following the Prasangaka Madhyamaka view, which is widely regarded and I regard as the pinnacle of Buddhist philosophy, Madhyamaka in general is the middle way view, promoted by Nagarjuna, and then the interpretation called the Prasangaka Madhyamaka. Report an error

32:05 Kind of a sub-school, but it's very subtle. I think, I actually, I agree with Tsongkhapa. I think it is the most profound Buddhist philosophy you'll find. According to the Prasangha, this is very, just very brief, and for people who don't have the background, I'll be finished quickly here. Report an error

32:21 According to the Prasangha Kamadyamika view, this Alayavich Nana doesn't exist. The Alayavich Nana, the foundation consciousness, the basis consciousness, storehouse consciousness. Or I'm translating it as substrate consciousness. It doesn't exist. And so then, if I'm a follower of Tsongkhapa, which in fact I am, as well as being a follower of Padmasambhava and so forth, then why am I bringing something that doesn't exist? Report an error

32:47 And the answer here is that when the Prasangaka Majjamikas, the proponents of Prasangaka Majjamaka view, when they are refuting the Alai Vijnana, they are very specifically refuting the presentation or explanation of Alayavich Nana, or Substrate Consciousness, as presented in the Chittamatra, or Yogacara, philosophical school. The Yogacara school reifies the mind as being inherently existent, existing independently of a conceptual designation. Report an error

33:15 It's absolutely real. And the Substrate Consciousness, the Alayavich Nana, also is inherently real. In fact, it's who you really are. It's actually who you are, actually, the Alayavich Nana. Prasangika Madhyamaka refutes that. They refute the inherent existence of the mind altogether. Report an error

33:32 And moreover, when the citta matrams, or mind-only school, when they're presenting the alaya vijnana, their view of it, it comes, I must say, with a lot of bells and whistles. I mean, there's a lot of metaphysics that goes along with it. So it's a whole package of some stream of experience, but very much philosophically packaged in a context where the mind is taken to be inherently real. Report an error

33:54 And the galupas, generally, and then the followers of prasangika mayamaka says, okay, enough with it. Worry doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Not as you're presenting it. So what do the galupas assert when it comes to shamatha and what happens to your coarse mind when you achieve shamatha? What do the galupas say following prasangaka-majamaka? They say, oh yes, your coarse mind dissolves into the subtle continuum of mental consciousness. Report an error

34:23 Now about that there's no debate. The jitta mantrans accept that. The prasangaka-majamakas accept that. The galupas, the nyamapas, they all accept that. That's kind of neutral. And it doesn't come along with a lot of metaphysical bells and whistles. It's just to say that the mind operates on three different levels. Report an error

34:39 Coarse level, our psyche, arises independence upon the brain and so forth. Subtle level is a subtle continuum of mental consciousness. And then beyond that, the very subtle is in Galupa terminology, the innate mind of clear light, which is only the Dalai Lama having studied Dzogchen for, I don't know. Report an error

34:58 More than 20 years by now, as well as being a master of the Galupa tradition, the Dalai Lama equates the innate mind of clear light with rikpa, pristine awareness, as is understood in Dzogchen. He says, but the same. Convinced he's right. For a very good reason, not just kind of an opinion. And so, we'll note that the Dalai Lama has been teaching Dzogchen for about 20 years by now, off and on. Report an error

35:24 He embraces it. Tsongkhapa himself, when he received teachings on Dzogchen, He responded, and I can show you the source, he said, this tradition, this Dzogchen tradition, it is complete and perfect. I have nothing more to say. So Tsongkhapa did not refute Dzogchen. Clearly, just the opposite. The Dalai Lama, who is quite a staunch follower of Tsongkhapa, he not only doesn't refute it, he's received extensive teaching and he teaches it. Report an error

35:46 He passes it on. He gives Dzogchen empowerments. So I am really a disciple of his own Dalai Lama, and I'm a disciple of Tsongkhapa, and I'm also a disciple of Dujum Lingva and Padmasambhava. I have a lot of teachers. And so what I'll say here with total confidence, that in the Dzogchen context, when we see this description, the affirmation of, and then the description of, Alae Vijnana, it is completely experiential. Report an error

