← B. Alan Wallace

Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 36)

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

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  • 0:30

    As I mentioned before, first mindfulness of breathing just to keep on pushing the envelope, go deeper and deeper into a sense of ease, of relaxation, of letting go. And out of that sense of ease, then finding the mind becoming calmer, quieter and so forth, but really soft and mellow. And then from that, then venturing into settling the mind in its natural state, there's so much looseness in the mind that you're not so likely to be totally caught up and carried away by the thoughts.

  • 6:59

    It also kind of seems to be over there, and then there are all those impulses and images and so forth arising in it. Well, in this practice, we withdraw our interest, we withdraw our attention even away from thoughts and even away from the space of the mind. So if we liken the attention, which can be like a vector, like the horn on a snail, it can go out this way and all different kind of ways, but when we end in settling the mind as a natural state, Horn of the Snail is looking at the space of the mind and its contents. In this practice that horn is just retracted right into its own root and that is awareness is withdrawn from all appearances and it just stays home.

  • 8:09

    Whereas prior to, and I would say independent of, all of these vectors that awareness goes out on to attend to all kinds of things in the six sensory domains, prior to that, it's already aware. It's already aware. And so there is, in the background, there's just an ongoing flow of the awareness of being aware, that we're not just aware of other people and things and thoughts and so forth, but we're also, there is an implicit awareness of being aware.

  • 16:36

    But the method is quite similar to the terminus or the end point. And that is we're not going out to anything at all, not to Buddha images or sticks, stones or flowers. We're not going out to thoughts and images. We're not going out to the space of the mind. We're just staying home. And then just releasing, releasing, releasing and just staying there, doing a bit of exercise to release into non-objectivity and then come into the sheer experience of awareness and then releasing into non-objectivity.

  • 19:08

    So this is very much a matter of discovering shamatha, allowing it to rise up to meet you as you just rest there in utter simplicity, just holding your own ground and being aware of being aware. So as an exercise, rather like, frankly,

0:21 In terms of the methods we've covered thus far, many people have found that doing these kind of a combination can be very helpful. As I mentioned before, first mindfulness of breathing just to keep on pushing the envelope, go deeper and deeper into a sense of ease, of relaxation, of letting go. And out of that sense of ease, then finding the mind becoming calmer, quieter and so forth, but really soft and mellow. Report an error

0:46 And then from that, then venturing into settling the mind in its natural state, there's so much looseness in the mind that you're not so likely to be totally caught up and carried away by the thoughts. It's almost like your mind becomes teflon and the thoughts come but they can't quite get a grip on you. If that combination is helpful for those two, then all the more can the mindfulness of breathing, especially in the supine position, the so-called infirmary, can that be really helpful as a preparation to the practice we're going to today. Report an error

1:14 Which is variously called awareness of awareness or shamatha without a sign. And my comments yesterday were not meant to daunt you. It is in fact very, very simple, the practice. But what I'd like to do for this first session would just be to go right back to mindfulness of breathing, but with a big emphasis on just getting as loose, as relaxed, as calm, as soft as you can. Report an error

1:37 And then we'll forge ahead into this new practice, which is the simplest. Of all shamatha methods. And also regarded by the Buddha himself as the most profound of all shamatha methods. So there we are. Simplicity and profundity. I like that combination. So please find a comfortable position. You're welcome to sit if you like. But the subayana is very good. We're just going into a really deep state of relaxation. So the first session will be silent. Report an error

2:00 The second session I'll give some guidance. Report an error

· · ·

3:01 Bodhadasu, Duchum Lingba, a 19th century Dzogchen master that I've mentioned a few times now. He calls the practice we've done for the last two days, we've called it settling the mind in its natural state, he calls it taking the mind as the path. Taking the mind as the path. So that's your vehicle. That's what you're engaging with is your mind, all the activities of the mind. And when we speak of a path here, the path is from your initial state of consciousness, just how your mind is, what you're aware of the mind at first glance. Report an error

3:38 And from there, and then the destination, the terminus of this path, is the substrate consciousness, which is not enlightenment, it's just one stage of the journey, but where your mind is dissolved into the substrate consciousness, as we've noted before, and all appearances dissolve into the substrate. Report an error

3:56 But your vehicle for getting there is not a Buddha image or anything else, it's just your mind itself, and that's carrying you right on through, right down to its own source, to its own ground. At which point you realize it's essential in nature. So if we give an analogy, that path could be likened to, let's see, being on the roof of a ten-story building, very unusual building, and it has a spiral laundry chute, a glass laundry chute, that just spirals around from one floor to the next, to the next, down, down, down, until it just drops you out in the basement, which is completely closed off, just no windows or anything like that. Report an error

4:39 And so you slip into that laundry chute with your eyes wide open. And then as you're spiraling around and around from one floor to the next, you see everything is taking place from the surface levels, the deeper levels, the deeper levels, deeper levels, until it drops you down, shoots you out, spit you out basically in the ground where there are no more appearances. Report an error

4:59 There were appearances all the way along. And what you're doing there is you're getting a kind of a direct glimpse or a tour. of the levels of your conscious mind, but then penetrating to layers and layers of consciousness, mental process and so forth, that were previously in the subconscious, which is to say you simply weren't aware of them, until finally you're dropped down in the basement, which is sub-subconscious. Report an error

5:23 Because as I understand the subconscious, as Freud used it and so forth, it's a very active domain, where there are a lot of subconscious impulses taking place, of which we are unaware. Well, the substrate consciousness... It's more fundamental than that. The substrate consciousness is not a teeming broth of a lot of subconscious activities. It's prior to those. It is real still. Report an error

5:43 It is stillness. It's luminosity. It's clear. And the subconscious emerges from that and then one can say in Western terminology the conscious mind emerges from that. So there's one approach and for people who are interested in the nature of the mind, in particular interested in the nature of one's own mind, that's a real Report an error

6:03 Grand rounds through the ward of your own mind until you drop down in the basement. This practice we ventured into today, it's also very much taught in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions. It's actually taught by the Buddha himself as well, I mentioned. He referred to this as the most profound of all shamatha methods and it gets that reference elsewhere in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions as well. Report an error

6:30 But as you can see, The method is really quite different, and that is to recall the object of mindfulness in settling the mind in this natural state, the space of the mind. You're attending to something, just like I can attend to the space between you and me. I've got something to look at. It seems to be over there, whereas I seem to be over here. Report an error

6:51 And then there are visual appearances arising in the space, and they tend to be over there, and I'm over here. Likewise, when we're attending to the space of the mind, it... It also kind of seems to be over there, and then there are all those impulses and images and so forth arising in it. Well, in this practice, we withdraw our interest, we withdraw our attention even away from thoughts and even away from the space of the mind. Report an error

