Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 44)

0:07 So as if you were at home already, have an evening before you, want to take out about an hour or a little bit less than an hour to meditate, and choose two sessions. Let's have two silent sessions and choose exactly the combination you'll find most beneficial. If you'll be silent, I'll just keep the time. Report an error in the passage at 0:07 Highlight the passage at 0:07

· · · silence, 1 minute

0:57 We have a little bit less than an hour for discussion and what I'd like to do is, since we've covered a whole new method here, and some people seem to... Like you've really connected with it, other ones maybe not so much. What I'd like to do is if we can focus really at least for the first part just on the practice today basically, the practice above all, the theory secondly. Report an error in the passage at 0:57 Highlight the passage at 0:57

1:18 There are a lot of other interesting things to discuss but our time is very short. So I'm going to sweep now left to right and any questions, comments, insights, anything at all about yes and we'll start with you. Report an error in the passage at 1:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18

1:34 I've got a question there but you can ignore that now. So my question is about... The phrases that you start saying to help oscillate the attention. Right. I got a bit confused and they didn't really hold any meaning and I kind of lost them. So I wasn't really sure. Yeah, yeah. So phrases like withdraw your attention from all appearances. That doesn't really connect. Report an error in the passage at 1:34 Highlight the passage at 1:34

2:01 Because it was basically this. I mean, when we're first starting. When it's retraction and release or inversion and release, it's not really like a pendulum, like looking this way and then looking this way. It's more like a sea anemone that just opens up and then falls in upon itself or a balloon that expands and then just contracts back to a point. Report an error in the passage at 2:01 Highlight the passage at 2:01

2:25 And so I'll give the phrases now and then whatever is not clear, please let me know. And that is in this practice, when we're inverting, we're simply... Withdrawing all interest, all deliberate or voluntary attention from any appearances to the mind in any of the six fields of experience and just coming into that naked, raw, unmediated experience of just being aware. Report an error in the passage at 2:25 Highlight the passage at 2:25

2:47 And so that's the inversion. And then when we release, then it just really does have, I don't know what you call it, but just a total sense of release, of letting go, and then just letting awareness, almost like a vapor evaporating into the sky or into the space, just going... Report an error in the passage at 2:47 Highlight the passage at 2:47

3:05 And then not having a target, just going into non-objectivity, but with this deep sense of letting go. So is any of that unclear? Report an error in the passage at 3:05 Highlight the passage at 3:05

3:19 Say the phrase, what is the consciousness that is concentrating? I kind of get a bit like nothing comes up. Yeah, so you're going back to the text here, or the text, and I probably use very similar words because I'm modeling exactly after what Padma Zambath teaches here. I'm trying to do something very unoriginal. What is that consciousness? Yeah, it's... Report an error in the passage at 3:19 Highlight the passage at 3:19

3:41 It's really simply an inversion into the experience of being aware. So what is that consciousness that would be easily, and what could conceive of that is, okay, think about consciousness and then ponder that and try to figure it out. As some it, it's not that at all. It's something, let me put it this way, I thought maybe to mention it tomorrow morning, but it's very relevant right now. And that is now we've covered the whole spectrum of the three methods I wanted to share for these six days. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

4:08 And they may look like they're quite distinct, in a way they are, of course. But in another way, we can think of these three, for simplicity's mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind, awareness of awareness, as being like Russian dolls, like Russian dolls one inside the other. So when you're practicing mindfulness of breathing, you are attending to the outermost shell, and that is, for example, right here it is on the shell, it's right on the surface of the body. Report an error in the passage at 4:08 Highlight the passage at 4:08

4:33 You're attending to that, but you're not just single-pointedly bringing your whole... 100 % of attention just to the sensations of the breath. You're also aware with introspection, you're monitoring the flow of attention, which means if thoughts, images, memories and so forth, desires and emotions come up, you are aware of them. Report an error in the passage at 4:33 Highlight the passage at 4:33

4:53 And then if they're deviating, if they're splitting your attention, you're carrying you away, then of course you apply remedies. So the mindfulness of breathing itself already, kind of at least in embryonic form, or implicitly, it's already including observing the space of the mind and its contents. Report an error in the passage at 4:53 Highlight the passage at 4:53

5:09 But now when you're doing that and you have done that, just mindfulness of breathing, if at any point I should just kind of poke you on the shoulder, you're right in the middle of your samādhi and I poke you on your shoulder and say, are you aware that you're aware? Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

5:23 The answer would be, yeah, why do you ask? But yeah, you would be aware that you're aware. That's not some new information that's just out of the blue. Like learning if you have a grandfather who's an American Indian or a great-great-grandfather who's an American Indian. Boy, I never knew that. Report an error in the passage at 5:23 Highlight the passage at 5:23

5:39 No, this is something that you did know. It just wasn't what you were focusing on. But there really was no point at which you didn't know that. That, you know, you're aware with no heavy emphasis on the personal pronoun, but just awareness is taking place. And so that's the smallest Russian doll inside the larger Russian doll of settling the mind inside the larger Russian doll of mindfulness of breathing. So in a way, as we move from this, I do see, as you can imagine, a very organic process. Report an error in the passage at 5:39 Highlight the passage at 5:39

6:07 Of just kind of peeling off the outer layers. We've already peeled off all of our deliberate attention to the surrounding environment. That's a big layer. So just peel that one off and now we're single-pointedly focusing here. And then we peel off the layer of the body and attend to the space of the mind. Then we peel off the contents of the mind and the space of the mind and we're just left with a nucleus. Report an error in the passage at 6:07 Highlight the passage at 6:07

6:27 And then we just stay there. And so what is the nature of that? Just raw, unelaborated. Non-referential, I haven't used that word before but it's useful. That non-referential awareness that's not referring to something outside of itself but it's just referring to itself. What's the nature of that consciousness? And that's all it is. Okay, good. Oh yes, right here. I Report an error in the passage at 6:27 Highlight the passage at 6:27

6:51 just have a question because whatever practice I do I end up being very focused up in my head. Yeah, that's it. I feel very stale and very calm, but I'm more and more aware that there's just a whole lot of energy up there. So I have to deliberately try and relax and release to bring it down. It doesn't seem to matter what I do. I just missed that. It doesn't seem to matter what I do. If I'm aware of my breathing, it automatically is up here in my nostrils. Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:17 If I'm aware of my awareness, it's like my awareness lives in my... I hate to say this, brain. Sure, it feels that way. I understand it. That's what it feels. I'm just wondering what to do with it. I find the relaxation really difficult. Yeah, yeah. Well, for good reason. You probably let a few decades go by without really deliberately focusing on relaxation. Report an error in the passage at 7:17 Highlight the passage at 7:17

7:40 It's not something we learn in school or anywhere else, you know, on the whole. So how to... How do you say, counteract or balance out really? Because it's not like having energy in the head is a bad thing in and of itself. I mean, it is what it is. But also to be, when we say this person is really grounded, just say that in English, I'm sure it's intercontinental. Report an error in the passage at 7:40 Highlight the passage at 7:40

8:03 Such and such a person is really grounded. You know, that's a good thing. This person is kind of, his head's up in the clouds like that. Well, that may be a good thing, but not entirely good, right? And so to have that sense of groundedness, of real presence. A kind of a stability, a composure, a groundedness. Sounds like a good thing. And that's exactly what we're talking about. Just the opposite, again, when we go to relaxation, just the opposite of being high-strung, uptight, tense, wired, right? Report an error in the passage at 8:03 Highlight the passage at 8:03

8:30 Tied up in knots. That's what that first echelon of the practice is doing. It's just, when you say, this person's really mellow. There's no negative connotation there, I don't think. This person's really mellow? Don't think so. It doesn't mean lethargic. We say lethargic, I guess another word, but mellow? No, mellow is kind of like, okay. I like to have that as a person as a next door neighbor. Mellow. Don't want the opposite, right? Report an error in the passage at 8:30 Highlight the passage at 8:30

8:54 So how to do it? Then we go back to how to do it. And that's why we entered kind of, so to speak, the shallow end of the pool of just coming back into the full body. And that means very specifically, the very first guided meditation, the very first words out of my mouth were, let your awareness descend. Because we know we're dealing with a lot of buildup. Report an error in the passage at 8:54 Highlight the passage at 8:54

9:14 Just reinforcement. You are your brain. All your thoughts are in your brain. The brain does this. The brain does that. Brain, brain, brain, brain, brain. We're kind of a neurocentric civilization these days. Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:26 The brain plays a very important role, but let's not overdo it here. And so coming down, letting it come down, it's just keep on doing that. Coming down, if you're sitting down, coming right down to your buttocks, to the thighs, to the feet, whatever is having contact with your chair, the cushion, what have you. Report an error in the passage at 9:26 Highlight the passage at 9:26