36:08 There are no metaphysical bells and whistles, and it's different than the Chichamata view. So that which the Galupas are refuting, there's nothing to refute here. I would simply say that the substrate consciousness is equivalent to what the Galupas call subtle continuum of mental consciousness. Report an error

36:25 That was tactical Buddhist background for people who are actually interested in Buddhism. But now, having said that, so I've stated my case. And now I'm going to go right back to Dzogchen without apology, some magnificent tradition. But I find here that by bringing... Bringing out of mothballs and cleaning off all the barnacles of reification and inherent existence and all the metaphysical stuff around it and just saying, here's what people experience when they go into shamatha. Report an error

36:53 This is what they get. This is what arises. And we're going to call that Alaya Vijayana. That's what we're going to call it. But let's see how this gets unpacked. Again, not as metaphysics, not as religion, but as a phenomenological description. This is what we've seen. See for yourself whether your experience corroborates what we're saying here. Report an error

37:12 So let's approach this in a completely empirical way and let the philosophers worry about it in their own good time. So this whole Vajra essence takes place in the form of a conversation or a dialogue. I won't give the background right now. I'm eager to get to the content. So here in this case, it's kind of a visionary experience. It's Samantabhadra. It's the Buddha addressing someone in a kind of a visionary context. Report an error

37:37 O Vajra of mind, a student. O Vajra of mind. But now let's just get to the content. The rope of mindfulness. So there's a metaphor we've encountered before. Firmly, as Buddha Gosa says, you remember? Firmly fasten your mind with a rope of mindfulness to the stake of your meditative object. The rope of mindfulness and firmly held attention is dissolved by the power of meditative experiences. Report an error

38:03 As you're progressing along the path of shamatha and one nyam after another arises, then that rope of mindfulness and firmly held attention It's dissolved by the power of meditative experiences until finally the ordinary mind of an ordinary being, ordinary sentient being as it were, disappears. Report an error

38:26 So we're immediately in very deep water. But it's not all out by itself. Already with the robe of mindfulness, he's in dialogue with Buddhagosa. He's in dialogue with the Buddha. This is tapping into very early Buddhist metaphor, nature of mindfulness, same definition. Report an error

38:42 His point here, a very interesting one, actually you'll find in the writings of Tsongkhapa, you'll find it in the writings of Asanga, whom Tsongkhapa quotes extensively when he's writing about shamatha, and it's at the following point, and that is that mindfulness always entails some retention, some non-forgetfulness, some bearing in mind, right, without forgetfulness. Report an error

39:05 And so, well, we know the object, and it's what is the meditative object. So here, as you are with your coarse mind, That's the only one we have to be able to explicitly use. As we're attending to the thoughts, the images and so forth that arise in the space of the mind, then we're sustaining that flow of mindfulness, that flow of attention with mindfulness, the faculty of not forgetting. Report an error

39:34 But when you go very, very deeply in, when you're getting up there to stages eight and stage nine, and then just before shamatha, so stage nine and so forth, then at that point, actually when you achieve shamatha, You might recall, again, let's be in dialogue with Buddhagosa. Let's take the example of following the preliminary sign, sensation of the breath. Then the acquired sign. Report an error

39:57 And then you achieve shamatha. And you achieve the counterpart sign. That very hundred and a thousand times more subtle sign. Remember? And then what happens? It's so subtle, you lose it. And you fall back on your bum. Right? You slip back into the babanga. Well, at that point, you're now devoid of mindfulness. Report an error

40:20 Because you were attending to the acquired sign, but that's history. Before that it was a preliminary sign, that's history. You're not remembering that anymore. You did make brief contact with the counterpart sign, but it was so subtle, it slipped away. You fall back on your bum in this kind of luminous flow of awareness, but now you're not really holding anything in mind. You're not retaining anything. Report an error

