Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 32)

0:11 We have about 15 minutes, so let's read a little bit more. In this next quote, he's going to really some of the core theme or insights from Dzogchen and other schools, of course. Report an error in the passage at 0:11 Highlight the passage at 0:11

0:26 And he's referring to ignorance when he says ignorance of this nature. Of course, there's no context here. It's just an isolated quote. But what he's referring to is ignorance of this deepest dimension of your own awareness, namely pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, innate mind of clear light. Report an error in the passage at 0:26 Highlight the passage at 0:26

0:41 Not something to achieve, it's not one day you might achieve it, it's already there but it is veiled and it's beyond, it's beyond the substrate consciousness. So he speaks of ignorance and just by the way the term most commonly used in Dzogchen referring to this dimension of consciousness is rikpa, rikpa or pristine awareness. Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

1:00 In Sanskrit it's vidya, vidya and the opposite of vidya is avidya which is non-awareness. Or unawareness or ignorance, which is the root of saṃsāra and the first of the twelve links of dependent origination. So vidya, avidya, diametrically opposed. So avidya, avidya, avidya, not knowing, unawareness of vidya, this innate mind of clear light, is determined as the cause of delusion. Report an error in the passage at 1:00 Highlight the passage at 1:00

1:32 So this really is going right to a core of some absolutely central themes of Buddhism and that is... That the root of suffering lies in ignorance, but ignorance is simply a not knowing, an unawareness, which in a way is kind of innocent. I don't know Swahili, so whatever, I just don't know it. But then if I should start speaking, and I think I'm speaking Swahili and I'm not, then that's delusion. Then I'm really just making babbling sounds, but thinking, oh I'm speaking Swahili, well then I'm really in trouble, I'm deluded, I've gotten something wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32

2:02 And so there are these two terms, avidya, avidya. Unknowing, unawareness, ignorance, and then moha is actively getting things wrong. So reifying the absolute bifurcation of subject and object and so on. So ignorance is the cause of delusion and the classic metaphor, just going back to Buddhist philosophy, mainstream Buddhist philosophy, is if you're walking through a jungle, let's say, and it's twilight, so there's very little light, you can't see very clearly. Report an error in the passage at 2:02 Highlight the passage at 2:02

2:34 And you see over on the side of the path something rather obscure, but it's coiled, and you really can't make it out. Well, your ignorance of what is that coiled shape there, that's just ignorance. You're not aware. You don't have enough information. You don't know. But then, out of reflex, out of our reptilian brain or what have you, you superimpose that snake and you get an adrenaline rush. Report an error in the passage at 2:34 Highlight the passage at 2:34

2:57 And if you're not a Buddhist, you might be looking for a stick to kind of beat it. And so out of the avidya of not seeing clearly the nature of the phenomenon there and not recognizing that in fact it's a coiled rope, then you falsely apprehend the coiled rope as a snake and then you have your various emotional and behavioral responses to that. Report an error in the passage at 2:57 Highlight the passage at 2:57

3:15 So delusion, actively misapprehending the nature of reality, stems from not knowing it. So ignorance of this nature, now this deeper nature, is determined as the cause of delusion. How? Mere ignorance of the nature of the play, The all-pervasive ground acts as the cause. So ignorance of the nature of this innate mind of clear light, or rikpa, and ignorance of the nature in which this deepest dimension of consciousness manifests in appearances. Report an error in the passage at 3:15 Highlight the passage at 3:15

3:44 We've gone way beyond substrate consciousness and substrate here. So this is very deep talk, which is empirical, but you need to be a very deep meditator to be able to put this to the test of experience. So this acts as the cause. Of now delusion and others reification and so forth. As that becomes somewhat fortified, habituated, rigidified, then that ignorance, that unknowing, when it kind of congeals, it dwells or it is present as the true substrate. Report an error in the passage at 3:44 Highlight the passage at 3:44

4:18 So this is, and now we're back to something we actually could test experientially. And that is when speaking of the alaya, just the sheer vacuity, the space of the mind. Which is all that remains when you've slipped into the substrate consciousness and you're just conscious of the substrate. The nature of that substrate is unknowing. Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:39 The nature of it is unknowing. That's where we slip. That's what we slip into when we fall into non-lucid, deep, dreamless sleep. The mind dissolves into the substrate consciousness and the substrate consciousness dissolves into the substrate. Because we're really not conscious of anything. We don't know anything. Report an error in the passage at 4:39 Highlight the passage at 4:39