9:42 And it just means really being present there. A nice image that comes to mind is like a ground fog that just kind of hovers over a pond or a lake. And it's just kind of there, clinging, almost like clinging to the pond water, right? So let your awareness just come down. And then this emphasis on releasing, releasing, but all of this coming down to get more of a groundedness. And then when you're moving into mindfulness, breathing, progressing along, then again down to the abdomen. Report an error in the passage at 9:42 Highlight the passage at 9:42

10:08 You may feel energy up here. But say, well, that's very well, but now I'm going to practice single-pointedly attention down, down to the abdomen, the rise and fall. And it has a grounding quality, just that stabilizing quality. And when you have that, and this is why, frankly, we did, we rushed through a lot of territory in six days. Now we're finished. Now, if insofar as you're attracted to or find beneficial any of these methods, then it's time to kind of roll it back and take it much more slowly. Report an error in the passage at 10:08 Highlight the passage at 10:08

10:40 Much more slowly. And if you spend a month, two months, just coming into the body, maybe to stages one and two, full body awareness, rise and fall of the abdomen, and you see the benefit yourself, and it's very important, the benefits not only when you're sitting on the cushion, which is bound overall to be a small percentage of your day, but if you find overall that when you're walking along, you're feeling your feet on the ground. Report an error in the passage at 10:40 Highlight the passage at 10:40

11:04 You're experiencing that. This is a strong point of the modern Vipassanā movement. It's that mindful walking. We're not doing that here because this is shamatha practice, shamatha emphasis. And so walking is not really the posture for shamatha for obvious reasons. But it's very helpful. It's very helpful to just kind of slow down a little bit and then in the mindful walking, then your awareness is coming right down to the soles of the feet, the movement of the feet, the lifting, the placing, the weight coming down. Report an error in the passage at 11:04 Highlight the passage at 11:04

11:30 There's a groundedness there. And so, Two ways. I mean, I could speak the rest of evening on this, but I'll wrap it up. And that is, one is to really come down into the body, right down to the feet, while you're in meditation, and kind of contained within your skin, so to speak, right? But there's another way of getting all this congealed or conglomerated energy out of the head, especially between sessions. And that is this nice phrase, come to your senses. Report an error in the passage at 11:30 Highlight the passage at 11:30

11:56 There's actually a whole book called that, maybe two of them by now, I think, coming to our senses. And this is in between sessions. Of letting your awareness come out, so not trying to contain it in the body, but when you're walking, we had some lovely weather today, clouds, big sky, you see over there to the blue hills, or blue mountains I think you call them. Report an error in the passage at 11:56 Highlight the passage at 11:56

12:14 In California we wouldn't call those mountains. I understand this. But they are lovely hills, I've been in them, they're very nice, I mean those mountains. Report an error in the passage at 12:14 Highlight the passage at 12:14

12:26 But it's a nice distance, so letting your awareness come out and be able to focus on things quite distant and then This is really one of the most exotic arrays of birds I've seen in any one place. It's not a nature preserve. So attending to the bird calls and this luscious array of birds is really quite exotic. Report an error in the passage at 12:26 Highlight the passage at 12:26

12:43 So coming out to the birds, out to the flowers, out to the fragrances, out to the air touching your skin, the breeze and so forth. But this coming out, that really mellows. It gives it kind of a spacious quality and it really gets you out of your head. So in between sessions, I mean I'm about to go off and lead people in an eight week pretty intensive retreat. In between sessions is what I keep on coming back to. Phuket's also very lovely, beautiful jungle, there's always activity, it's an island, always activity in the sky. Report an error in the passage at 12:43 Highlight the passage at 12:43

13:14 There's always some clouds and so there's a lot of interest there. And so in between sessions come out, spacious, let your awareness come out, your awareness in all of the sense fields and that's also very grounding. So between those two, coming down in the body and then out into the senses, I would say mission accomplished, that really should do it. Okay? Good. So we'll scan over. Report an error in the passage at 13:14 Highlight the passage at 13:14

13:37 Ho ho, meter all the way through the left hemisphere, almost to Maria first. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

13:48 I'm sort of having trouble formulating the question, but yesterday with the settling the mind, sometimes I was successful and other times not, but sometimes with regards to initiate... Thoughts will come and then you've got the silence and you're meant to be paying attention to both. But if thoughts stop coming and you're distracted by a sound or whatever, I've found that sometimes what I've heard will then bring mental images to that. Report an error in the passage at 13:48 Highlight the passage at 13:48

14:18 So is that sort of cheating or is that okay? Well, this is very much part of the practice, and it actually can be a very useful practice if on occasion, and it's bound to happen, that you would really like to meditate, but just for the time being, you really just don't have access to a very, very quiet environment. Report an error in the passage at 14:18 Highlight the passage at 14:18

14:35 You know, it could be home, your own home, where normally it's quiet, but then sometimes stuff comes up. Little children are just playing outside the window. And, you know, we're not going to scream at them or whatever. I mean, if they can gradually move off, that's nice. But in that session... There it is. I mean, they're playing, they're having a nice time, but their voices are really kind of piercing the awareness. When that happens, then if you're practicing mindfulness of breathing, that's just kind of like, you know, it's not part of the practice at all. Report an error in the passage at 14:35 Highlight the passage at 14:35

15:06 It's really outside your skin, therefore it's outside and it's kind of just distracting. Whereas if you're practicing the settling the mind in this natural state, you're not asking for the sounds to come in, they're just coming in uninvited. But when those sounds come in, then you can say, all right, well, number one, there's no reason for concern. Those kids yesterday, they sounded perfectly happy and their parents are probably there. Report an error in the passage at 15:06 Highlight the passage at 15:06

15:27 So there's just no reason to worry about it, to think about it, to deliver it on it. They're doing fine. And so then we know, okay, we have no obligation to direct our attention there. That's kind of important. If we heard one of them screaming, then we might think, okay, well, hey, that might be a child in danger. Then we would do something. Report an error in the passage at 15:27 Highlight the passage at 15:27

15:44 But that was not the case. So when you know, okay, I don't need to go there, then as the sounds are coming, whether it's a truck driving by or children playing or jet flying overhead, these are all impinging upon. They're coming from one or more of the five physical senses. But what's interesting in this practice then of settling the mind is to exactly see what images, thoughts and so forth, memories, imaginations are triggered by the sensory and then just focus on that. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:14 That gets interesting. Because there's no guarantee what that will be. When you hear little children laughing, you might get images of little children. But you might get something else. There's no guarantee. You might hear a jet flying overhead and have that trigger a memory of a vacation you had a year ago. Report an error in the passage at 16:14 Highlight the passage at 16:14

16:32 Who can say? And so now suddenly, even though sounds are impinging upon your awareness, it's not so much, it's still a bit distracting, but it's just providing more grist for your middle and you do keep your attention kind of glued right to the domain of the mind and see what comes up there. Report an error in the passage at 16:32 Highlight the passage at 16:32

16:50 Thank you. And we should never influence our thoughts. Like sometimes you might have had a string of negative thoughts come along and you then pick yourself up and think, oh, that's not very good. But you shouldn't really be saying that. You should just let whatever come, come. Or are you allowed to sort of try to sway them to positive ones? Yeah, yeah. Very good question. Very practical. If you're practicing, so the short answer is, it depends on your practice. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:12 Which practice are you doing? If you're practicing mindfulness of breathing, good thoughts, bad thoughts, release them all. I don't care what you have to say. It's like if a solicitor, like a person who's selling shoe cream, comes to your door, knock, knocking, and he's just about to give his lunch about this is the best shoe cream or whatever, shoe cream in the world. Report an error in the passage at 17:12 Highlight the passage at 17:12

17:34 In a very polite way, I really don't care what you're selling. I really just don't buy from solicitors, so I wish you a good day, but I really am not interested. And you can say it in a very polite way, but you can just terminate it right there. It doesn't matter whether you're selling nuclear weaponry or shoe cream, I'm really not interested, I'm not a buyer. Report an error in the passage at 17:34 Highlight the passage at 17:34

17:51 And then it's done. So that's your attitude in mindfulness of breathing. If you're practicing settling the mind, then whatever it is, you just allow it to arise. Nasty thoughts, mean-spirited, malevolent, demonic, whatever it is, they're just puffs of smoke, black smoke, white smoke. But it's important not to get caught up in the drama of any of them, not enter into cognitive fusion. Now having said that, there are other practices in which it's very, very meaningful to, when we see negative impulses, very destructive or harmful impulses, unbeneficial impulses arising in the mind, to remedy that out. Report an error in the passage at 17:51 Highlight the passage at 17:51

18:26 Because especially when cognitive fusion takes place, then they really do harm. And so... When I'm heading off to Phuket, then we're doing these three modes of shamatha. That's really our baseline, the primary practice. But I have done this since the shamatha project five years ago. I've been very, very content with the balance of adding to that the four measurables. These are just universal sublime virtues. Report an error in the passage at 18:26 Highlight the passage at 18:26