40:41 You're not recalling anything. Your coarse mind has dissolved into the bhavaṅga. Which I'm going to say is the same as a substrate consciousness, which is the same as a subtle continual mental consciousness. Theravāda, Dzogchen, Galupa. But now at this point you're not retaining anything. You were, you were. That's how you got along all those nine stages. You had the counterpart, but then you lost it. You lost it. It's too subtle. You can get it back if you really want to. Report an error

41:07 But for a little while, you are now devoid of mindfulness. You're devoid of mindfulness. A Saṅgha says the same thing. He's a major, major authority that Tsongkhapa cites extensively. A Saṅgha points out that when you achieve shamatha, you slip into a state, temporarily, that's devoid of mindfulness. Report an error

41:28 Because your coarse mind that was holding on to the mindfulness all along, that's dissolved. And that which you were attending to is dissolved. Take the example of the classic looper approach, based upon great Indian treatises, focusing on a Buddha image. Focusing on a Buddha image. And then, Progressing along the nine stages, get to stage nine, achieve shamatha on that Buddha image, which now is about as vivid as if you were seeing it with your naked eye. Report an error

41:56 It has that kind of clarity, that kind of precision. Incredible. You'll see it three-dimensionally. It's going to be luminous. It can be like a holographic image, but with tremendous detail of this Buddha image. And now you've achieved shamatha. So let's say you've achieved shamatha. Now what do you do? Now that you follow this really classic approach. Report an error

42:14 Developmental approach. Now what do you do that you've achieved shamatha in the Buddha image? What do you do? You let it go. It served its function. You release it. Report an error

42:25 And now what do you have? An absence of mindfulness. Because you're not holding anything in mind. Not the Buddha image, but not anything else either. You've slipped into a vacuum where your awareness is completely withdrawn from all the five senses. The activities of the mind are all dormant. And there you are, devoid of mindfulness. Report an error

42:47 So, in the Nyingma tradition, especially more specifically the Dzogchen, the two are not equivalent, in the Dzogchen tradition, when they discuss this practice, and I'm referring to another text by Dujum Lingba, a much shorter text, I've just finished polishing, we're about to send it off to the publisher, another text called the Clear Vajra, no, no, Sharp Vajra Tantra. Report an error

43:12 It's a very short text, but again, a Dharma, a mind Dharma of Dujum Lingba. I just leave it at that. Something very helpful there that I'll insert into this commentary here is that very often in the Dzogchen accounts, the Mahamudra accounts of settling the mind in its natural state, there are no references to nine stages at all. Report an error

43:36 They don't refute them. There's just no references to it. It just says, here's the practice. Get cracking. If you want to, just start. But don't think stages one, two, three, where am I, how far, blah, blah, blah. Just don't go there. Just, here's the practice, get sane, stay sane, don't junk it up, keep it simple. Report an error

43:59 But then are there stages? Yes, there are. And here are the stages, and this might be worth noting. I've alluded briefly to the first two during the guided meditations. When you're doing this practice, settling the mind in its natural state, there are certain benchmarks, benchmarks of, is this practice working? Report an error

44:20 Is your mind really settling in its natural state? That's what it's designed to do. And the first benchmark is to be able to distinguish within your own experience when is there activity, motion, movement, and when is there stillness as you attend to the space of the mind. Report an error

44:41 To note that it's not homogenously in motion, active and so forth, nor is it homogenously blank, still, motionless. Sometimes there's motion, sometimes there's not. So that's not too hard. But to distinguish the difference between motion and stillness in the space of the mind. That's number one. Until you're able to do that, well, keep working on it. Report an error

45:05 You should be able to do that. That's an accomplishable task. As you get into the groove, and bear in mind, this is an interesting thing about settling the mind in its natural state. The method doesn't change. Mindfulness of breathing, it does change. Remember, you go from preliminary sign, then you shift off to acquired sign. Then something else happens, the counterpart sign. Report an error

45:26 So you're shifting methodologically. Here there's no shift at all. That one page, that's it. That's what you do all the way through until your whole mind is dissolved into the substrate consciousness. And so it starts simple and it stays simple. And it really is simple when you're actually doing it. So that's the first one. The second benchmark, which you can achieve many times, is not like, how long do I have to wait? Report an error