4:58 We don't even know we're asleep. And so it's not that we, I think I mentioned this before, it's not like we have zero consciousness like that of a pair of eyeglasses. Absolute zero. But there's no explicit consciousness. We don't actually know anything at that time when we fainted, we're comatose in deep dreamless sleep, or we're in non-lucid death state. Report an error in the passage at 4:58 Highlight the passage at 4:58

5:20 That lack of entertainment that I referred to earlier. You don't know anything at all. So substrate consciousness, which is consciousness, well that's gone implicit. And so a little, it's just an image that I like, maybe it's not useful, maybe it is. It's like imagining that the substrate consciousness is like a sword, maybe a flaming sword, a bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:39 But a sword, but then you put it into its sheath, or its scabbard, and then you can't even tell there's a sword. It could be, you just can't tell, it's totally obscured by its sheath. And so it's as if the substrate consciousness gets immersed in the substrate, and then you're just blotto. That's not the same as an empty sheath. There is a substrate, there is a sword in there, and all you need is to be catalyzed. Like an enemy comes, and then the warrior takes the sword out of the sheath and ready to fight. Report an error in the passage at 5:39 Highlight the passage at 5:39

6:08 And so all you need is a catalyst. You're deep, deep asleep. You're zoned out. You're zonked. And then somebody comes and shakes you by the shoulder and says, Hey, Cameron, the house is on fire. Wake up. And he wakes up. Right? Shake the eyeglasses. It doesn't wake up. So all it needs is a catalyst and that which was implicit becomes explicit and you're ready to run out the door. Or even a loud sound or anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

6:32 So that implies to me there has to be some implicit consciousness there. Because if not, then I shake him. Why would anything happen? He wouldn't be aware that I'm shaking him. Or I shout in his ear. Or I open up his eyelid and flash a flashlight or a torch on his eyeball. If there's zero consciousness, it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to become conscious. You can't go from zero to something. You can go from a finite, very small, to something larger, but you can't go from zero consciousness to positive consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 6:32 Highlight the passage at 6:32

7:06 That's the Buddhist view. You can't go, and this is a big deal, the principle of conservation of consciousness in the universe, according to Buddhism, if you have consciousness, you can never make it go to zero. It doesn't matter what you do to it. You just can't make it go to zero. Zero as in eyeglasses. But nor can you go from zero to anything. Zero stays zero. There's nothing you do. Report an error in the passage at 7:06 Highlight the passage at 7:06

7:27 Magic wands, mantras, blessings, empowerments. There's just nothing you can do to a pair of eyeglasses to make it wake up and become conscious. It's zero. It stays zero forever. But if you're conscious, there's nothing you can do to make you go to zero. So, like mass energy, there's all kinds of things you can do to mass energy. Report an error in the passage at 7:27 Highlight the passage at 7:27

7:46 It can become fluid, it can become solid, gas, it can be pure energy, it can be all kinds of transmutations you can make mass energy go into. There's two things you can't do. You can't make nothing turn into mass energy and you can't make mass energy turn into nothing. Those are just two things you can't do. Nothing just stays nothing and mass energy always transforms into other forms of mass energy. And likewise with consciousness energy. Report an error in the passage at 7:46 Highlight the passage at 7:46

8:14 Lung Sem it's called in Tibetan, energy conscious, energy mind. Lung Sem, that which carries on from lifetime to lifetime. It's a continuum of consciousness. It's also a continuum of subtle energy, of prāṇa. And they will take all kinds of forms throughout the six realms of existence. Incredible array of formations that this continuum of energy mind will take. Report an error in the passage at 8:14 Highlight the passage at 8:14

8:34 The only thing you can't do is get a new one out of nothing or take one that does exist and transform it into nothing. Nature doesn't work that way. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

8:45 As this unknowing becomes fortified, it dwells as a true substrate, the alaya, which is of the very nature of unknowing, which is immaterial like space, a blank, unthinking void. A blank, unthinking void. So that's all you're left with when you have come to the culmination of the dying process and you enter the dead zone. It's just a blank, unthinking void. Report an error in the passage at 8:45 Highlight the passage at 8:45