18:50 And they do entail actively cultivating really benevolent thoughts, attitudes. Aspirations and so forth in terms of loving kindness, the wish that oneself and others may find happiness, causes of happiness. Compassion, we may be free of suffering in its causes. Empathetic joy, kind of self-explanatory. Equanimity, that your heart is open in all directions without bias or prejudice or self-centered attachment or aversion. Report an error in the passage at 18:50 Highlight the passage at 18:50

19:15 And so all of those practices, this is classic Buddhist practice, all of those practices entail really the deliberate cultivation. Of wholesome thoughts, wholesome aspirations and so forth. So when you're not doing the formal practice of settling the mind into natural state, in that you just let it be. Report an error in the passage at 19:15 Highlight the passage at 19:15

19:32 But outside of that, overall, would you prefer to have friendly thoughts, benevolent thoughts coming up or really nasty ones? Well, it's like neighbors, which you'd rather have, I think, like the nice ones. So in between sessions, then by all means, go ahead and cultivate. Cultivate the benevolent, the positive thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 19:32 Highlight the passage at 19:32

19:49 It's not just a competition, it is something of rehabilitating the mind, but it's also when negative thoughts come up outside of that particular practice, then by all means bring in wisdom, bring in insight. So if one is ruminating over a person, kind of the mental teeth grinding away, why did you do that, I don't like that and so forth, then rather than simply trying to develop love and kindness for that person, you may also bring some insight into, okay, here's the nature of anger arising. Report an error in the passage at 19:49 Highlight the passage at 19:49

20:17 What is its source? How is it manifesting? Is it clear? Am I in a refractory period? Is this person 100 % negative? And so forth. Just a shy crisis, shed some light on it, and that may also help it unravel and dissolve away. But we don't bring in these outside remedies. We don't call in the cavalry when we're just doing settling the mind in its natural state. Finally, when we're doing awareness of awareness, whatever comes up, gone. Report an error in the passage at 20:17 Highlight the passage at 20:17

20:42 Just release it. It's just purely non-conception. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 20:42 Highlight the passage at 20:42

20:51 Firstly, thank you, Alan, for the latest skill of moving my awareness left and right and up and down because I've found that really helpful in getting my awareness out of my head. That's another one. That gets you out of your head. Way up. Unless you have a really super big head. Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:15 My question is similar to an earlier one about the oscillating of the awareness. I've found Very difficult to understand what you were meaning with inverting the awareness. And what I found myself doing, I think, was contracting rather than withdrawing. I was contracting and feeling very tight and feeling that I couldn't do it in one breath, one in-breath. Report an error in the passage at 21:15 Highlight the passage at 21:15

21:42 And so I was doing it over several in-breaths and found myself suspending my breathing. Letting it go was fine. Expanding again was fine, but bringing it in was difficult to even understand. Very good. It is a type of contraction. It is effortful. And it is exactly this oscillation of arousing some effort. If it's too much, of course it just tenses up and that's no good. Report an error in the passage at 21:42 Highlight the passage at 21:42

22:09 Just kind of a spasm. But it is something of an arousal. As we're doing that withdrawal, it is an arousal. There is some effort involved, a concentration involved. Report an error in the passage at 22:09 Highlight the passage at 22:09

22:20 There it is, kind of there's the mudrā of it, kind of just a coming in upon itself. But then in the back of the mind we already know, this is just for a short period, don't sweat it. Don't think this is going to be exhausting. Because it's coming in, but we know what's coming soon is, and then just that total release. So it's very easy to overdo it. Report an error in the passage at 22:20 Highlight the passage at 22:20

22:42 I know that when I first started taking this practice on seriously, It was right after spending six months in Dharamsala, most of that time, almost all that time, in retreat. And then I couldn't stay in India any longer. My visa ran out. They would not extend it. So I went down to Sri Lanka. And for the first few weeks, I was just totally on my own. But I knew I wanted to try some other methods apart from visualization. And I was really drawn to this because I was first taught both settling the mind and awareness of awareness in the Galupa tradition by one of my early teachers in the 1970s, Gesha Rapton, straight Galupa approach. Report an error in the passage at 22:42 Highlight the passage at 22:42

23:16 I first started doing it. I remember it to this day. I was in a little kuti, a little cottage in Sri Lanka, in a hermitage up near Kandi. And I was really interested and really keen and young and full of beans, full of gumption, to do this practice really well. And this is not too much of an exaggeration. And I'm going to bring my awareness in. Report an error in the passage at 23:16 Highlight the passage at 23:16

23:51 You might notice that I'm not breathing. Like, what? You know, I was so intense. I was just completely breaking the flow of respiration. I didn't want to miss anything. And I didn't want to be distracted. So, you know, cool it with the breathing. Just stop. Like that. Way too intense. Way too intense. That's why I'm taking it as, you know, body, speech and mindset and natural state and all of that. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:17 So, how to find another way of phrasing this? One could say, I mean, a very loose and vernacular way of saying this is that when you're inverting the awareness, You're simply withdrawing all interest from anything that appears to your awareness. So right now I could do this. I mean, I'll do a cartoon. But right now I'm attending to everyone in the room. And now what? I'm Report an error in the passage at 24:17 Highlight the passage at 24:17

24:47 not interested in anybody. I'm not interested in the room. I've just withdrawn from all appearances. Just not interested. And it doesn't entail a contraction. One can actually spin it the opposite direction. That it takes me some effort to come out and touch someone. Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

25:08 I had to stretch the rubber band to kind of attend to you or attend to you. And so, okay, I'll extend myself. Okay, like that. But now, imagine that takes some effort to kind of look out. And now, one Report an error in the passage at 25:08 Highlight the passage at 25:08

25:30 can see that actually as complete relaxation. Not extending out to an object and latching on, but releasing all the latching on business, releasing all the extension. And just letting like a spring that you've stretched out and then just let it go like that. So if you can think of it in that kind of an ambience, of not a kind of a drawing in, like you've got a 150 pound Great Dane on a leash and trying to pull it in. Report an error in the passage at 25:30 Highlight the passage at 25:30

25:56 But rather that as we normally extend our attention to this object and that, that that's an extension. And we're releasing that. And so, and here's his phrase, that your awareness comes and rests in its own place. And having rested in its own place, it holds its own ground in the sense of not extending off and being diverted elsewhere. So it's more of an ambience. Report an error in the passage at 25:56 Highlight the passage at 25:56

26:18 But if you think of it that way, I think there's kind of this over-exertion and over-contraction will kind of dissolve. And then you'll have this sense of really a deep sense of ease of just Report an error in the passage at 26:18 Highlight the passage at 26:18

26:31 resting. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:36 Okay, in the nick of time. I guess it's me. Bye, John. Is this question... This part of the awareness practice where you say, place your awareness at the heart and leave it there or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 26:36 Highlight the passage at 26:36

26:54 I presume that means to move the center of your awareness out of the head and allow it to move downwards. That is correct. I'm going to interrupt very briefly because I know you have more to say. It's exactly as in the previous question. It's not by... That is correct, yes. Report an error in the passage at 26:54 Highlight the passage at 26:54

27:12 By flexing your mental bicep and yanking it down. Because that really doesn't work. But as much as you can, there's something out of holding the attention up here. And if you can release that which is holding it, almost like it's held with certain wires and so forth. And if you can just hold it, then just... And it's easier with the eyes closed, frankly. Report an error in the passage at 27:12 Highlight the passage at 27:12

27:32 Because when the eyes are open, we do tend to have a sense, I'm looking out from here. And that kind of keeps us up here. But if the eyes are closed, then actually, gosh, we have sensory... Tactile experience down here, we are aware of sounds in all directions and so forth. So it is a releasing, so that your awareness can simply descend. Now go ahead. And this is also related when you say the dream yoga, where people, part of the instruction is to visualize the mundis and so forth at the throat. Report an error in the passage at 27:32 Highlight the passage at 27:32

27:58 And that is also, I think, that is also similar to that, the whole of the awareness. to rest at the... I was taught this in 1980 when His Holiness was guiding me. He was encouraging me to actually bring my awareness all the way down to the navel chakra. Report an error in the passage at 27:58 Highlight the passage at 27:58

28:14 And at the beginning, you will do this as if from afar, as if looking down like that, and that is how I was doing it. And then when I got a little bit good at that, I mean I could do it, then he said, okay, that is all very well. Now bring your whole awareness down and take the elevator all the way down to four finger widths beneath the navel and look out from there and let your awareness be the visualization, inside the visualization, take on the form of the visualization. Report an error in the passage at 28:14 Highlight the passage at 28:14

28:35 So that is the question. When I take that leaf, the leaf will go down, but I will stay up. Report an error in the passage at 28:35 Highlight the passage at 28:35

28:44 I somehow couldn't quite get into that. Sounds like a cartoon, like, whoop, whoop. One of those people that treads water in midair, we've seen, you know, the roadrunner doing that. So that is my problem, you see, every time you press the button and the lift goes down, it's still out there, up here. And since you mentioned about that, I just wonder whether, do you have any advice about this? Report an error in the passage at 28:44 Highlight the passage at 28:44