7:16 So if we liken the attention, which can be like a vector, like the horn on a snail, it can go out this way and all different kind of ways, but when we end in settling the mind as a natural state, Horn of the Snail is looking at the space of the mind and its contents. In this practice that horn is just retracted right into its own root and that is awareness is withdrawn from all appearances and it just stays home. Report an error

7:40 It just stays home. It doesn't blot out, it doesn't go blank, but it goes into a way of knowing, a mode of knowing that was actually there all along. Report an error

7:50 It was there all along. It's often, well it's in the background usually. Because generally speaking, we're so intent on being aware of something else. The physical environment, people, activities, threats, things that could bring us happiness, maybe even aware of our thoughts and emotions, but it's always looking at something. Report an error

8:09 Whereas prior to, and I would say independent of, all of these vectors that awareness goes out on to attend to all kinds of things in the six sensory domains, prior to that, it's already aware. It's already aware. And so there is, in the background, there's just an ongoing flow of the awareness of being aware, that we're not just aware of other people and things and thoughts and so forth, but we're also, there is an implicit awareness of being aware. Report an error

8:39 And I would suggest, I think it's a strong proposal, I think it's a true one, that this awareness of being aware is our most incontrovertible, most indubitable or free of doubt. Type of knowing that we have. Right now it is possible in principle that all of us or one of us here could be dreaming. Actually only one of us. It's possible. It's very vivid of course but some dreams are extremely vivid. Report an error

9:13 Just as vivid as the waking state. So it's possible that there's only one person in this room but by the way there's no room. There's just one person lying in bed and imagining having a dream about what today's teachings would be like but it's actually 4 o 'clock in the morning. And you're sound asleep and I'm not here either because it's just your dream. Or it's my dream and I'm kind of doing a dress rehearsal of what I'll teach when I wake up. Report an error

9:40 It's possible. It's possible. Now in fact there are some very, very good, very compelling tests that one can conduct. Stephen LaBerge and his colleagues in lucid dreaming have come up with them to determine not with 100 % certainty but with a very high degree of certainty whether or not you are dreaming. Report an error

10:00 But even then it's not 100 % certainty. It's quite certain. But there it is. I think we'd accept in principle it's possible and in all likelihood we think it's not the case right now that we're not asleep, our bodies are not someplace else lying down horizontally in bed, but in fact this is what's happening. Report an error

10:18 But there could be a little element of doubt there. Well, it could be. It could be. Whereas when it comes to just the Reality of being aware. Is there any way that we could have been deceived right now? That in fact you're not aware at all. You are stone cold, drop dead, unconscious, as unconscious as this case. You just have no awareness whatsoever. Report an error

10:47 You are dead as a doornail. You're a rock. Is there any way that that could be true? And I don't think so. I don't think so. Number one, okay, show me some evidence. But as soon as you get the evidence, you know you're aware. Or give me some reasonings that I'm not aware. As soon as I'm aware of the reasonings, then again. So it really does seem to be incontrovertible. Report an error

11:09 And notice, and I have been careful with my words, I'm not saying I think therefore I am, or even another slender interpretation of Descartes' famous maxim, I cognize therefore I am. That's another possible translation of his famous kokito, ergo sum. Report an error

11:28 Because after all, if you really meant I think therefore I am, if that was supposed to be the place that we start that cannot be doubted, well I just find all kinds of ways to doubt that. And in fact there's a joke that brings that to mind. Some of you have heard it. Descartes goes into the bar and he gets a glass of wine and then finishes off the glass and the barkeep comes over to him and says, Monsieur Descartes, would you like another glass of wine? Report an error

11:57 And he says, I think not. And he disappeared. Report an error

12:06 It's cute. Report an error

12:11 So, if we are to begin with a point of incontrovertibility, which he was very intent on doing, because he was a mathematician and he wanted to develop a philosophy that would be based, fundamentally, its root axiom be based on something that simply could not be doubted. And then, as a very logical mind, a very rational mind, a mathematically trained mind, if he built airtight... Report an error

12:35 Syllogisms or reasonings, proofs on top of that. Then he felt he could come up with an incontrovertible worldview that every step would be incontrovertible, but it has to start rock solid. Well, that one's not. Not if we think, I think, therefore I am. It's got pronoun in there. And what exactly is the referent of the pronoun? If you don't know that, then what is this I think business? Report an error

12:57 And now I think a number of you, maybe all of you by now, have recognized that thoughts can occur without you thinking them. They just happen. In which case then what happened to Descartes? Vanished. And so that's a rather cluttered statement. If we trim it back, and then we'll let go of Descartes, I cognize, therefore I am. Report an error

13:17 And that could be what he was getting at. Then that's getting very close. But again, there's two things going on. I, as an agent, and I'm doing something, I'm cognizing, and therefore I am. Why does that really follow? Why not just say cognition happens? And the I, the personal... The pronoun is just fluff, just a manner of speaking. And where is there really any evidence that there's something over here that's doing that over there, and that over there, the activity is cognizing, and I over here am doing it. Report an error

13:47 Well, why couldn't I take a break once in a while and not cognize? Am I still, if I'm not cognizing? So it's very messy. Whereas, and this by the way is not a famous Buddhist maxim or principle, Awareness is incondrovertible, but I do think it's quite defensible. But we're going to leave out the personal pronouns and just stick with the verb. Report an error

14:10 Awareness happens. Or awareing, full stop. Awareing is incondrovertible. Being conscious is incondrovertible. What are you going to do with that? How are you going to refute that? So I'm not trying to just make a philosophical point here. I am coming to something that may be actually quite significant. Report an error

14:27 And this is a very primal, incondrovertible, Knowing of just the knowing of being aware and we didn't just discover it. It's been going on all along. But now we're just settling there and seeing if we can remain there without complicating it, without embellishing it, without configuring it into all the other types of cognition that we experience. Report an error

14:50 So in this method then, there's a great similarity between the method and the so-called goal. Not so much of a goal, but the terminus, the end point. Where does this practice culminate? Report an error

15:04 And that is, if we contrast this with focusing on a Buddha image, well at the beginning it's a very blurry Buddha image, but you gradually stabilize it, and having stabilized it, you gradually bring greater and greater clarity to it, until eventually you achieve shamatha on it, then it's radiantly clear, and then once you've achieved shamatha on it, then you just release it. Report an error

15:25 Then you release it, and then you just rest in that empty cinema. And all you're aware is the substrate. And then you may invert your awareness in upon the substrate consciousness. That's a possibility. In settling the mind in its natural state, what are you attending to? You're attending to the space of the mind and its contents, but gradually the contents are subsiding until eventually, as all of your senses implode, all of the activities of the mind subside and vanish, what you're left with is the substrate. Report an error