45:51 Are we there yet? You can achieve it, you know, in the first session and then you'll lose it. And then you achieve it again and again and then you'll lose it and so forth. And it's this. It's called single-pointed mindfulness. We speak now of four types of mindfulness. So you're now ready to achieve, to realize, to experience the first of four kinds of mindfulness on this path of suddenly the mind is natural state. Report an error

46:12 And it's called single-pointed mindfulness. And the characteristic of this mode of mindfulness is That you're able to simultaneously experience the stillness of your own awareness in the same moment as you experience the movements of the mind. Report an error

46:31 Thoughts coming and going, images coming and going, butterflies, butterflies flitting about the space of the mind, but you're not moved. You are that kestrel that's hovering motionlessly while all kinds of motion may be occurring in the space in front, but you're motionless and you know it. Report an error

46:51 That is an unmoving quality. And why? Because you relinquish grasping. But you haven't gone blind. You haven't bailed out. You haven't become unconscious or dull. You're quite clear. Very attentive. But you're not lurching towards or away from. You're not getting spun out by conceptual distractions and so forth. The simultaneity of stillness and motion. And that's the characteristic of the first type of four types of mindfulness. Report an error

47:22 Continue in the practice. Continue in the practice. And you might recall the Tibetan word for meditation has a connotation of familiarization, komba, which means to habituate, familiarize. Familiarize yourself with this. Of getting sane and then familiarizing yourself, remaining sane. That is composed, still, clear, unperturbed, just holding your own ground and observing the comings and goings of the mind. Report an error

47:47 Holding your own ground, holding your own ground until After some time, they're manifest, what is called manifest, manifest mindfulness. Manifest mindfulness. This is the second one. And this is really the mindfulness that occurs when you have slipped into a state of flow. That it's the power of mindfulness has arisen and you're able to sustain this in an ongoing fashion. Report an error

48:13 That ongoing stillness in the midst of an ongoing flow of this thought, that emotion, this desire, that memory and so forth. But you're kind of just in a groove there and you see, oh, there's some real continuity here. This is manifest mindfulness, the power of mindfulness, the power of bearing in mind, the power of this retention, this recollection, this non-forgetfulness, this reverse entropy of awareness. Report an error

48:36 This is being sustained with less and less effort, more and more naturally, more and more effortlessly. That's the second mode of mindfulness. It's called manifest mindfulness. And you'll continue on that. It kind of sounds like reminiscent of stage four. And then it continues stage five, six, seven, eight, nine. Just smooth. On you go. Just maintaining that composure, that presence of mind. Report an error

49:04 Until eventually, get up there to stage nine or to Shantideva itself. And then the third phase of mindfulness is called Absence of mindfulness. Absence of mindfulness. You were bearing in mind the object of meditation. And the object of meditation was the space of the mind and its contents. And that mindfulness that you are sustaining is embedded in, that is, it's a mental factor. It's a mental factor. Report an error

49:36 It's one of 51 mental factors. But that mindfulness is embedded within the framework or the context of your course mind, your psyche. It's one of its mental factors. But now, you're right there achieving shamatha, and your coarse mind is dissolving. You've just achieved shamatha, and your coarse mind is now completely dissolved into subtle mind, or alayvichana, substrate consciousness, which means the mindfulness that belonged to that dimension of your mind, coarse mind, that gets lost too. Report an error

50:07 It's baby and the bathwater, they're all dissolving into. The mind and its concomitant mental factors, they're all dissolving into this underlying, more primal, Substrate consciousness. Which means, for a while there, you're not holding in mind anything. Report an error

50:26 You're not bearing in mind. You're not retaining. You're not recollecting. You're not remembering anything. You've just slipped into kind of a vacuum state. It's transient. It's temporary. Report an error