29:08 is very much releasing as you say releasing all those things the whole events to the It's very much like being in an elevator, and then it suddenly starts to go down, and you jump up to the ceiling and hold on, if the elevator has no roof, just holding on, up there, there's a bar on the side, and then the elevator drops beneath you. Report an error in the passage at 29:08 Highlight the passage at 29:08

29:27 And there it goes down, okay, have a nice time, but I am holding up here. And so if you see yourself doing that, there's one surefire way to really solve the problem, tickle yourself. Report an error in the passage at 29:27 Highlight the passage at 29:27

29:42 And a little bit more serious note, you know, there's no quick, I don't know of any quick fix for this. There's no gimmick that I know that, oh, I hadn't thought of that. Why didn't I try that? And it works immediately. There may be such a gimmick. I've never heard of it and I have been keeping my ears open. But I remember shortly after His Holiness gave me this advice and I tried with utter futility to follow his advice, including trying to just yank my attention down. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:12 Almost like, you know, that didn't work very well. And then trying to imagine I had an enormous navel, you know, that was kind of like, go supernova navel and I'd just somehow be in it already. That didn't work so well either. And so, I just couldn't do it. This was in 1980. I just couldn't do it. I tried so hard. Report an error in the passage at 30:12 Highlight the passage at 30:12

30:36 And I spoke with Gin Chambawandhu. He was one of the old yogis up there, been up there for like 30 years. And I asked him, Because he was so seasoned. He'd done everything. And so mellow. Really, really mellow. And I asked him about it. And he said, oh, you just relax. Report an error in the passage at 30:36 Highlight the passage at 30:36

30:57 So put in 20 years of relaxation, you know. Get a decade or two under your belt and get really mellow. And then it just softens and then it just naturally descends. But I don't know of a shortcut. In the meantime, don't sweat it. Don't sweat it. Because trying, trying, trying, trying, this, of course, just... Report an error in the passage at 30:57 Highlight the passage at 30:57

30:53 Relax. Report an error in the passage at 30:53 Highlight the passage at 30:53

31:15 Seizes us up more. Good. All right, over to the right hemisphere. Yes, please. Right here, indeed. It Report an error in the passage at 31:15 Highlight the passage at 31:15

31:27 was working. My name's Beth. Kate? Beth. Beth, thank you. Just on that idea of shortcuts, I have found a shortcut and I thought I'd share it. Please, please do. And that's to spend a fair bit of time in the bath. I couldn't say. Spend a fair bit of time in the bath. I still couldn't understand. Taking a bath? Yes, taking a bath. Report an error in the passage at 31:27 Highlight the passage at 31:27

31:46 A nice hot bath. A nice hot bath. Maybe with a jacuzzi if possible. I don't mind who's there, but preferably alone. Report an error in the passage at 31:46 Highlight the passage at 31:46

31:57 I can imagine how that would do, maybe a massage as well. But seriously, I learnt some of these practices a little while ago and the only way that I could get a handle, the only time I've had a great deal of success with settling the mind in its natural state has been when it happened in the bath. And I realized that that's what I was doing. I wasn't zoning out. I was staring at the shower wall and this passing parade was coming and I was just letting it shake down. Report an error in the passage at 31:57 Highlight the passage at 31:57

32:30 And I thought, ah, that's what's happening. And I found it really useful. But after that I spent a lot of time in the bath. It's very good for the skin too, I noticed. That having been born very much on the neurotic branch of the tree, if there was a gold medal for ruminating, I'd win it. Report an error in the passage at 32:30 Highlight the passage at 32:30

32:52 I've found that going back to the body practices are the most useful for me. And I'm not pushing myself too much in any other direction, I'm just being quite kind to myself. This is good. You know, if we really take the long term of you, and that each of these stages is really important and just overall good. It's not just developing a skill, like learning how to putt. Report an error in the passage at 32:52 Highlight the passage at 32:52

33:12 Or get a top spin on your backhand. These are skills that are going to be good for everything else. Be able to go through life and meeting all the vicissitudes of life and go through with a greater sense of looseness, of groundedness, of sense of ease. Other people are freaking out and having emotional vacillations all over the place and you're just more grounded and relaxed. That's a good thing. And then beyond that, to be really stable, very composed, not just relaxed, but very focused. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:40 It's going to be a good thing for everything. And then, of course, the clarity. So what my sense is, and it's really very emphatic here, is that these qualities are so helpful, so indispensable, that no matter how long it takes to develop them, it's time well spent. Not that once you do it myopically or just this and forget about compassion, empathy, generosity and so forth. That's silly. But this is just worth any amount of time and effort and intelligence and creativity, including learning that hot baths really help. Report an error in the passage at 33:40 Highlight the passage at 33:40

34:09 That's a very practical thing. And then overall, one thing that can be really sweet, and now that we're gradually coming to the end of the retreat, and so 24 hours from now we'll be someplace else, possibly home, but especially at the end of one of those days, it could be just an ordinary day, but especially one of the days it's been something of a grind, a bit stressful, kind of real fatigue rather than just simply sleepiness, maybe a bit stressed out. Report an error in the passage at 34:09 Highlight the passage at 34:09

34:35 And at the end of such a day, If one just raises the idea, let's say it's 8 o 'clock in the evening, one raises the idea, well I could go into my room and meditate, as if somebody is suggesting that in the head, in your head, you know, like how about meditating? You might want to just smack them, like what part of I'm totally wiped out, don't you understand? And so that could be really like not appealing at all to think I'm going to go in and I'm going to sit there. Report an error in the passage at 34:35 Highlight the passage at 34:35

35:05 And I'm going to sit like this, but you just feel like a truck hit you. I mean, just so tired and kind of broken, sometimes in a really rough day. So that may not just be something that, depends on the type of word for it, semchuk, the strength of your heart's up to. I'm just not really up to that right now. But if the image that comes to mind is going into your bedroom and either turning off the lights or letting there just be a really soft light, just a really soft light, just that twilight, and then having it warm enough that you feel really comfortable, Right? Maybe a little throw blanket on top of you. Your head under your favorite pillow. And then just going into the Shavasana. And then just going into meltdown. Report an error in the passage at 35:05 Highlight the passage at 35:05

35:45 Just total infirmary. Bringing your awareness into the body. Relaxing down to the earth element. Breathing out. Releasing. Relaxing. And just doing that for as long as you feel like. As that image comes to my mind and I'm listening to my own words, that doesn't sound daunting at all. And of course I've done this. And it's a really good alternative. Sometimes you may just want to watch television, then watch television. Or you want to read or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

36:11 Maybe there's somebody to converse with. There's nothing wrong with that intrinsically. But this is also a viable alternative and it's bound to be more restful and more balancing and more soothing than watching TV or just killing times in other ways. And so just doing that and making that a habit of going to the infirmary, full body awareness, that also can have a very similar effect. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:32 It's going into a nice warm bath, a nice deep one, so you're right up to the neck and feeling just that whole melting. It's very nice in the bath. And here's something you can do even without the water. Good. Yes, go ahead. Report an error in the passage at 36:32 Highlight the passage at 36:32

36:50 Jenny, I'm struggling a bit with the awareness of awareness and the bit where we are suspended in awareness. A bit where we are? Suspending, well, residing in our awareness. Where you're residing and it's kind of over to your right and up. Yeah, that's the one, exactly. it is up there. Report an error in the passage at 36:50 Highlight the passage at 36:50

37:10 And then you ask us to I think something like what is observing you residing awareness? I'll run through it really quickly because I do know that when you're listening to instructions while doing them it's often very hard to retain it. Because you're just going from moment to moment following the instructions, if you feel like it, but probably you are, that's why you're here. But then by the time you come to the end, you weren't taking notes, you weren't recalling that all, and then you might think, if I had to do that all over again, I wouldn't know how to do it. Report an error in the passage at 37:10 Highlight the passage at 37:10

37:46 So it's a very brief recap, and of course that's why we have the text as well. That's what I'm commenting on, that one page from Natural Liberation on shamatha without a sign. So it is there, right? But I have put kind of a little sort of emphasis and a sequence on it that may be not all that obvious. Report an error in the passage at 37:46 Highlight the passage at 37:46

38:03 I think completely congruent with what Padmasambhava is teaching here. But here's the basic sequence and it is very simple. First of all, after you've settled body, speech and mind, then letting your eyes be open and just letting your awareness rest evenly. And those are Padmasambhava's words. Let your awareness rest evenly in the space in front of you. So in other words, it's not focused here or there, it's not looking up and down, not this or that. Report an error in the passage at 38:03 Highlight the passage at 38:03