15:55 And then it might dawn on you to invert your awareness and come in on the substrate consciousness. After having that little bit of lack, lapse of absence of mindfulness. then in verging your awareness, then you discover naturally luminous mindfulness that is simply a quality of your substrate consciousness itself prior to and more primitive The method here that we're following, you see it is really simple. Report an error

16:24 We'll have a few nuances to this which you may adopt, you may not. It doesn't have to be as detailed as we'll get into over the course of this day. It can be extremely simple and just keep it there. But the method is quite similar to the terminus or the end point. And that is we're not going out to anything at all, not to Buddha images or sticks, stones or flowers. Report an error

16:47 We're not going out to thoughts and images. We're not going out to the space of the mind. We're just staying home. And then just releasing, releasing, releasing and just staying there, doing a bit of exercise to release into non-objectivity and then come into the sheer experience of awareness and then releasing into non-objectivity. Report an error

17:08 It gives us a bit of a swing, a bit of undulation, which as Padmasambhava says, we'll read it shortly, can act as a natural antidote to both laxity and excitation. It would be very, very skillful means. But the point here, once again, is simply that We're resting right there in the nature of consciousness itself, which is our best facsimile of the end point of shamatha practice, and that is coming to the substrate consciousness. Report an error

17:34 So if we went back to the analogy of that laundry chute, that glass, transparent laundry chute that circles around through all the nine stories and then plunks you down in shamatha land in the basement, this practice, in contrast, would be much more like being up there in the top story, in the tenth story. Report an error

17:52 And entering an elevator with no windows and no lights, but you just hit G for ground or B for basement and then the doors close and then the doors open. But actually what you experience up at the surface is a lot like what you're experiencing down at the base, except the doors are open and now you're in a, maybe it's a very, very large building and there's a vastness to this vacuity. Report an error

18:18 You're not locked into a little elevator, but still there's a total absence of But you've come to the ground, the relative ground of your mind. And so the initial point, the path and the fruition are all very similar. Very similar. And it's really the path. Now this is the most discovery oriented. The most discovery oriented of all the dozens of shamatha methods you find in Buddhism. Report an error

18:45 And that is, it's really not a matter so much of developing stability or developing clarity of attention. But rather releasing everything that veils the natural luminosity of your awareness and veils the natural stillness, veils it by pulling it away with this thought, that thought and all the distractions and agitations of the mind. Report an error

19:08 So this is very much a matter of discovering shamatha, allowing it to rise up to meet you as you just rest there in utter simplicity, just holding your own ground and being aware of being aware. So as an exercise, rather like, frankly, Like a marathon runner. You have a long run. But before setting out on the course, the runners, as I understand it, they'll spend, what, five, ten minutes, whatever they need, to stretch, to really limber up. Report an error

19:37 So they're stretching this way, stretching that way, their legs, their thighs and so forth and so on. When they feel really limber and so forth, then they set out. And so we'll see some... These are warming up exercises, frankly. This is straight from Patma Sambhava. I'm pointing to the text that we'll look to slowly, slowly. But they're really more like warming up exercises. Report an error

20:00 Because when you get into the long haul, when you're really then just going for it, you scale back and it becomes really, really simple. Tsongkhapa, for all of his massive erudition and incredibly brilliant mind, when he refers to this practice, which he does, he sums it up in one phrase. Not a whole page of teaching, but just one phrase. He says, rest in the natural luminosity and the natural, not in the natural, in the sheer luminosity and the sheer cognizance of awareness. Report an error

20:29 Just rest there. In the sheer luminosity and the sheer cognizance of awareness. When he says sheer, or in Tibetan, tzam, but sheer or just, just the luminosity, just the cognizance. What he's getting at here, very directly, is don't clutter it up. Don't imagine anything. Don't conjure up anything. Don't think about anything. Just immerse yourself in that conceptually unmediated experience of consciousness and don't do anything else. Report an error

21:00 Just be aware and be aware of being aware and don't complicate it. That's all I have to say. And that's it. Here's a man who wrote 18 volumes. He had a lot to say about a lot of things. But when it came to this practice, which if he wanted to elaborate, he certainly could have. But he didn't. He kept it one phrase, rest in the sheer luminosity and the sheer cognitive sense of awareness. Stop. Report an error

21:29 So multiple teachers and multiple traditions refer to this practice or the culmination of Shammat in general, and then especially, most explicitly, this practice, as a way to ascertain the essential nature of consciousness. Report an error

21:42 Essential nature is not something mysterious or mystical or anything like that. It's just, what is it, bare bones, when you strip off all the... The ornamentals, all the embellishments, all the things that are not essential. Like your conscious, do you have a woman's consciousness or a man's consciousness? Okay, it's man or woman's, that's fine, but there's something more basic than the gender influences on your consciousness. Report an error

22:05 Are you an old person or a young person? Okay, well I'm old, but it will strip away the old part. And so now what's the common denominator? Conceptual mind, non-conceptual mind, right? Sensory perception and then mental perception. What's the common denominator among all modes of consciousness that makes them conscious? Conscious of this, that and the other thing. But what is it that makes them conscious? Report an error

22:29 And that is its essential nature. And so we're referring now to the defining characteristics of consciousness. What is it that sets consciousness apart within the whole world of nature? What is it that sets consciousness apart from all of the other phenomena that are not consciousness? Report an error

22:48 Like an iPhone is not consciousness. Well, it doesn't have the senior characteristics or the defining characteristics. So I've been kind of studying and dialoguing and speaking and listening in conferences and reading and writing and translating on the theme of consciousness for quite a few years now. Report an error

23:05 And I've encountered, among generally very bright people, very ingenious people, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, contemplatives, a wide variety of definitions of consciousness. Report an error

23:17 But especially when they come from psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers, I find they're actually not very useful as guides for identifying consciousness. And that is, I'm sure there can be different usages of definitions, but here's one of them. And that is, if I tell you that there is something called a Tsaloma, and you don't know what it is, but this is a word, Tsaloma. Report an error

23:43 And imagine you're like, well, what is a Tsaloma? Tell me, I'm eager. To see if I can identify a Tsoloma. And I tell, okay, well, here's what a Tsoloma is. It's round. It's about this big, usually. I mean, it can be a bit smaller, a bit bigger, but it's round. And it's orangish. This color is orangish. It has a little green knob at the top. Report an error

24:05 And it has a peel, kind of leathery peel. And you peel that away. And inside, it's a very similar color. It's kind of an orangish color. And then it breaks into segments. And it's very juicy inside. Report an error

24:18 A bit tart, but all a bit sweet. And that might be enough for you to identify a Tsoloma when you see it. Probably so, right? And I could have probably stopped. I probably didn't need to give that much, but that pretty much, those were some of the really essential features of an orange, right? But now with that description, if you'd never heard, if you didn't know that I was referring to orange, you could go click, click, click. Report an error