50:41 So consider, along the path, the practice itself, what are you attending to when settling the mind in its natural state? The space of the mind and whatever arises in it. And then gradually your awareness becomes more and more focused, more and more channeled. And then as you're doing so and it's coming totally into the domain of the mind, then the contents are subsiding, subsiding, subsiding, more sporadic, more subtle and then flatlined. Report an error

51:05 And there you are. But it's not out here in front of you. It's just all you're left with is the substrate. And the substrate is just that space of mind and has no content. It's just a space of mind. And so in that moment, Then you're just resting with an absence of mindfulness. Because within that space you're not holding on to anything, you're not remembering anything, you're not retaining anything. Report an error

51:33 But as you're just resting in that absence, in that vacuity, in that empty space, then something will rise up. Because you're not unconscious. You're not unconscious like a pair of eyeglasses. You're not devoid of consciousness. Something will rise up. And it will rise up with a total... Absence of competition. Because nothing is rising to meet you in terms of appearances. You are in a vacuity empty of appearances. But something rises up to meet you. Report an error

52:07 And that is the sheer luminosity of your own substrate consciousness. Which the Buddha calls the brightly shining mind. By nature luminous, bright, radiant. But now it's rising like the sun coming over the horizon. It's rising with nothing to obscure it. You're not deep asleep. You're not zonked out. You've gotten there by shamatha, which is... Report an error

52:27 An ongoing process of greater and greater luminosity. But now this substrate consciousness becomes immediately and without mediation evident to you and a new type of mindfulness arises and is called naturally luminous mindfulness. And that's the fourth kind. This is mindfulness that is part and parcel of substrate consciousness. Subtle mind. Report an error

52:57 It's another dimension, another order of magnitude of mindfulness coming from a deeper space, not human and certainly not conceptual. And that's the fourth mode. Report an error

53:08 And now you've really achieved shamatha and you have a very serviceable mind. So that was a long commentary. But let's read on a little bit more. We'll take a break pretty soon too. Report an error

53:20 But here it is. He's just described this. Now with one sentence. He's described what I've just spent 20 minutes talking about. The rope of mindfulness, firmly held attention, is dissolved by the power of meditative experiences, that is the kind of whole evolution taking place, as you move through those nine stages or as you move through those first two stages of mindfulness. Report an error

53:41 Single-pointed mindfulness, manifest mindfulness, and then you have this absence of mindfulness. The rope of mindfulness has dissolved. Your mind, the psyche, the mind of an ordinary being, disappeared. Consequently, discursive thoughts become dormant. And moving thoughts vanish into the space of the mind. One slips into the vacuity of the substrate. And the substrate is that space of the mind that you've been attending to, but now without any garnish, without any overlay, without any conceptual superpositions. Report an error

54:12 The substrate is that of which you are aware when you're resting in the substrate consciousness. And this I find very useful. So the substrate consciousness is consciousness of the substrate. And the substrate is that vacuity, Empty space of the mind illuminated by substrate consciousness. So that's useful. It's hard to unpack that out of simply saying subtle, continual mental consciousness. Report an error

54:37 No, this is substrate consciousness, consciousness of the substrate. The substrate is the space of the mind. So all of these thoughts have dissolved into that substrate. One slips into the vacuity of the substrate in which oneself, others and objects vanish, clinging to the experiences of vacuity and luminosity. Report an error

54:58 While looking inwards, now your awareness has inverted in upon itself into the substrate consciousness. So now you are really practicing awareness of awareness. Clean to the experiences of acuity, the acuity of the substrate itself, and the luminosity of your substrate consciousness while looking inwards. The appearances of oneself, you as a person, others and objects, vanish. Report an error

55:21 That is the substrate consciousness. One has come to the essential nature of the mind. Not ultimate nature. Not rikpa, not pristine awareness. You've come to, okay, what is it about the mind that makes it a mind? What is it about the mind that makes it a conscious? You've just come down to its baseline, the palm to which the yo-yo keeps on coming back, and out of which the mind emerges and then comes back. Report an error