38:30 It's just kind of like water flowing over a plane. And then taking nothing as an object. Not directing to, not latching onto anything, just no object, not meditating on anything. Real sense of release, of ease, because you're not even inverting at this point. And just being totally present. So not spacing out, not losing your mindfulness, not being distracted, not grasping onto anything. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

39:00 That's your starting point. And then as you're just resting there, then without any particular exertion, just by paying attention, You may just have a, almost like the sun, here's the image that comes to mind, almost like the sun rising behind your back. It may dawn on you, quite literally dawn on you, that you are aware of something even when you're not attending to any object. Report an error in the passage at 39:00 Highlight the passage at 39:00

39:27 You are aware of something, you're knowing something, even when you're not attending to any object. And what you're knowing is, awareness is happening. Report an error in the passage at 39:27 Highlight the passage at 39:27

39:39 Awareness. It doesn't even need to be referential. It's just awareness of awareness. That's its reference. It's an inside job. So just resting there in that awareness of being aware, not being dead, not being a rock or a pair of eyeglasses, which has zero consciousness. That's just being aware. Consciousness is happening. And just resting there in that. And just kind of like, oh, I'm not interested in anything else. Report an error in the passage at 39:39 Highlight the passage at 39:39

40:06 Obviously some appearances will be arising, but that's not my concern right now. This is my interest. That, whoa, awareness is occurring and resting in that. And then you can set up the oscillation, the inversion and the release, and that is then more forcefully withdraw. Here you're just kind of sitting and awareness is happening, you don't mind it all that much. But now you kind of forcefully, with concentration, you really deliberately withdraw your attention from all appearances. Report an error in the passage at 40:06 Highlight the passage at 40:06

40:36 Right into kind of as unmediated, as focused, as single pointed as possible. You bring it right into that experience of just awareness itself. So there is something of a tightening, a concentration there. It shouldn't be thick, but a slender concentration. And then just an unraveling and opening up. And so there's that first phase of just into the experience of being aware and then this release out into non-objectivity or into space itself. Report an error in the passage at 40:36 Highlight the passage at 40:36

41:06 Then second phase is as you have gotten into this rhythm of inverting and then releasing, inverting and releasing, then you can go, as you're inverting now, you can go in with a question and that is, do you have a sense, it's a real question, not rhetorical, do you have a sense of being the one who's in charge, who's doing this? Report an error in the passage at 41:06 Highlight the passage at 41:06

41:28 Because something's being done deliberately, voluntarily. And that is you are volitionally withdrawing your attention and releasing it. So who's doing it? Somebody else? Is the teacher using some weird mind probe and manipulating your consciousness? That's silly, no? But nor is anybody else. It's not an outside job. Nobody's getting in there and tinkering with your mind and taking over. There's no possession taking place here. Report an error in the passage at 41:28 Highlight the passage at 41:28

41:56 You're doing it. And so the agent must be where you are because nobody else is doing it by a process of elimination. So if you have a sense that, well, I'm doing this, I've chosen to do this, I continue to choose to do this, I am doing this, good. And then as you probe in and perform this cognoscopy, you come in on, okay, what's the sense of being an agent, being the one who did it, is doing it. Report an error in the passage at 41:56 Highlight the passage at 41:56

42:17 And so there's a second phase, not just into consciousness, but into the sense of being the agent who is controlling the consciousness, controlling awareness or attention. And then you take a breather, and then... Even more subtle than the sense of being the agent doing things and then not doing things. There is a sense, I would propose, of the sense of being someone in here who is the observer, who is in a manner of speaking looking out and attending to. Report an error in the passage at 42:17 Highlight the passage at 42:17

42:48 And so if you have a sense that you are someone, you are a subject, the observer, what is the nature of the observer? If there is some entity, again if it's a word it would be a noun, if there is something, someone, Subject in here that is actually looking out. Good. What's your experience of being that subject? When you attend to your own subjectivity, yourself as the observer, what comes to mind? Report an error in the passage at 42:48 Highlight the passage at 42:48

43:15 And then release. And that's not ego. We're not looking at ego there. You're not looking at? At ego. That thing that we're... At ego? Yeah, like the eye, you know, that's running the show. That's not the ego? Is that what you're looking at? Well, sure. I mean, it's not something other than the ego. The ego is more generic. The ego can be the agent. The ego can be the observer. The ego can be the one who's feeling emotions and so forth. But sure, it's not anyone else. Report an error in the passage at 43:15 Highlight the passage at 43:15

43:41 It's not anything other than I. But we're looking at very specific experiences of being in the agent. So for example, this is one that Tibetan's like. If I'm looking around and let's imagine my glass. So this is completely hypothetical. So imagine I'm looking around and I see, oh my glasses are gone. Report an error in the passage at 43:41 Highlight the passage at 43:41

44:00 And then I turn to you and Jin, I'm sorry to embarrass you in public, but I saw you up here a little while ago. And if you wouldn't mind, would you confess? Because I think you stole my glasses. Report an error in the passage at 44:00 Highlight the passage at 44:00

44:13 And Tibetans, if they want to conjure up this false sense of self, then if I, in fact, I said, Jen, I know, in fact, you have a kind of thieving look about you. And I saw you, and I'm quite sure I saw you taking my glasses. Please give them back right now. Otherwise, I think I'll have to call the police because we can't have thieves and retreats that I lead. Report an error in the passage at 44:13 Highlight the passage at 44:13

44:33 It's really... We just can't have people like you. Out comes my finger. And a sense, I didn't do it. I am not the agent. If you've lost your glasses, that's your problem, bud. Or somebody else stole your glasses, pick on them. But I didn't do it. The sense of being the agent who didn't do that. Strong sense of agency comes up. I'm innocent. I'm innocent. Don't point your finger at me. So sometimes that sense of being agent, or if it's, you know, Did somebody leave me this $100 bill? Oh, Jen, I noticed you're a very, very generous person. You look rich to me, too. Was that you? Was that you? Really, I appreciate that. Report an error in the passage at 44:33 Highlight the passage at 44:33

45:16 Thank you. Thank you for the $100. So it could be praise. It could be blame. But either way, if you've done something very kind and I acknowledge you, especially in public, then there may be a sense, well, yes, I did do it. I did do it. That was me. Report an error in the passage at 45:16 Highlight the passage at 45:16

45:35 And so that's what I'm saying here. We're not trying to contrive something. We're not trying to generate something artificially. But in ordinary day-to-day life, when there's praise and blame to be distributed, people are having a sense of being the agent. Being the agent. And then looking at that. Looking at that. It's not to look at it to refute it, as if there are no agents in the world. That's silly. People are agents. Report an error in the passage at 45:35 Highlight the passage at 45:35

45:58 We do things. What is the nature of the agent? And trying to probe into that experientially rather than just thinking about it a lot. And also the sense, you probably have a sense of looking at me from way over yonder. I have a sense of looking at you from way over yonder or way over hither. And there you're yonder. So what is that experience of being over here and looking out over there, but not being over there, but looking from here over there? Report an error in the passage at 45:58 Highlight the passage at 45:58

46:24 What's that experience? So that's what we're getting at here. In a very simple setting with no other people, no other objects, just an inside job of being the agent who's inverting and releasing the attention. That's an inside job. And then just sitting there being aware of awareness. Do you have a sense of someone being in here, being aware of awareness? And it's questioning that. Report an error in the passage at 46:24 Highlight the passage at 46:24

46:45 And as I said, that's right on the cusp into Vipassanā, into real insight practice. Go ahead. I guess why I was confused with that, because I'm thinking we're talking about awareness as being that thing when we die that goes on through. Some continuum of consciousness goes on, yeah. And so I'm thinking, who's that? Who's that other bit that is the observer that's looking back at the witness? Report an error in the passage at 46:45 Highlight the passage at 46:45

47:06 Where does that fit into the picture? I think I missed a syllable or two that prevented me from getting the whole sentence. So what is the what? So if we have the... Let's imagine, again, this is not brainwashing, imagine there is a subtle continuum of consciousness, we'll call it the substrate consciousness, that carries on after death, carries through a bardo, eventually becomes reconfigured and then out of that emerges another psyche. Report an error in the passage at 47:06 Highlight the passage at 47:06

47:28 So let's imagine that's true. And I'm thinking that's the awareness bit. When we're residing in awareness, maybe that's that kind of bit. Then I'm thinking, well, what's this other bit that's observing the witness? Sorry, observing the awareness. Yeah, good. What is this other bit? Good. So, time does go quickly. It's a very, very good question. It's a deep one and it's been raised for centuries by Buddhist contemplative philosophers. Report an error in the passage at 47:28 Highlight the passage at 47:28

47:56 And here's the, I think, the most sophisticated response to that. So whether it's true or false, that's for you to evaluate at your own leisure. But the most sophisticated response I've seen to this is from this philosophical school that's widely regarded as the pinnacle of Buddhist philosophy, Prasangaka Madhyamaka. Report an error in the passage at 47:56 Highlight the passage at 47:56