24:43 Have you ever seen one? I think I've seen one of those. And then you listen more. Yep, yep, yep. And by a process of elimination, you know it's not a lemon because they're more yellowish and they're not sweet. And you know it's not a grapefruit. It doesn't quite fit. They're often pink. And it's not an apple and it's not a vegetable and not a rock. So plant, mineral, vegetable, all that kind of thing. Report an error

25:04 It's narrowing down and narrowing down until there's one thing, only one entity standing. And you say, I think by Jove, I think I've got it. You've identified it. But you can identify it. If they're serving oranges at lunch, you can say, I got it. That's a Tsoloma. We call it an orange. But that's a Tsoloma. Report an error

25:22 I know. I got it from the definition. That's a very useful definition that actually enables you to identify a Tsoloma when you see it, should it come into your field of experience. So my sense is that if we're going to define consciousness, it should be a similarly useful definition, not just a very elegant one. Report an error

25:41 I've heard some really elegant ones that would be totally useless. They're so caught up in abstractions and elegant thinking and formalisms and so forth and so on that nobody has right mind or wrong mind could ever use it to identify anything. It's just a very elegant way of talking about something. But if you don't know what consciousness is already, this won't enlighten you. Whereas a definition of consciousness that could help you actually hone in on it and recognize it when you witness it, that could be useful. Report an error

26:11 The Buddhist tradition, especially the one I've been trained in, the whole Indo-Tibetan current, has really settled on a definition. I've not really seen any debates about it or controversy about it. And that is, there is a consensual definition of consciousness in Buddhism. And it's really, really simple. And that is, consciousness has two defining characteristics. Report an error

26:33 Just two. And nothing else in the universe has those two characteristics. So we're saying these are defining. If you've identified that which has these two characteristics, you've identified this one natural phenomenon that we call in a wide variety of languages, but it's referring to consciousness or awareness. Report an error

26:51 Those two words can be used interchangeably. And bear in mind this is not a subcategory like self-awareness. This is generic. This is that which enables all states of consciousness to be conscious. And then there's all kind of permutations and subcategories of consciousness. So, two qualities. In Tibetan it's real easy. Sel Shing Ripa. Sel means luminous. Report an error

27:19 It's luminous. Luminous not in the sense that it's like a bright light, that if you look at it you'll have to squint, that it has a color, but it's not like that. It's not the meaning of luminous here. Luminous in the more poetic or generic sense is that consciousness by its very nature It illuminates in the sense of making manifest anything at all. It makes manifest emotions, desires, colors, sounds, tastes, logical proofs, and so forth and so on. Report an error

27:55 All appearances. What is it that allows for appearances of any kind? Appearances from radar, from sonar, from electron microscopes to particle accelerators and so forth, and telescopes and so forth. Report an error

28:11 What is it that enables any appearances, or one could use a scientific term, information? How does information ever manifest, come to be? And the Buddha's view, because one could actually equate information with appearances, one could, but we'll just stick with appearances here, that it's consciousness alone that makes appearances appear, makes phenomena manifest, makes information rise as information. Report an error

28:39 Without consciousness, if you just had a Hubble telescope continuing to orbit around the Earth, but all human beings on the planet just perished because of some solar flare or something, we all just got incinerated. But the Hubble telescope keeps on just clicking, clicking, clicking. It's not giving any information. It may be spewing out some radio transmissions or spewing out photons or what have you. Report an error

29:08 That's fine. But just spewing out photons, that's not information. Galaxies are doing that all over the universe, that's not giving information, it's just photons. Or if they're sending out radio waves, well that's fine, but radio waves are just radio waves, that's not information. So something isn't information until there's someone who's being informed. And likewise appearances arise only if there is a consciousness that illuminates, that is cognitive of the appearances. Report an error

29:32 And that immediately broaches the other salient or defining characteristic of consciousness, and that is... Consciousness alone cognizes. It actually knows. So it's by way of consciousness that appearances are made manifest, reflections in a mirror and so forth. But it's not just as we turn our consciousness to this room, for example, to this chapel. It's not just that appearances are going whoosh like that and a bunch of colors and shapes are rising. Report an error

30:02 It's not just that. There's more going on than that. There is cognition. There is a knowing that takes place. And that knowing often lends itself to reporting afterwards. When you were here, did you note anything? When you've left the room, was it red? Was it purple? What were the colors? Was it big? Was it small? Was it round? Was it rectangular? And so when you leave here, you'll not only have had a lot of impressions arising to your awareness, but there's also knowing. Report an error

30:31 And it's, of course, not only retrospective, it's right now. So those two characteristics. Consciousness is luminous and knowing. Anything that is conscious, like human beings, like animals, is conscious and knowing. And then there are deep issues about where does that consciousness emerge from? What are the necessary and sufficient causes for the emergence of consciousness in the natural world? Or what are the necessary and sufficient causes for consciousness to emerge in a human fetus? Report an error

31:03 Is the egg already conscious? Is the sperm already conscious? Is neither one conscious? Does consciousness come out of the union of the two? Is it purely an emergent property, an epiphenomenon or a function of the union of egg and sperm? Does it happen then, right there, when that little tadpole of the sperm gets in and hits the bullseye? Report an error

31:23 Is somehow consciousness arising from that chemical process, biochemical process, or what? And the answer is there is no scientific theory. There is no scientific theory. A scientific theory is a hypothesis you can actually put to the test. Otherwise it's just a hunch, an opinion, a speculation, but people have had hunches and speculations for centuries. Science, empirical science, modern science is only 400 years old and it's driven by coming up with hypotheses you can put to the test of experience, validate or repudiate and that's how science has marched along. Report an error

31:57 So if we're going to stick by our guns, that's what a scientific theory is, one that lends itself to repudiation or confirmation by careful empirical investigation. There is no scientific theory of consciousness. And so this actually is one of the, more generically, one of the great lacuna or absences of Western civilization as a whole. Report an error

32:16 Because you look at the Bible, so start with the Jewish Bible, there just aren't any references to the origin of the human soul. Hardly any reference of the soul at all, but no references at all to necessary and sufficient causes or whether animals have souls. It just doesn't talk about it. So Descartes thought animals have no souls and therefore have no consciousness at all. They're mindless robots, which is a pretty bizarre thought for a very brilliant man. Few people think that anymore, happily. Report an error

32:44 But we human beings, we are clearly conscious. But nowhere in the Jewish Bible or the Christian Bible with the Two Testaments, nowhere is there any statement by any of the prophets, by God, by Jesus or the apostles about, if you are 40 years old, where were you 50 years ago? Report an error

33:05 Where do you come from? Or just your consciousness. Where did it come from? My father is a theologian. I've asked him this a long time ago. He said, what's the Christian theory of the origins of the human soul? And he says, we don't have one. And St. Augustine acknowledged that 1,500 years ago. He said, there aren't any references. Report an error