9:12 And you're not even conscious of being dead. Unless you've achieved shamatha and you've passed through the whole process lucidly, most people don't. So from a Buddhist perspective, I mean the whole notion of death being rest in peace is a really nice idea. Report an error in the passage at 9:12 Highlight the passage at 9:12

9:26 If you could just enter the blank unthinking void and stay there, that'd be pretty cool. Then no more problems. Third noble truth, achieved, mission accomplished. Cessation of suffering and the causes of suffering, blado, no existence, no consciousness, zip. From the Buddhist perspective, the only problem with death is it doesn't last. Report an error in the passage at 9:26 Highlight the passage at 9:26

9:51 Entering that state, this substrate, corresponds to states such as fainting, abiding in meditative absorption, jnana, entering a trance induced by meditative absorption, that's a samapati in the formless realm. Report an error in the passage at 9:51 Highlight the passage at 9:51

10:11 Entering a trance induced by meditative stabilization, that's jnana, becoming engulfed by deep sleep in the substrate, in which appearances have dissolved into the formless realm like their force their force stays there Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:21 The absolute space, just say space of the mind. I'll change that. Just space of the mind or space of awareness. All appearances simply dissolve. And reaching the point of death in which appearances have vanished. So this is one major reason. I mean there are various ones, quite a number of them. Why I've drawn a strong conclusion from my understanding that in Theravāda Buddhism when they refer to the bhavaṅga, they're referring exactly to this. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:45 It's just a different terminology. But they call it bhavaṅga. Here it's called bhavaṅga. The substrate consciousness. But in both, you get it when you go into deep samādhi, you get it when you faint, when you go into deep sleep, and you get it when you die. And then they describe it and it's vacuity and so forth and so on. So that sheer vacuity, that is called the true substrate, the alaya. Report an error in the passage at 10:45 Highlight the passage at 10:45

11:09 Free of mental clinging to actualization. So actualization, that is, it's just, one can say it's sheer potential. It's sheer potential. To use a nice term from physics, this This substrate is kind of characterized by symmetry. It's imbued with perfect symmetry. That is, it has no before and after, no left and right, up and down, no lumpy spots. Report an error in the passage at 11:09 Highlight the passage at 11:09

11:30 It's just, in all ways, the same. Perfect symmetry. And that's where you're resting when you're in deep, non-lucid, deep, dreamless sleep. But then, again, to draw from the metaphor physics, I think it's quite poetically nice, because the theme of symmetry comes up very big in cosmology. There's a symmetry breaking as you go from the Big Bang and then onto the evolution, the formation of the universe. There are multiple symmetry breakings. Report an error in the passage at 11:30 Highlight the passage at 11:30

11:59 And when the symmetry is broken, then you start having the coagulation of mass, energy, particles, waves, energy, mass, galaxies and so forth and so on. So now you have all this asymmetry. Well, what breaks the symmetry of the substrate consciousness? And it's karma. Or it's mental imprints. It's mental imprints. Or if we just bring this in the modern world, Freudian psychology, it's impulses from your subconscious. Impulses from the subconscious. Report an error in the passage at 11:59 Highlight the passage at 11:59

12:27 It's not that different. And there are just stirrings of the subconscious and then lo and behold that symmetry of the substrate is broken and suddenly you're in a dreamscape where there are people over there and not many people over here and I'm over here. And this is happening over there and now it's asymmetry all over the place. And then emotions arising and hopes, fears and everything else until the dream vanishes and it dissolves back into the symmetry until it's broken again about 90 minutes later and you're into your next dream cycle. Report an error in the passage at 12:27 Highlight the passage at 12:27

12:57 And so that's a true substrate. So I mentioned, and why I'm citing this vajrayessence is I just find this extremely rich to simply say that that which is left over when your coarse mind is dissolved is the subtle continual mental consciousness. I think it's fine. I mean, it's accurate. But then there's not much more to be said. Whereas this one, when you say, well, let's call it substrate consciousness, and now it does have these two elements, the substrate and the consciousness of that substrate, and then unpacking them and seeing the dynamic between the two, I find that very helpful. Report an error in the passage at 12:57 Highlight the passage at 12:57