55:48 You come back to its baseline. One of the greatest of all the Galukpa Lamas, Penchen Losuchikyansin, the Penchen Rinpoche, who is this tutor of the fifth Dalai Lama. He made exactly the same point when he's describing exactly the same practice in his root text, the Mahamudra. He describes his practice, he calls it shamatha, focus on the mind. Report an error

56:09 And he said, when you achieve shamatha, focus on the mind, then you ascertain the essential nature of the mind. That's what he says. The essential nature of the mind. Which is clear or luminous and cognizant. Now you've just nailed it. Now you know the nature of consciousness. Not by thinking about it, writing big... Report an error

56:29 Essays about it. It's kind of like knowing chocolate. I mean, either you know it or you don't. But if you haven't tasted it, you don't know chocolate. And so, you've come to the essential nature of the mind. Report an error

56:42 The substrate consciousness. So now, here unpacking this a little bit further elsewhere in the text. The substrate consciousness of the nature of acuity and luminosity abides as the cause of everything that is emanated. That is emanated means all these appearances that are arising in the space of the mind. It is a substrate consciousness that illuminates them. Report an error

57:02 It's not to say that there are no other catalysts. When I'm looking at Cameron's sweater there, well, I didn't kind of just conjure up all by myself. I'm not simply imagining the color of his sweater. It's made of a certain fabric. It's emitting certain frequencies of photons. Photons are striking my retina. The visual cortex has a big role to play there. But, and of course, my consciousness, my substrate consciousness, really is playing no role whatsoever on whether he's wearing a sweater or not or what color his sweater is, you know, what frequency. Report an error

57:33 The photons are that are emitted by a sweater. I mean, it's irrelevant. I could die right now. He's still wearing a sweater. Right? But when I look in that direction and I'm seeing blue, I'm seeing navy blue, the blue that I'm seeing, it's called the qualia, the immediate impression, the color that I'm seeing, that color does not exist without being illuminated by consciousness. Report an error

57:57 There are no molecules that are blue. There are no atoms that are blue, there are no neurons that are blue, and there are no photons that are blue. Blue, as an immediate sense impression, is something that is made manifest, illuminated by consciousness. And that's true of blue and sounds and smells and tastes and tactile sensations and thoughts and dreams and mathematical equations. All of these are illuminated, made manifest by consciousness. Report an error

58:24 And fundamentally, when we strip away all the veneers, And the configurations of consciousness is all illuminated by substrate consciousness. So that's why he's saying here, not that there aren't other factors. There are, like fabric and who made the sweater and so forth and so on. And if it's wool, who are the sheep? There are many, many factors there. But without consciousness, there's no blue. Without consciousness, there's no soft. Report an error

58:47 If I should touch it and feel that it has a soft texture, there's no soft. There's no feeling of soft without consciousness illuminating that sensation or making it manifest. The mind that emanates from that, So the mind, your coarse mind, your psyche, that emerges from the substrate consciousness, the mind that emanates from that presents forms which are stabilized by the continuous stream of consciousness. Report an error

59:13 So forms, forms of all kinds, visual forms, but also auditory forms we call sounds, olfactory forms we call smells, and so on. Report an error

59:25 So someone with an experience of acuity and clarity, The acuity of the substrate, the clarity of the substrate consciousness, who directs his attention inward, in other words, no longer attending even to the space of the mind, but inverting awareness right in upon itself. One who does this may bring a stop to all external appearances and come to a state in which he believes there are no appearances or thoughts. This experience of radiance from which one dares not part is the substrate consciousness. Report an error

59:59 I'm not sure that's the best verb, it's the best one I can come up with. When he says, dares not part, I'm not saying you're afraid to. It's just you don't want to. Report an error

1:00:08 It's just so satisfying. It's kind of like, I don't want to leave. Why would I want to leave here? This is the sweet spot. Report an error

1:00:19 And now for context. When you fall asleep, all objective appearances of waking reality, including the inanimate world, your room, the environment, and so forth, the beings who inhabit the world, And all the objects that appear to the five senses, the kind of qualia, the sense impressions to all the five senses, all of these, all of these appearances. Report an error