33:23 It just doesn't come up. Not in any authoritative scripture. God's word. Jesus' word. And therefore, he said, our salvation cannot be contingent upon what we believe about the origins of. The immortal soul. And so he gave four, I think, four hypotheses. One that it emerges from the parents. One that God officially creates souls. Report an error

33:44 Another one that emerges, the soul emerges spontaneously at the time of conception. And another one is that the soul exists elsewhere and deliberately comes to this life. From someplace else. As I recall, I've quoted it in a number of books, like Mind and the Balance, it's there, I'm pretty sure. Report an error

34:04 So it's a good solid source. It's his writing. He gives these as logical possibilities and he says, you know, we should really pursue this logically and empirically because we don't have an answer to this. So I thought that was really quite marvelous. So coming back here, whether it's Judaism or Christianity or Islam, there is no clearly articulated theory of where human souls or consciousness comes from. Report an error

34:29 The whole of science just doesn't have a theory at all. And I've met the man, I've had about 11 hours of conversation in one day with him and his colleagues at Caltech in California. It was Christophe Koch. And he is really, I think, probably the leading neuroscientist in the world who is really after or trying to seek out and identify what are called the NCC, the neural correlates of consciousness. Report an error

34:53 And what this means, it refers to, I'll be brief here and we'll get back to our meditation, is the neural correlates of consciousness are the, That refers to the minimal amount of neuronal activity that is needed to generate consciousness. Obviously we can have a whole lot, but if you start having some brain damage, you know, boom, boom, boom, a mallet's coming, crushing in your head, I mean, how much is necessary to still have consciousness arise at all? Report an error

35:20 And that would be the neural correlate. And then if you have more activity, then of course you can have embellished, elaborate, very sophisticated states of consciousness. But just how much is absolutely necessary? He's been working on this for years. He has a whole laboratory named after him at California Institute of Technology. And the long and the short of it is they don't know. Report an error

35:40 They don't know. But it is based upon assumption that I think is utterly dubious. And that is that there is a minimal amount of neuronal activity that's necessary for the generation of consciousness. Exactly why do we think that? If there were consciousnesses that were not contingent upon the brain, how would the neuroscientists know about it? Report an error

36:02 Because their avenue is always by way of neuronal activity, by neural correlates. But if there aren't any neural correlates, then they don't have a leg up. They don't have any access to studying consciousness at all. And so the old-fashioned way, let alone by studying behavior, I mean, nobody thought that corpses behave. So the fact that a human body turns into a corpse no longer behaves is hardly news. Report an error

36:24 And so there's nothing to be gained from behavior, and the brain doesn't tell you all that much. And so, as has already come up here, in the Buddhist view, the way to investigate the nature of consciousness is actually attend to it as closely as you can, with as much precision, rigor, clarity and stability as you can. Report an error

36:44 So I think I'll round this up with one of my favorite, all-time favorite metaphors. And it pertains both to settling the mind into natural state and to this practice here. Report an error

36:56 And I'm referring to a case from really good science. But I think it's a strong analogy with the kind of discoveries that can be made when one is investigating the mind and investigating consciousness itself. If we take this as an example really quickly here, there's a whole book that I read, not cover to cover, but it's by a very good, it was a physicist, cosmologist, astronomer, physicist, writing of multiple dimensions of space, multiple dimensions of space. Report an error

37:23 In string theory there are 11 dimensions, or M theory, 11 dimensions. So it's gotten extremely sophisticated there. But the notion of space having multiple dimensions is not at all alien now to modern physics. They've been exploring space and the contents of space rigorously with tremendous technology for 400 years. They've really gotten somewhere. So now we're looking at the space of the mind, the alaya, the Dhammadatu, the space of the mind. Report an error

37:50 We're looking into consciousness itself. This interface of substrate and substrate consciousness. We can ask, does the mind have multiple dimensions? Does the mind have multiple dimensions? How about the space of the mind? The alaya, the space of the mind. Does that have multiple dimensions? And if it does, how would we know? Well, probably not by studying behavior and not by doing questionnaires and not likely by studying brain states. Report an error

38:15 And so, how would we know? Well, the old-fashioned way, get out a telescope and start looking closely. Telescope for the mind, that is. And so here, I'm sure some of you have heard it, but I don't think everybody's heard my favorite analogy. And this took place in the years 2003 to 2004, using the Hubble telescope, which orbits, if you haven't seen it, when I was here in Sydney, I think last year, at that big IMAX on Darling Harbour, I saw a documentary on the Hubble telescope. Report an error

38:43 It was pretty cool. It was really quite well done. Short, but very, very well done. And so I learned more things about the Hubble telescope there, that it's orbiting about 300 miles above the surface of the Earth, happily beyond all atmospheric distortion. So when that Hubble telescope is turned out to deep space, you're not getting any smog, haze, light distortion and so forth and so on. It's pretty much a naked, unmuted, there's space, welcome to deep space, because you're already kind of on the cusp of it. Report an error

39:09 You've achieved access to the first jhāna of deep space, beyond the atmospheric distortions of your psyche. And it's orbiting around there smoothly, smoothly. And so the astronomers who were in charge of it, at least during this period, for whatever reason, bless their hearts, they got really curious about a very tiny region of space that is very tiny, as in one thirteen millionth of the night sky. Report an error

39:36 Or if you held a pencil out at arm's length and pointed the eraser end right towards your eye, the amount of space that that eraser tip would displace. So a tiny, tiny fraction. Well, they'd been looking at this guy for an awful long time and they found this one little spot was really dark, really seemed to be unpopulated, like really low-rent district of the universe, like not much there, wilderness. Report an error

40:01 And so they just thought, what would we see if we directed the Hubble telescope, the best one they had back then, what would we see if we directed this telescope there for a long exposure? Just like in ordinary photography, a one million second exposure. Well, the telescope is orbiting around, so what this means is they had to focus it there and keep it there 400 times as it orbited to get a million seconds. Report an error

40:29 400 orbits, but each time it got in the right position, okay, get a lock. And then get a lock. Do that 400 times, so divide. A million seconds into 400, that's how long each exposure was. And then, using computers of course, then they collated all of that data and then they started generating images. Report an error

40:52 So what does a one million second exposure look like of this really dark spot in deep space where there seems to be virtually nothing? Well, they crunched all the numbers, they generated the images. And what they discovered was something of a jaw-dropper, I think even for them, that in that little remote tiny dark spot where there seemed to be almost nothing, they discovered 10,000 galaxies. Report an error

41:19 That's in the least populated area. And a galaxy will have anywhere between 100 billion and a trillion stars. And there were 10,000 of them. So I think that's rather cool. I mean, I just love, that expands my mind. Report an error