48:14 And the view here is that our continuum of awareness of any kind, visual, auditory, what have you, but now specifically, continuum of mental awareness, just because we're going to take a specific example, that a continuum of mental awareness is not just like spaghetti, like just one strung out homogenous stream. Report an error in the passage at 48:14 Highlight the passage at 48:14

48:34 But rather it's a series of staccato moments or pulses, finite pulses of cognition. So one can say the Buddhist view of awareness is quantized. And that is rather than just having long stretches of consciousness that are completely unbroken, in fact we have pulses of cognition that arise in sequence and sometimes they bundle. Report an error in the passage at 48:34 Highlight the passage at 48:34

48:59 So they bundle, they collect like... I come up always with the same images because I've taught this a lot. But imagine people playing tug of war. Let's imagine there's kind of a nice little stream and just for a fun outing, you have let's say 30 people out on a party and they divide into two groups, 15 people on that side and they've got a rope. Report an error in the passage at 48:59 Highlight the passage at 48:59

49:18 And then they do the tug of war to try to bring in and have the other group all have to splash into the river. So it's just all for fun. But when you get 15 people then on each side, then those 15 people are, as it were, acting as one. Right? Report an error in the passage at 49:18 Highlight the passage at 49:18

49:32 If each one of them pulled on it sequentially, then that would just be one person. But no, this is 15 simultaneously. It's like one big 30-armed person pulling in one way and one 30-armed person in another way. So they've congealed into a cluster and the cluster is acting as one. Mobs do that. And there's a lot of social psychology about this. Report an error in the passage at 49:32 Highlight the passage at 49:32

49:54 I'm sure Peter could tell us a lot about this. Well, this is what's happening in cognition. That a single pulse of cognition, Now, there's a lot more nuance here, but I'm just going to cut to the chase. A single pulse of cognition may be on the order of about two milliseconds. So one five hundredth of a second. Report an error in the passage at 49:54 Highlight the passage at 49:54

50:13 Well, overall, nobody can cognize anything in two milliseconds. It's just too short to be able to cognize, to apprehend, to ascertain, to know that you've seen something. It's too short. But that's how long a pulse is. It's called the shortest pulse of cognition, just about two milliseconds or so in Buddhist philosophy. Report an error in the passage at 50:13 Highlight the passage at 50:13

50:31 Or epistemology. But now when you get a cluster of them, like 20 of them, 20 of them clustered, like those people in the tug-of-war, where you have these two milliseconds, so now you have 20 of them, that makes 40 milliseconds. When they're clustered, they're now acting as one, focusing on the same object. Now, with 40 milliseconds, you may be actually able to ascertain something. Report an error in the passage at 50:31 Highlight the passage at 50:31

50:54 And that's actually a true statement. A 40 millisecond stream of cognition may be able to recognize red, triangle, sharp sound, what have you. Two milliseconds you won't be able to. So that was a preamble to answering your question, here's the answer. Let's imagine that the shortest cluster of pulses, of mental awareness, with which you can ascertain anything, let's imagine that it's 40 milliseconds. Report an error in the passage at 50:54 Highlight the passage at 50:54

51:22 Why not? 40 milliseconds. 20 pulses have clustered and they're all attending to, like all 15 people are pulling on the same rope, they're all attending to the same object. And so that means they're ascertaining something. So a 40 millisecond cluster is ascertaining consciousness. And now let's imagine you're maintaining a continuity of attention so the next 40 second cluster is also bound together and they're attending to consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 51:22 Highlight the passage at 51:22

51:50 And the next 40 second cluster, this is a bit simplified but maybe not too much, The point here is that we have 40 millisecond cluster A, B, let's say 1, 2, 3, 4. Cluster 2 is apprehending the consciousness of cluster 1. Cluster 3 is retrospectively apprehending the consciousness of cluster 2. Cluster 4, apprehending the consciousness of cluster 3. It's always retrospective. Report an error in the passage at 51:50 Highlight the passage at 51:50

52:17 It's retrospective. Just like being aware of an emotion. By the time you're aware of the emotion, it's just past. It's retrospective. Report an error in the passage at 52:17 Highlight the passage at 52:17

52:26 You're aware of desire. By the time you're aware of the desire, it's retrospective. It just passed. Or of an intention. By the time you're aware of it, it's just passed. You're seeing the contrail. The jet is the actual impulse itself and what you're seeing is the contrail that follows right after it. And so in this process then, when you are seemingly maintaining an ongoing flow of awareness, of awareness, of awareness, of awareness, what that is is like a sow bug. Report an error in the passage at 52:26 Highlight the passage at 52:26

52:54 It's going and touching its tail and rolling along and rolling along. The later moments of cognition are apprehending the former and the later apprehending the former, later apprehending the former. And there's a certain homogeneity there because they're all very similar. And that's how it operates. So one single pulse of cognition is not apprehending itself. Report an error in the passage at 52:54 Highlight the passage at 52:54

53:16 But the next one in the series is apprehending it in terms of very short-term memory. It's called working memory. It's a very short-term memory. And that's how that occurs. So it's all retrospective, very short-term memory, mindfulness of the preceding moments of consciousness. And that's how you actually are aware of awareness. Report an error in the passage at 53:16 Highlight the passage at 53:16

53:36 Is that completely opaque? Well, Wei Chong has recorded it, so then you can play that back at slow speed. Oh yeah, we'll go right here to Ken. And this will be the last one, I think, for tonight. We will have tomorrow morning. Last one, Ken, and then we'll scan over to the right if there's more tomorrow morning. Report an error in the passage at 53:36 Highlight the passage at 53:36

53:56 In these couple of days, we talk about peeling off the layers, peeling off the layers. Still not getting it. Peeling off the layers, yes. The thoughts, the image. Yes, indeed. All the way down, we will get to the substrate. That's right. Consciousness. Yes. I remember I read a book that was by Gio Bart Taylor. Report an error in the passage at 53:56 Highlight the passage at 53:56

54:22 and it's all about her. Geobald Taylor? I don't know the name. It was all about her personal experience of having a stroke on her left brain. Yeah, this isn't that Geopold, I just don't know, there was that Harvard neuroscientist, her? Yeah, Harvard University. She was kind of a celebrity, she was on YouTube and all of that, sure, I've seen it many times by now. Report an error in the passage at 54:22 Highlight the passage at 54:22

54:52 Right, and she says in the morning, in one morning she woke up and she feels great pain on her head, and she feels strength the world she perceives, and as a brain scientist, She quickly figured out she might have something wrong in her brain, which was correct. And later on, she was sent to the hospital for surgery. Report an error in the passage at 54:52 Highlight the passage at 54:52

55:18 And the blood clots were taken out from the brain, the left brain, about the size of a golf ball. And the clots were suppressing the cortex on the left brain that is in control of her language center. That's right. And before she fell into unconsciousness, she observed closely of what she was experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 55:18 Highlight the passage at 55:18

55:49 And she said she felt the self-chatter just coming on and going off. I just missed the noun. The self-chatter. The chatter coming off and off. The chatter of the thoughts. Yes, yes. And eventually it goes that silence. Yes. And so there's no more thoughts, no more image and no more language or anything. Right, yeah. So she feels no more ego. Report an error in the passage at 55:49 Highlight the passage at 55:49

56:17 Yeah. And at the same time when she's losing all these abilities on the left brain and she still was having a normal functional right brain. Quite so. So she observed what was happening and she experienced what was basically... It's peace. Yeah, she called it nirvanic. She said it was like nirvanic peace. It says it was euphoria. Yes. Nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 56:17 Highlight the passage at 56:17

56:47 Yes, I remember. And I was wondering, is there any link between what we're practicing here and what she experienced? Because a single black cloth just doing something. What we are doing here, just turning off the language center. Is this a roundabout way of getting a blood clot? Yeah. And we're doing, you know, because we're going to squeeze off the thoughts and the language. Report an error in the passage at 56:47 Highlight the passage at 56:47

57:24 Sure, I understand. And that thing's impressed in the cortex, basically just turning it off. Yeah. I understand. I understand. Yeah. The first answer is I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 57:24 Highlight the passage at 57:24

57:35 I mean, I could really stop there, but I never do. Report an error in the passage at 57:35 Highlight the passage at 57:35

57:40 But I don't know, because of course, I don't know what her experience was. It's also not replicable. She can't say, oh, I think I'll have a, that was really fun, I think I'll have another blood clot. So it was a fascinating, it got a real buzz. I mean, so many of my friends said, have you seen this? Have you seen this? You know, after I said, yeah, I've seen it. But it's not something you can easily replicate, and a lot of people have blood clots don't have that experience. Report an error in the passage at 57:40 Highlight the passage at 57:40

58:03 And the similar kinds of questions have come up by people who have taken LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, who knows what other kind of drugs as well, and saying, is this similar, is it similar? Report an error in the passage at 58:03 Highlight the passage at 58:03