1:00:42 So he's not speaking citta matra view, he's not speaking mind only view, he's speaking purely phenomenologically. All the appearances of the waking reality, all of these dissolve into the vacuity of the substrate. So the substrate is kind of like if you're an old Star Trek fan, the substrate is the holodeck. Report an error

1:01:01 It's the domain in which all appearances arise, including smells, tastes and everything else. But then when you fall deep asleep, all the appearances from the waking state, they all dissolve into the substrate. You fall asleep, 90 minutes later you may start dreaming. All the appearances of the dream state emerge, all those appearances emerge in the substrate. The dream comes to an end, all those appearances dissolve back into the substrate. Report an error

1:01:26 So it's the context, it's the locus, it's the space in which all appearances arise. Dream appearances as well as waking appearances. Because, and this is a neurophysiological truth, as well as a Buddhist truth, there aren't any appearances out there. Antonio Damasio, who's a pretty hardcore materialist and a very fine neurologist, when speaking about perception, he says, do not think for an instant that images, like images of blue, of green and so forth, that they're traveling through space and smacking you in the eyeball. Report an error

1:01:55 There are no appearances traveling through space. That's a neurophysiological fact. It's also a fact of physics. Photons don't have color, and neither the molecules or atoms that are emitting photons, they don't have color either. And so images, whether they're images, visual images, it's the issue of the tree falling in the forest. Report an error

1:02:15 The impressions of sound do not come and smack you in the eardrum. Sound waves smack you in the eardrum. And they catalyze a very complex... A sequence of electrochemical events culminating in the auditory cortex, which helps to give rise to the immediate experience of sound. Sound doesn't travel through space. Report an error

1:02:37 Sound waves do. But sounds are generated independence upon the brain as the color red is generated independence upon the visual cortex. And that goes for all the other sense impressions. So images of the five senses don't travel through space and they're not already out there. They're generated independence upon the brain. Report an error

1:02:55 Now the materialists will say they emerge from the brain, for which there's no empirical evidence at all. There is empirical evidence that the brain is necessary for the generation of, as long as we're embodied and alive, that the brain is necessary for the generation of visual images and so forth and so on. Report an error

1:03:13 Very strong correlates, brilliant neuroscience, really good. There's just no evidence that colors actually emerge from neurons, any more than emotions emerge from neurons. Neurons, the chemicals in the brain and so forth, these condition the emergence of the type of appearances we experience. But the Buddhist view is the appearances themselves do not emerge from the brain. Report an error

1:03:34 They emerge from the substrate. And they are not illuminated by the brain. They are not known by the brain. They are known and illuminated by substrate consciousness or the configured mind that arises out of the substrate consciousness. And the configured mind is configured in large part by the brain. Report an error

1:03:52 We have human minds because we have human brains. Once you don't have a human brain anymore, you won't have a human mind. You might have a memory of one, but you won't have a human mind. So, I find this very interesting. So, when you fall asleep, all objective appearances are observed. So we've read that. So, all these objects that appear to the five senses, all of that dissolve into the vacuity of the substrate, which is of the nature of space. Report an error

1:04:22 And that's when you fall asleep. But then when you start dreaming, Or you wake up, then all these appearances, they emerge from that domain. Appearances emerge from and dissolve back into the substrate, the alaya. Report an error

1:04:38 So, this, of course, one doesn't need to believe any of this. I find it very provocative, just like I find physics very provocative. It gives food for thought, really gives us ideas, hypotheses to explore with experimentation. And that's how I view this. And I have been practicing for a while. I found this to be a really, really good theory that explains what's going on, but it also illuminates and helps us probe more deeply into our own experience. Report an error

1:05:04 So that's how I view it, and that's why I'm sharing this with you. Not simply as a dogma, which I wouldn't spend our time, we have so little time together, I wouldn't just share with you dogma you can't test. Not in this context. So let's take a break, it's now right on the spot at 11 o 'clock. Come back at 11.15, go back to the practice. 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.

Recorded at Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, and archived by the institute on Internet Archive. More from Vajrayana Institute

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