41:35 10,000 galaxies. Some of these galaxies were like 12 billion light years away. They were so far away that from a whole galaxy that could have a trillion stars, one photon a second from a trillion stars is hitting the bullseye, hitting that Hubble telescope, which is about the size of a school bus. One a second from a whole galaxy. I just kind of think that's cool. And they were able, and in so doing, they were able to observe galaxies, the universe being 13.7 billion years old. Report an error

42:05 They are able to observe galaxies in their embryonic state, in the very early hundreds of millions of years of the universe, to see them in the very early phases of formation. So they're literally looking back in time. They're getting an eyewitness view right now of something that was taking place 12 billion years ago. Report an error

42:25 But of course, in so doing, they're also looking across the universe 12 billion light years away. So it's looking out into space-time simultaneously. Report an error

42:35 And so I just, when I narrate that, I always feel like just doing a song, a jig, celebrating the glories of modern technology and just how far the human ingenuity, curiosity, scientific and technological has brought us in just 400 years because Galileo started that. And tell him they were all looking with the naked eye. It was folk psychology with some pretty good math that enabled them to predict lunar and solar eclipses. But it was only Galileo in 1609. Report an error

43:04 That published his first work, The Story Messenger, reporting on what he discovered with an 8 power then a 20 power telescope. And two years later he discovered the phases of Venus. And I think he eventually got up to a 30 power telescope. Which nowadays you can buy for $50 or so. 30 power telescope. Easy. Report an error

43:25 That's where it started. 400 years later we're doing this. And now of course they have generations of telescopes beyond what the Hubble could deliver. So this shows some of just the monumental, the vastness, the expansiveness, the depth, the awesomeness of the discoveries the human mind is capable of when we apply all of our ingenuity. Report an error

43:44 And then of course there were two factors to that Hubble telescope. And that is in those 400 orbits, stability, that it didn't wander all over the place, and clarity. Report an error

43:59 I'm sure I've heard those two terms someplace before. I'll think of it, I'm sure. Any moment now it's going to come to me. Report an error

44:06 This raises a question though, what if you were to conduct a one million second exposure on the deep space of your own mind with a Hubble telescope that wouldn't be caught in the atmospheric distortions, the smog, the noise and so forth of your psyche, but could propel your awareness beyond the orbit, on beyond all of the distortions, the junk, the javanas, the activities of your psyche, penetrate beyond that and then hover there. Report an error

44:35 And then look into deep space of your own mind from that perspective, and you did it for a million seconds. What might you see? Report an error

44:45 Well, happily, it's actually been done. It actually has been done many times, not just a million seconds, but 5,000 hours, 10,000 hours. People who are willing to sacrifice everything, yogis, sadhus, pundits, siddhas, accomplished meditation masters have been doing this just in Buddhism for 2,500 years, before that in the Hindu tradition. Report an error

45:06 Going back about 5,000 years. But there are people who will go into the laboratories and the laboratories are caves up in the Himalayas or some quiet place out in the jungle in northern India, what have you. And so discoveries have been made and have been replicated, replicated and replicated, discovering that there are indeed multiple dimensions of consciousness and multiple dimensions of the space of the mind. Report an error

45:28 What we're familiar with is just the same old, same old, the desire realm with a coarse consciousness aware of it. But then dimensions and dimensions beyond that. What's never happened though, and I say this with really something of a thrill, as I hope is obvious that I have tremendous respect, not reverence quite, but definitely a lot of respect for science and technology and the tremendous discoveries made through that. Report an error

45:51 Enormous amount of respect. And I collaborate still, ongoing, right now, in research projects with scientists there. And I have respect and even beyond that reverence Report an error

46:04 This contemplative tradition of Buddhism, the many discoveries made that have been replicated, that are, to my mind, clear knowledge, gained in very sophisticated ways. So those two have been going on, both of them, in Buddhism, if we compare modern civilization, western civilization, not modern, and Buddhism, they actually have been going on for almost exactly the same amount of time. Report an error

46:26 That is, if by west we mean going back to the early Greeks, well, we trace... Mathematics and modern philosophy back to Pythagoras. He was a contemporary of the Buddha. Oh, by the way, it was said that he could remember 20 of his past lifetimes because he developed a samādhi of the mind which he might have picked up in Egypt where there were already Indian swamis already in Egypt at the time of Pythagoras. Report an error

46:51 But legend has it, number one, it's clearly known that he believed in reincarnation. Legend has it, it wasn't just a belief that he actually saw directly. 20 of his past lifetimes. And he created something of a contemplative community in the south of Italy, not just to have people philosophize, but actually train them in music, mathematics and contemplative inquiry. Report an error

47:10 So they too could make these discoveries. So quite interestingly, the Buddha who is a contemporary Pythagoras, they're starting out with some degree of common ground. But then of course their trajectories are very different. So they've been going on each having its own flowering, its own strength and its own limitations. Each has its own limitations to be sure. Report an error

47:26 But now here in the 21st century, it does seem like there's at least a really ripe possibility that these two tremendous traditions with such antiquity behind them and such horsepower, such incredible brilliance, if we're looking at the Western scientific philosophical tradition, with a lot of influence from its spiritual tradition, just so many brilliant minds and then accumulated knowledge and this crescendo of scientific knowledge over the last 400 years, but so emphasized on the outer. Report an error

47:55 And it hasn't even begun to develop sophisticated means of introspection. Not really. Not even remotely like what we find in Hinduism, Buddhism and so forth. Not even begun. But, to have some parity here, the Buddhist tradition hasn't even begun to develop sophisticated mathematics or technology, hasn't gotten to Galileo, hasn't gotten to an eight-powered telescope. Report an error

48:19 Now there's an interesting story there. I know I'm rambling, but I like to ramble. When the Dalai Lama was a kid, A young boy, maybe 12 years old, something like that, living in that great big cold fortress of the Potala, the winter palace, which you've all seen Pototo. I've been there, it's cold. And he was the only kid. Everybody else was an adult. He placed something like 400 rooms. But he inherited from his predecessor. Report an error

48:46 It's a very cool form of inheritance. You not only get inherited from your parents, you get inherited from your previous incarnation. That's a double whammy. It's very cool. He inherited from the 13th Dalai Lama a number of things, but one of them was a telescope that some, probably an Englishman, gave the 13th Dalai Lama, who probably had not much use for it, stored it away, cool little trinket. Report an error

49:08 And then the 14th Dalai Lama, the current one, he's, from childhood on, he's been very intrigued by engineering, science, technology, reading books, had a lot of tutoring from Heinrich Hara, seven years in Tibet and all of that. Well, the young Dalai Lama, He saw this telescope and he said, let me at him. So he propped it up, put it on a good stable tripod or platform on the roof of the Potala and then polished its lenses so he got his stability and clarity with a telescope that was given to him. Report an error