13:27 And I find it also, it lends itself to empirical investigation and confirmation for that matter. So from that state, from this substrate, so this is again, this is like the sheath for the sword. From that state arises radiant clear consciousness itself. So arises, emerges the substrate consciousness. From that state of the Alaya arises radiant clear consciousness itself as the basis of emergence of appearances. Report an error in the passage at 13:27 Highlight the passage at 13:27

13:56 That is the substrate consciousness. So this substrate is kind of like the holodeck or just the vacuum. And then that which illuminates appearances that arise within that space is the substrate consciousness. Which by nature is luminous. That is its core nature. It makes manifest. It illuminates. And in Buddhist understanding, nothing else in the universe illuminates. Report an error in the passage at 13:56 Highlight the passage at 13:56

14:19 Supernovas don't illuminate. They just spew out photons all over the place. But the photons have no color. They have no brightness. They're just pulses of energy. And so the only thing that illuminates, makes manifest any appearances at all in the whole of nature, is consciousness. If there were no consciousness, there would be no appearances of anything. There might be matter. Report an error in the passage at 14:19 Highlight the passage at 14:19

14:38 Energy, whatever, but there would be no appearances of anything. Consciousness is the appearance maker. No consciousness, no appearances. That's the thing. And so the brain doesn't illuminate it. And the notion that there are colors and shapes and thoughts and information inside the brain, that it's actually, these mental phenomena are actually inside the brain, in tissue, in neurons, in chemicals and electricity, because that's all there is in the brain, chemicals and electricity. Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

15:03 There's no mysterious substances. Chemicals and electricity in complex configurations. But I find an awful lot of mystification of the brain is taking place. When people speak of images being in the brain and emotions being in the brain and information being in the brain and then you look and see all you see is chemicals and electricity. Report an error in the passage at 15:03 Highlight the passage at 15:03

15:21 So maybe we should kind of get out of the dark ages here and just pay attention to what is actually present in the brain. There's a lot of chemicals and electricity and in the substrate consciousness there are a lot of appearances and the substrate is not the brain. The brain is not the substrate. So this is the substrate consciousness. Moreover, no objects are established that are not its own luminosity. Report an error in the passage at 15:21 Highlight the passage at 15:21

15:45 And that is, we know nothing about anything. To establish an object is to determine that it exists. But there's no way to determine that anything exists unless we have something to work with. Scientists would call this information or data. If you've got no data, then you can't draw any conclusions about nature at all. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:02 All your conclusions about nature are made on the basis of observations, measurements, experiments that provide you with data or information. And then we can say electrons exist, Big Bang occurred or what have you. But if you have no data, no information, then you have no grounds for positing the existence of anything. But that data occurs only because there's consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 16:02 Highlight the passage at 16:02

16:27 Information occurs only because there is someone who is informed. There's no free-floating inherently existing information. Report an error in the passage at 16:27 Highlight the passage at 16:27

16:36 So, while it can give rise to all kinds of appearances, it does not enter into any object. It illuminates, but it doesn't become absorbed into an object. In other words, there's no consciousness in this set of notes. It's illuminated by consciousness, but there's no consciousness in it. Likewise for the eyeglasses and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 16:36 Highlight the passage at 16:36

16:55 It is like the ability of planets and stars to appear in limpid, clear water. Report an error in the passage at 16:55 Highlight the passage at 16:55

17:05 So, just appearances. And the appearances are illuminated by this substrate consciousness. Like the ability of reflections to appear in a limpid clear mirror and like the animate and inanimate world appearing in limpid clear space. So whether it's reflections or whether its appearance is just in normal, in just daily life, all of these are appearing in space. Report an error in the passage at 17:05 Highlight the passage at 17:05

17:26 Space is a substrate. The space of experience is a substrate which illuminates appearances in the space of the substrate consciousness. In the same way, appearances can emerge in the empty, clear substrate consciousness or emerge in or be illuminated by. From that state, from this substrate consciousness, so we see a certain sequence here, substrate consciousness can enfold into and be obscured by the substrate. Report an error in the passage at 17:26 Highlight the passage at 17:26

17:52 But then given the appropriate catalyst, Then out it emerges, it's luminous, and then out of that manifest appearance, it's called, you might recall, manifest or naturally luminous mindfulness, which is the mindfulness of the substrate consciousness, as that becomes explicit, explicit, and it does become explicit, when you're in deep dreamless sleep and you're lucid. Report an error in the passage at 17:52 Highlight the passage at 17:52