58:17 There's one major difference, and that is she was literally incapable, I mean really incapable, of speaking and of doing and performing a number of cognitive functions because she had major, you know, golf balls like clot in her left hemisphere. So she was temporarily disabled through that. Now, disabled in one way and gave rise to this euphoria, the sense of, you know, what you just described. Report an error in the passage at 58:17 Highlight the passage at 58:17

58:43 But there was a disabling that was pretty severe. And if she'd been stuck with that, then she would be disabled for the rest of her life. If they were not able to undo that blood clot, then she would not be giving that very interesting and very... It's a performance, really. I mean, she was up on stage and then brings out an actual brain. Report an error in the passage at 58:43 Highlight the passage at 58:43

59:00 It was a performance. There's nothing wrong with that. But she could not have given that performance if she'd been stuck with that brain clot. She would have been, you know, she would have been stuck. So this practice here really does not disable in any way. Even when you achieve shamatha, you're not disabled. If you want to come out of shamatha, you come out of shamatha. Report an error in the passage at 59:00 Highlight the passage at 59:00

59:20 If you want to think, you think. If you want to imagine, you imagine. So you have deliberately released certain habitual processes. The process of the rumination, the OCDD. But if you want to start having OCDD again, you can. You snap your fingers and wham, you're off into a rumination. So this has, the term in Sanskrit is prashrapta. Report an error in the passage at 59:20 Highlight the passage at 59:20

59:39 It has a suppleness, a malleability, a buoyancy, a lightness. That does not characterize her with a brain stroke. She was locked in. She did not have access to any of the functions of her left hemisphere. And she had access only to one. So it was a fascinating experience. But number one, it's not one that she can teach anybody else to have. Report an error in the passage at 59:39 Highlight the passage at 59:39

59:58 Nor can she encourage anybody, do you have a blood clot, it's really interesting. Because there's no guarantee what it will turn out like. So I'm glad she had the experience, she reported it, it got a lot of people thinking. Report an error in the passage at 59:58 Highlight the passage at 59:58

1:00:10 But in any way, seriously, to equate that with Nirvāṇa is a really profound error. And like so many neuroscientists, she's heard a few little sound bites about Nirvāṇa, meditation and so forth. But that's not Nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa, if you achieve Nirvāṇa, this means your mental affliction never arrives anymore. When she had her blood clot. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:10 Highlight the passage at 1:00:10

1:00:30 fixed. Were mental fictions in any way attenuated? And I'm not standing in judgment. Maybe they were, but I didn't hear anything about that. Was she less prone to anger, selfishness, craving, greed, ego, arrogance, and so forth and so on once her blood clot was fixed? And don't think there'd be any reason to believe that. I'd say that with no sarcasm or judgmentalism, but why would anybody believe Whereas this sustained systematic training to purify the mind, to stable it, To achieve samādhi, develop vipassanā and so forth. This is designed to heal the mind really deeply so that afflictive tendencies, these, what do they call it, the refractory periods and so forth, they no longer arise. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:30 Highlight the passage at 1:00:30

1:01:11 So there would be some superficial resemblance as people have taken LSD, other hallucinogenics and so forth. Is this a little bit like? And we say, yeah, it's a little bit like, except you got it the short way. By a drug invasion on your brain, and as soon as the drug wore off, you're pretty much back to business as usual. If you put in 500 hours of meditation, you're not back to business as usual. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:11 Highlight the passage at 1:01:11

1:01:32 You've actually brought about a real transformation, a meaningful one. Through systematic training, you know what you're doing, and you're becoming healthier and healthier. So I think on the surface, some parallels. But there is no disabling in shamatha. That is, anything you want to do, you should be able to drop it and do it right then. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:32 Highlight the passage at 1:01:32

1:01:49 So I think the similarities are there. There's some significant, but not very deep. And she also mentioned, after the surgery, she tried to recover. It took her over 10 years to fully recover. Is that right? I didn't know it was that long. That was a serious, serious. Yeah, because it affects motor function as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:49 Highlight the passage at 1:01:49

1:02:20 And on the way to the recovery, right, and she experienced as the function of the left brain gradually comes back. And she experienced the pains, the anxieties. Pain and anxiety. Yeah, thoughts as well. And she concludes that human beings are dominated too much by the left brain. And all the happiness resides on the right brain. So if you can become less dominated by the right brain and step into the right, you get more happy. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:20 Highlight the passage at 1:02:20

1:03:06 I understand that. I'm going to cut you off now. I find it a bit too simplistic. I really do. here just basically releasing. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:06 Highlight the passage at 1:03:06

1:03:18 I've worked a lot with brain scientists, and I mean really good ones, you know, that are Harvard-trained and Albert Einstein Institute and so forth, and I'm sure she's good, but these type of statements just strike me as simplistic. There was a news, I've cited it, I think, in Mind and the Balance in that book. I'm not pitching it, but just for the source. It was just a couple of years ago that came out a report from a very reputable journal, a scientific journal, about a little girl born in Germany who was born with only one half of her brain. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:18 Highlight the passage at 1:03:18

1:03:46 Born that way. One whole hemisphere. I can't remember which one was gone, but one whole hemisphere was just not there. And she grew up and she was quite normal. 120 IQ, something like that. Cheerful, intelligent and so forth. And she literally had one half of a brain. So as soon as you start making really strong generalizations, left brain, right brain, well what about her? Report an error in the passage at 1:03:46 Highlight the passage at 1:03:46

1:04:07 Is she one half of a human? And what happened, and you put your finger on it, is that even though there was this really significant damage to her left hemisphere, a blood clot the size of a golf ball, that's not trivial. Nevertheless, over the course of, you said, ten years, over the course of years, then this extraordinary quality of plasticity sets in. And there is this self-reorganizing and modulation and so forth, synapses reconnecting and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:07 Highlight the passage at 1:04:07

1:04:32 And the brain does have, it's limited, but does have an extraordinary capacity to restore its own balance. As one other example of that, people who are born blind, born blind, they'll never see some major damage. This means a very large, maybe there's damage to the optic nerve or the retina. But irreparable damage, let's say. Or just not functioning at all. This means that a very major part of that person's brain, which is a large part, the visual cortex, it's a lot of mass. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:32 Highlight the passage at 1:04:32

1:05:00 That whole part of the brain has nothing to do because your retina, your eyeball, maybe you don't have an eyeball, whatever. There's just nothing to do. It's a great big chunk of machinery. They're just sitting with nothing to do. So what happens? The auditory cortex. Starts to basically encroach and use some of the neurons in the visual cortex. And they're appropriated by the auditory cortex, which means, as it turns out, you can start to hear better. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:00 Highlight the passage at 1:05:00

1:05:26 You can't see at all, but the auditory cortex is appropriating some of the neurons of the visual cortex and getting them to help out with the auditory work. So, I mean, this is quite wondrous. And this is solid science. I think everything I've said here is true. But what it does show is plasticity. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:26 Highlight the passage at 1:05:26

1:05:44 And so having only one hemisphere, and yet somehow she was a balanced individual. She wasn't just, you know, thinking in images but couldn't talk, or she wasn't just that she could talk and not have any images. So the scientists that I've engaged with, they say, you know, there's a lot of really good cocktail party stories about left brain and right brain, but in fact they are connected, with corpus callosum, they are connected, and the fact that they are connected then suggests they're on profound dynamic interrelationship. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:44 Highlight the passage at 1:05:44

1:06:13 So any notion that our happiness is on the right side of the brain and then all of our problems on the left, I don't believe it. Richard Davidson has done some of the best research on the neural correlates of happiness. Left prefrontal cortex. Left prefrontal cortex seems to play a pretty strong role in acting as a neural basis for the generation of positive affect, feeling good. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:13 Highlight the passage at 1:06:13

1:06:36 It's on the left side, right? So I think any generalizations, I'd be just awfully cautious. There's an awful lot of plasticity, you can have damage on the left side and then plasticity comes in and repairs it and balances you out a little bit. Or you don't have a left side, the right side then does a lot of work. Or there's one extreme case, and I've cited this in my latest book, academic book, Meditations of a Buddha Skeptic. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:36 Highlight the passage at 1:06:36

1:07:00 In fact, no, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to pitch books, but that's where the one about the left, the girl that was born with only one hemisphere. It's a latest book. It's quite recent. And we don't have it here, but it came out last fall called Meditations of a Buddha Skeptic from Columbia University Press. I cite the girl from a really solid journal, fairly recent. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:00 Highlight the passage at 1:07:00

1:07:19 That clearly happened. But another study that was done some years back, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years ago in England by a neurologist. And his specialty was studying hydrocephalitis. Did I get it right? Hydrocephalitis. Water on the brain. Water on the brain. And he was doing research in the UK of quite, I think it was 800 subjects that had to varying degrees this water in the brain. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:19 Highlight the passage at 1:07:19