49:36 And then he directed it, among other things, this kid. He directed it to the moon. To the moon. I mean, it's an obvious target. And according to some texts, some scholastic texts in Indian Buddhism, It stated that the moon, like the sun, gives forth its own natural luminosity. The sun is by nature luminous and golden, and that's the masculine energy. Report an error

50:04 And the moon is by nature luminous and white, and that's the feminine energy. Or is it vice versa? Actually, it's vice versa. But the moon is naturally luminous. It's an orb up there, and it's just radiating out this white light. Which makes an awful lot of sense. And so the Dalai Lama got his telescope there and he's looking at the moon. The first thing off he sees craters. Report an error

50:29 There's no references of craters in the scholastic Indian Buddhist literature. But then he noticed something all the more interesting. Because he, like this Hubble telescope, he didn't just take a little snapshot and say, ooh, craters, and then go off and play some games. He, this young kid, looking at the telescope, he was gazing and gazing and gazing and he saw that those craters cast shadows. Report an error

50:52 And he's already been introduced to these classic texts saying the moon is naturally luminous, which means no shadows. Yes, shadows. Empirical evidence is refuting a classic Buddhist text by one of the great pundits of India. So he goes to his tutor and he tells the tutor, you know, the classic text said the moon is naturally luminous. Report an error

51:14 I've seen shadows. I've seen shadows. I've seen it with my own eyes. The old texts have to be wrong. And his tutor said, cool. Report an error

51:28 I mean, what are we going to do now? Do you want to settle? Do you want to go there? Do you like shade? So there really wasn't much to do with it, but I thought the answer was interesting. Number one, he is a Dalai Lama, so he's not going to be probably burned at the stake anyway. But there was no reference to, oh, you're freaking us out. How could our ancient text be wrong? Report an error

51:47 Oh, you've got some empirical evidence that refutes an old text? Oh, the old text is wrong then. I mean, that's really unequivocal evidence. Good. It's not naturally luminous. So there has to be another theory that's... That's a better one than we have. So he met with complete receptivity from a very utterly traditional old Tibetan Lama saying, ah, got empirical evidence? Report an error

52:06 Refuse our view? Okay, cool, whatever. So he's been singing that song ever since for the last 70 years. He's saying to the world, show us any empirical evidence that refutes any of our assertions in all of Buddhism. And if you show compelling evidence, we're going to check out our assertion. If you can show it's wrong, we want truth, not just protecting our doctrine. So that was a long ramble. Let's just read briefly. Report an error

52:32 Now, not much. Take a break pretty soon. Just the beginning of Padmasambhava's one page. This is from a text attributed to Padmasambhava, discovered in about the 14th century. I won't give the whole story behind that. Not now, unless you're really interested later. But we're going to page 12 from a text that I've translated. Report an error

52:53 You don't have copies of that one out there. It's called Natural Liberation. Natural Liberation. And Gacharamuchi, my revered Dzogchen Lama, he taught me this whole text. I translated it together with his commentary. It's a lovely, very illuminating commentary. And in it, as I mentioned before, there's a fairly detailed account of preliminary practices for purifying the mind, preparing yourself, developing merit. Report an error

53:17 Then it goes directly to shamatha. And I mentioned this previously, he'll say, focus on a stick, a stone, a flower and then gradually goes to satra and satra objects until he comes to the culmination of his presentation on shamatha and the culminating method, just before going into vipassanā or insight meditation, is shamatha without a sign. Report an error

53:39 And a sign, the term sign here in nimitta simply means a target or a vector, something to direct to. What shall it be, a Buddha image, a thought, a flower, a stick, what? What? What? And so there's your vector. And whatever your target is, you go boing and you got it. That's your sign. Well, there's no sign here. You withdraw that little antenna, the antenna, what? Report an error

54:01 You just withdraw it right into itself so there's no vector, but you still maintain the flow of knowing. So this is shamara without a sign, also known as awareness of awareness. Report an error

54:14 So let's just read just the first paragraph, because that's what we've done already. While steadily gazing into the space in front of you, without meditating on anything, steadily concentrate your consciousness, without wavering, in the space in front of you. Report an error

54:32 That's what we did. Just place your awareness there, but you're not, you're placing awareness in space, but you're not attending to space as an object. Saying, oh, how interesting, what's the nature of space? No, you're just leaving it there, but then leaving it there without meditating on anything. Focusing on anything, and yet you're concentrating your consciousness, and then concentration means, again, not necessarily a target, but it means that your consciousness is composed. Report an error

54:58 You're not wandering, you're not scattered, you're not dispersed. It's composed, resting in space, but then not directing to anything. So just, and without wavering, without falling into distraction, and you're just doing this in the space in front of you. In other words, clearly the eyes should be open. Report an error

55:18 And then he suggests this theme that recurs a lot in the Dzogchen tradition of in meditation setting up something of an oscillation, an oscillation, increase the stability and then relax again. And so that's what I got to in that last session. And that is kind of a coalescence, a gathering in, a convergence, an inversion. Report an error

55:43 Of awareness, withdrawing, and it's not just in this way, it's withdrawing your awareness from all appearances, from all sixth sense fields. Just in that loss of interest, as if you're falling asleep. Your awareness is withdrawn from all appearances of all kinds, right into its own nucleus, into just the sheer, raw, unmediated, unelaborated experience of being conscious. Report an error

56:07 And you almost fiercely, I mean with real concentration, right in upon itself. And then you release. He makes no reference to conjoining this with the breath, and you won't find it elsewhere either. He just, it says, converge your awareness, concentrate it, stabilize it, and then release. And release just into space, but again, not looking at space, just releasing it into openness with no target, with no object. But that sense of utter abandon, of letting go, of surrender, of just whoosh. Report an error

56:43 And yet in a very slender way, still sustaining that flow of knowing, the knowing of knowing, the awareness of awareness. So he's suggesting an oscillation here. Increase the stability, then relax again. And then as you're doing this, occasionally pose a question. What is that consciousness that is concentrating? Report an error

57:03 In other words, you're looking for the referent of the word consciousness that is being concentrated and then is being released, that is being inverted. And then it's being loosened. So what is it? Steadily concentrate again, and then check it out again. Do that in an alternating fashion. In other words, don't press so hard that you get exhausted. But it's not just sitting there, kind of an open presence or choiceless awareness, or just resting with no object. Report an error

57:34 But in fact, there is a very subtle element of inquiry here, which once again, like the preceding practice from the last two days, is right on the cusp between Samatha and Vipassanā. Because as soon as you start posing questions, then you're into the pashana territory, of inquiry. When you're just developing stability and vividness, then that's shamatha territory. Report an error

57:55 Well, here you're right on the cusp. But when he says, occasionally seek out, he's not saying, here's a philosophical question, what's the nature of consciousness, and then start thinking about it. That will just take you away from it. It will just get you caught up in one conceptual construct after another. Report an error