18:17 And that is definitely possible, just like lucid dreams are possible. There are people who are in deep dreamless sleep and they know it. And so they are aware of their own consciousness while deep asleep, which means they're aware of the substrate, but they're also aware of the substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 18:17 Highlight the passage at 18:17

18:34 And that's why it's called lucid. If you're just immersed in the substrate, but you're not aware of it or anything else, then the substrate consciousness has been immersed or engulfed in the substrate. But now out of this substrate consciousness, and it's on this note we'll end, from that state arises the consciousness of the mere appearances of the self called I. Report an error in the passage at 18:34 Highlight the passage at 18:34

18:56 And that is, there is a, it's called, that which produces this coagulation of a sense of I. And it's pre-articulate, it's pre-verbal, it's just a sense of being over here. It's said to be very primal. That is, insects will have it. Even if they have a teeny, teeny frontal cortex or none at all, insects will fight over the same piece of food. Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:18 I mean, really primitive organisms will struggle. Or they'll mate, or they'll do, but they'll interact with their environment. But two may struggle. And so each one has a sense, I'm not you, I'm over here, not over there. And they want the food for themselves. So it's something really, really primitive. But it is a coagulation of a sense of me. Report an error in the passage at 19:18 Highlight the passage at 19:18

19:42 Without necessarily any concepts or labels going along, it's preceding that. It's very primitive. And that emerges out of the substrate consciousness. So the substrate consciousness, and then it coalesces, so to speak. And there's a sense, I'm over here and the substrate is over there. There's something not me, like that vacuity over there. The self is apprehended as being here. So the ground, that is the substrate, appears to be over there, thus establishing the appearance of immaterial space. Report an error in the passage at 19:42 Highlight the passage at 19:42

20:10 As we can look right now, we can see the space in front of us, have a sense that it's over there, whereas... Me, I'm observing it from in here and I'm looking at the space over there. As that becomes entrenched, it is made manifest and so-called mental cognition or manas arises. And manas, this manas or mental cognition, this is that mental faculty that enables us to distinguish this from that. This appearance from that appearance. Report an error in the passage at 20:10 Highlight the passage at 20:10

20:37 For the unborn fetus, mama's voice versus some other voice, some other sound. Very primitive, very primal, non-verbal, non-conceptual, but able to distinguish this from that, this discernment, this categorization. This occurs, first that coagulation of self and then the manas or mental cognition arises, which is the basis for the emergence of appearances. Report an error in the passage at 20:37 Highlight the passage at 20:37

21:00 With that ability to distinguish, then now suddenly we have this rainbow coalition, this whole array of appearances begin to arise and the aspect of luminosity is revealed. And that is, it is now the substrate consciousness, its luminosity is manifesting, revealing, illuminating these various appearances, sight, sound, tactile sensations and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 21:00 Highlight the passage at 21:00

21:23 From that arise the five types of objects of appearance and reifying them there is clinging and delusion. So out of these appearances Manas gets involved, the conceptual mind gets involved. We have not only with manas or mental cognition distinguished this appearance from that appearance, but then the conceptual mind kicks in. Report an error in the passage at 21:23 Highlight the passage at 21:23

21:45 And so I'll just take, so now it's back to black. Okay, I can handle black. Now I'm looking at black, so the black color of Cameron's shirt. And it's just an appearance. But the conceptual mind gets involved. And I'm not just picking up black versus blue without labeling it. But now the conceptual mind gets and says, oh, Cameron's shirt is black. Now the appearance becomes an attribute of an object that I've superimposed conceptually upon the appearance. Report an error in the passage at 21:45 Highlight the passage at 21:45

22:14 That's now an attribute of something else. And then I reach out and touch it and I feel it's soft. Oh, his shirt is soft. That softness is an attribute of his shirt. And then it's got a certain, oh, it's got a certain weight. Oh, the attribute, the weight, it's got heavy and so forth and so on. An object that I call a shirt superimposed upon a matrix of appearances, now all those appearances become attributes of something else. Now they become enslaved. Report an error in the passage at 22:14 Highlight the passage at 22:14

22:43 And that is now they belong to something. Whereas before they were just appearances. But no, now we have objects that have appearances as their attributes and then welcome to the familiar world that you inhabit. Where you have attributes. You have a body, you have a mind, you have height, you have... Report an error in the passage at 22:43 Highlight the passage at 22:43

23:02 Emotions and all kinds of attributes. And now they belong to something new. And then Jack also, that awful guy Jack, he has these terrible qualities. I've seen them. And they're his properties. I've designated Jack, but then I've given these. I've said, Jack, welcome. These are your properties. Own it. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:22 And then there's clinging and delusion. And then there's the rest of saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 23:22 Highlight the passage at 23:22

23:29 And as you see in the cartoon, that's all folks. That's it. That's the way it all unfolds. And then you can unfold it back. And that's what we're doing, this simple practice. And it is really so simple, settling the mind as natural state. It's setting that in reverse order. It's setting that in reverse order. Report an error in the passage at 23:29 Highlight the passage at 23:29

23:48 That is, if we're snipping off the compulsive aspect, then we're nipping in the bud the delusional aspect. That is, we're not getting caught up in the dramas and taking as the truth and the whole truth, nothing but the truth, whatever thought that comes to our eyes, because we're just observing it as a thought and not saying this is a true narrative and description of something that's taking place in the real world, which is, hey, it's a thought. Report an error in the passage at 23:48 Highlight the passage at 23:48

24:07 It may or may not represent something apart from itself, but what it is is a thought. Just like when you're lucid, you're saying that's a dream. It may be precognitive, it may be mystical, it may have profound symbolic import. But in the meantime, hey, it's just a dream. It's a dream appearance. That's what it is. And then we can read into it as much as we feel is appropriate. And so in this simple practice, we're turning back. Report an error in the passage at 24:07 Highlight the passage at 24:07

24:32 We're turning back away from delusion, away from clinging, because we're trying to snip out grasping. We're turning that back. And so this whole conceptual process of literally objectifying, making objects, and for that matter, making subjects. You know, me. And the subject who is you, and then you as a subject, you have all these attributes. The objectifier, the subjectifier, which is the conceptual mind, where we're rolling that back. Report an error in the passage at 24:32 Highlight the passage at 24:32

24:59 Because, right, we're not entering into cognitive fusion with the conceptual process, we're observing it perceptually. So we're rolling that back, we're rolling back to manas, to sheer cognition, mental cognition, of discernment, which is operating on the level of coarse mind. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Report an error in the passage at 24:59 Highlight the passage at 24:59

25:17 But then as we just maintain that quality of awareness that is without distraction, without grasping, then what's happening to the coarse mind? It's melting. It's unraveling. It's dissolving. And so the appearances dissolve into the substrate. The cognitive functions, the processes of the coarse mind, they're gradually, gradually dissolving into the substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:39 So manas itself, this mental cognition that distinguishes this, that from the other thing, that's also dissolving. Dissolving. So we're rolling this all back until all of the operations of the coarse mind are rolling back into, right back beyond or prior to manas or mental cognition, right back into this coagulation of self. Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

25:59 But we continue to release around that. That devolves and goes right back into the substrate consciousness. And then as we're just cruising in, that will probably devolve right back into the substrate. And you have that phase of mindfulness, of the absence of mindfulness. But then you regroup, you catalyze and you come out of that and now you're resting in the substrate consciousness and you're ready to go. Because if you're just resting in the substrate, that's not very useful, just sitting there not knowing anything, just in a vacuity. Report an error in the passage at 25:59 Highlight the passage at 25:59

26:30 But let your awareness be reflexive and make manifest this naturally luminous mindfulness, the natural clarity and luminosity of substrate consciousness. And then you're resting in that, aware of the vacuum, but you're luminously aware of being aware of that vacuum. And so you're resting in the substrate consciousness. Well, now you've turned on your 12-cylinder Maserati. It's purring away and you're ready to get into gear. But this is one finely tuned engine. Report an error in the passage at 26:30 Highlight the passage at 26:30

26:58 You're ready to go. So there's a Maserati waiting for you. Or you can keep clunking around in your beat-up old VW. It's your choice. Report an error in the passage at 26:58 Highlight the passage at 26:58

27:12 It's now 10 past 12. Let's come back at 10 past 2. Enjoy your lunch. And be sane, stay sane. Report an error in the passage at 27:12 Highlight the passage at 27:12