58:11 Which might give rise to some paper you can publish in a philosophical journal. But it's not going to shed light on the nature of consciousness. Any more than if you really want to know what an orange tastes like. It won't come about by thinking a lot about oranges. By just splitting it open, putting a sector into your mouth and biting down. And then you know that's the nature of orange. Report an error

58:32 But not by thinking about it. And likewise Galileo, he saw the conundrum. He refuted Ptolemy. 1400 years, whatever it was, 1400 years of a mistake of thinking the Earth is in the center and everything, the sun and planets all go around the Earth. One observation did it. Phases of Venus. That did it. Ptolemy's dead. Dead as a doornail. Wrong. And that cinched it. Report an error

58:56 From then on, there was no intelligent debate about still trying to defend Ptolemy. And so, here it is. Just radical empiricism posed the question, but then instead of thinking about it, And thinking about neural correlates and behavioral expressions and categories of consciousness and so forth and so on, pose the question and then look. Report an error

59:18 But look with stability and vividness. And then relax up, ease up a bit, do that in an alternating fashion. And then he sums up the benefits of this extremely simple method. And he says, even if there are problems of laxity and lethargy, that will dispel them. So this very process of inverting, arousing, focusing with a question and then loosening up, that will overcome laxity and lethargy. And then, in between sessions, in all your activities rely upon unwavering mindfulness. Report an error

59:52 In other words, don't go retrograde. Don't fall into the old habits of rumination, OCDD. Try to maintain a mindful presence during all activities. In between sessions, so that when you go back to your next session, it's smooth transition and not trying to then spend minutes and minutes and minutes uncluttering the mind, extricating yourself from the ruts of rumination that you indulged in in between sessions. Report an error

1:00:19 So try to make this as much as possible one continuous practice. In between sessions, you do let your awareness out, attend to the objects in the world, brush your teeth, eat and so forth and so on. But try to do so with unwavering mindfulness. So when you come back to the cushion, you withdraw your awareness from all appearances and go into consciousness itself. You can do that with as little complexity as possible. Report an error

1:00:44 Just boom, go right into it. And he says do that for one day. So we don't have quite long enough retreat to stop there and just do that for one day. Because you're going to see in the next paragraph it says do that for one day and so forth. Report an error

1:01:01 But there it is. There's a very simple practice to really immediately explore the nature of consciousness itself. And I'll end on this note and then we'll take our break. Report an error

1:01:13 That I mentioned in the settling the mind in its natural state, we're seeking in terms of our way of viewing the mind, the contents of the mind, space of the mind. We're seeking to approximate to the best of our ability the perspective of looking at the mind from the perspective of substrate consciousness. Report an error

1:01:31 In other words, not looking at the mind from a perspective of mind. The mind is conceptual, so we're looking at the mind with a conceptual mind, which is frankly what Descartes did. He was very big on introspection. William James was very big on introspection. He was very good at it. But by and large, since he had no training and attention and didn't know how the trenching could be trained, Then this is, once again, just not a strength of Western civilization at all, as indicated by two great proponents of introspection, Descartes and William James. And when they're attending to the mind, and this was done from 1880 to 1910, there was a whole introspectionist movement in relatively modern psychology, but it's pretty much mind attending to mind within the network of conceptualization and so forth. Report an error

1:02:13 So it's coarse mind looking at coarse mind. In settling the mind in its natural state, We're seeking to release the mind and the perspective of this conceptual dualistic mind and view the mind from this very simple, clear, luminous, knowing perspective of the substrate consciousness and just stay there and then let the mind dissolve and dissolve right into the substrate consciousness. Report an error

1:02:38 But it's trying to look at the mind from a very simple but knowing perspective that's not conceptual and not verbal. In this practice, Report an error

1:02:48 We're not attending to the mind. As in, there's kind of a convergence here. Let's just do a really brief run through from ordinary daily life, ordinary daily mind to mindfulness of breathing. What have we done? And just doing that, sitting on the cushion, mindfulness of breathing, let's say full body awareness. Well, it's a process of elimination. And that is suddenly we're no longer interested in the visual, the auditory, olfactory, gustatory or anything in the physical environment outside the body. Report an error

1:03:15 Just... Have a nice day, but I'm not interested for now. Right now, there are parameters of the domain of my interest, and I'm interested only in what takes place inside my skin or on the surface of the skin. But that's it. The sensations of the breath are internal, and you'll feel it on the skin as well, as right here at the apertures of the nostrils. Report an error

1:03:37 So it's not attending to an awful lot, but it is attending to the body. And these flows, the rhythm of the breath within the body. And with introspection, we're also interested in what's going on in the mind. Laxity, excitation and so forth. But that's it. We've narrowed it. We've selected. Body-mind system. That's all I'm looking at. Anything outside is a distraction. And the sooner it disappears, the happier I'll be. Report an error

1:04:00 As the whole thing, you know, the system collapses into itself. Then we go to settling the mind in this natural state. At this point, we're equally uninterested in the surrounding environment. Colors, sounds and so forth. But we're also uninterested in a whole range of somatic experiences, including those correlated with emotions, desires and so forth. Report an error

1:04:19 They have their place, they're significant. Not right now. We're not attending to it. Right now we're only attending to one out of six domains of experience, which means we're selecting out five out of six and selecting in only one. That's the space of the mind and whatever purely mental events take place. Now in this practice, Report an error

1:04:40 It's an ongoing process of elimination. We're still equally uninterested in the surrounding environment. We're uninterested in the whole field of somatic experiences, the whole domain of the body, uninterested, not looking. But now we're also equally uninterested in the whole domain of the mind, the space of the mind and all the activities of the mind. We're not interested in that either. And so now we've just come right back into the nucleus with no interest in anything else, just resting right there, just in awareness. Report an error

1:05:08 And we're seeking to be, and now here's what we're trying to approximate, to sustain in utter simplicity the awareness of being aware from the perspective of substrate consciousness. That's what we're seeking to do. Conceptually unelaborated, simple, luminous, clear, non-conceptual, immediate knowing. Report an error

1:05:29 So we're trying to approximate the culmination of the practice from the very beginning of just awareness, not even of the mind and the space of the mind. Just awareness of awareness. It doesn't get much simpler than that. So after the break, we'll do one more session. And I think I don't want to read any more of the text this morning, but then have time for some feedback. Report an error

1:05:53 Because we've just jumped into the deep end of the pool, you may have noticed. And so if there are questions, qualms, profound revelations, I'd like to know about them. Let's take a break. It's now just 11 o 'clock, so let's come back at 11.15. Report an error

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  3. Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 40)

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  4. Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 35)

    B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 1 h 16 min

  5. Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 32)

    B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 27 min

  6. Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 33)

    B. Alan Wallace · 2012 · 1 h 3 min

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

Listen on Internet Archive · CC BY-NC-ND 3.0