1:07:45 And what that means is that part of your brain cavity is just filled with cerebral spinal fluid, basically glorified water. And so it's filling your brain, where there would be brain matter. Glial cells or neurons or what have you that would actually be doing some, you know, neuron-like activity. You have water instead. Well, he looked at people that had up to 95 % of their brain cavity filled with cerebral spinal fluid. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:45 Highlight the passage at 1:07:45

1:08:15 5 % brain, 95 % water. Most of them, no, most of them die. A majority of them are severely impaired. And a minority of them had normal intelligence. Now that's not been replicated. So maybe... Maybe, maybe, but it was published in the scientific journal, and he gave his data and so forth, so maybe it's all fraud, but maybe it's not. The title of his paper was, Is the Brain Really Necessary? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:15 Highlight the passage at 1:08:15

1:08:44 So, that one's certainly questionable, but I'm not going to write it off immediately just because it's bizarre, because that's not good science. To say, oh, that's bizarre, I can't believe it. That's not good science, that's dogma. The left, the girl with no hemisphere, that's true. I mean, that was clearly, that was very recent, peer-reviewed journal. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:44 Highlight the passage at 1:08:44

1:09:01 So all of this is to say that it's fine to make generalizations, but one wants to be very cautious. Very cautious because of extraordinary plasticity of the brain. And then I'll end on this note. I became good friends with one of the pioneers, modern pioneers of modern cognitive neuroscience. His name is Robert Livingston. And he's passed away now. But he was one of the people doing the groundbreaking work back in the 70s. And he and I did a workshop together right near Stanford. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:01 Highlight the passage at 1:09:01

1:09:29 And he made a... A comment I've remembered very clearly. He was really one of the grand old men. He was very, very bright. He was an MD, neuroscientist, very sharp, well published, very distinguished. And looking back on a very eminent career, because he was retired at that point, he said, well, one thing we have to first of all acknowledge, we brain scientists, that as time goes by, we will learn, the chances are we will learn that half of what we think right now to be true is false. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:29 Highlight the passage at 1:09:29

1:09:59 And then he said, The problem is we don't know which half. So I think that's just, I mean, I really respect that. He wasn't being, you know, ridiculously humble. He was just being really straight and showing a certain reality-based modesty that it is a very young science and this is the most complicated integrated system that we know of in the whole of the universe, the human brain. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:59 Highlight the passage at 1:09:59

1:10:22 It's just almost staggeringly complex. The mere fact that it's complex doesn't mean that, you know, that we can, how to say, mystify it. Magicify it and start making all kind of kooky statements like emotions come out of neurons. I find that kooky. I really do find it crazy that emotions come out of chemicals. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:22 Highlight the passage at 1:10:22

1:10:40 Like what chemicals are you talking about? I know the periodic table. Do you have another periodic table of mystical chemicals? You know, because they are after all just chemicals and electricity. So I think when they start throwing out words of complexity, well we should take that very seriously, but complexity is not an explanation. And when we get neuroscientists and others saying, A bunch of neurons together, like a hundred billion of them, and with a sufficient amount of complexity, then consciousness emerges. That's like going, waving your hands really quickly. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:40 Highlight the passage at 1:10:40

1:11:12 It doesn't explain anything at all. Or I would like to write a cookbook about how to make different kinds of cake. Strawberry cake, chocolate cake and vanilla cake. And for strawberry cake, you get eggs and milk and sugar and butter and with sufficient complexity they turn into chocolate cake. Now would you like to know the recipe for vanilla cake? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:12 Highlight the passage at 1:11:12

1:11:32 Well, it's eggs and butter and chocolate. And with sufficient complexity, it turns out, you know, it doesn't explain anything at all. Just saying complexity doesn't explain anything at all. So we need to know what kind of complexity and why do you think that the brain actually generates thoughts rather than simply configuring them or conditioning them or influencing them. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:32 Highlight the passage at 1:11:32

1:11:51 But then we've known that for a very long time. Back in the time of the ancient Greeks, there were a number of Greek philosophers that thought the brain was really the primary organ that was most closely related with the brain. And people have known for thousands of years that if you drink a lot of alcohol, that influences mental processes. So, to not be, how do you say, I don't want to be snide, but when I do see bad science, that bothers me. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:51 Highlight the passage at 1:11:51

1:12:17 We're leaping way beyond what the empirical evidence justifies. And so, one of your comments, a couple of them, not from you particularly, but relayed, wait a minute, that's bad science, that's bad science. Bad side, left side, bad, good side, good. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:17 Highlight the passage at 1:12:17

1:12:32 Too simple, too simple. Much more complex and we know so little. We know so little about the brain. So it's an exciting time. The neuroscientists, almost all of the neuroscientists I know are really enthusiastic, thinking, wow, this is the time of the brain. And it is good. It is good. But it needs to be in a broader context, a richer context. And when it comes to consciousness, this is our final night. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:32 Highlight the passage at 1:12:32

1:12:55 I'll end my little stand on my little speech on my soapbox. If there's any natural phenomenon that by its very nature does not lend itself to a reductionistic approach or methodology for investigating it, but demands multidisciplinary, multiperspectival, different methods and so forth, it's consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:55 Highlight the passage at 1:12:55

1:13:15 It's consciousness. Because a neuroscientist will give us some valuable information about how the brain does influence consciousness. And there's nobody to replace them. Nobody knows about the brain like the neuroscientists. Not Buddhists, Hindus, not philosophers, not physicists. They have something to contribute. We have to invite them to the party. Psychologists deal with experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:15 Highlight the passage at 1:13:15

1:13:35 They know a lot. They've studied the psyche a lot. Absolutely invite them to the party. We have philosophers who've been thinking about the nature of the mind-body relationship for centuries. They may have come up with some insights. They're really smart. They think very elegant thoughts. Invite them to the party. Physicists, 20th century physics. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:35 Highlight the passage at 1:13:35

1:13:55 In quantum mechanics, where we cannot avoid any longer or ignore the role of the observer, the observer participant, the person making measurements, somehow that is playing a crucial role and nobody quite knows what it is. Invite the physicist to the party. And then who on the planet has spent more time actually observing states of consciousness directly with sophistication and rigor and doing replicable observations and experiments than the contemporary traditions of the world? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:55 Highlight the passage at 1:13:55

1:14:22 The Taoists, the Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, the Sufis and the Kabbalists, just for starters, let alone the whole shamanic traditions around the world, they actually have more experience than anybody else of rigorous, sustained, in-depth probing into the nature of consciousness. And so we have to invite them to the party too. And now we have a very interesting party of people from contemplative, the philosophical, the scientific, physics, biology, psychology. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:22 Highlight the passage at 1:14:22

1:14:48 That's an interesting party. And that's how consciousness should be studied. And it's not yet. The pieces haven't quite come together. But we're close. We're close. And that means that in that regard, right now we are actually in an unprecedented state in human history, recorded human history. Because scientists have been doing their thing for a long time and Buddhist contemplative is doing their thing for a long time. But this particular configuration of all these pieces of mosaic, ready to come with mutual respect, but also aware of the... Report an error in the passage at 1:14:48 Highlight the passage at 1:14:48

1:15:19 Limitations of each of these disciplines. Don't go to the Buddhist to learn anything about the brain. We don't know. But don't go to the neuroscientist with all your questions about consciousness. They're clueless, but they're very good at putting on, you know, bluffing. They bluff a lot. I'm sure Buddhists do too, but man, the neuroscientists, they bluff a lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:19 Highlight the passage at 1:15:19

1:15:38 This emotion is located here and this image is here and the brain is doing that. And I say, wait a minute, where's the evidence? Who needs evidence? We're a neuroscientist, you know, forging it. So that was a bit of sarcasm. We can move on. But coming back to the positive note, if we can do something unprecedented, breaking down these barriers, getting universities to break down their walls and really come in cross-culturally and interdisciplinarily, that'll be unprecedented and could be enormously rich. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:38 Highlight the passage at 1:15:38

1:16:02 And then the rewards from that, to actually fathom the nature of consciousness, what gives rise to it, what happens to death, and not just come out with more beliefs and assumptions, but actually come out with some discoveries that are replicable and compelling to any objective observer. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:02 Highlight the passage at 1:16:02

1:16:18 What do you think, Peter? Would that be big? I think so. I think so. So, visions of lollipop dancing in our heads. Let's bring this evening to a close. Bring your own dearest aspirations to mind. And let's dedicate the merit from the day. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:18 Highlight the passage at 1:16:18

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:17:26 Bring this evening to a close. And I have only one more opportunity to give you homework as you fall asleep. And it's a really nice one. It's a really nice one. I've divided up all of humanity into two groups, right? People fall asleep easily. People who don't. One way of categorizing. And then of course it's all fuzzy because kind of, well some nights you fall asleep easily, sometimes you don't, etc, etc. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:26 Highlight the passage at 1:17:26

1:17:53 But we have a third method here, it's kind of obvious because we've spent the whole day doing it. When the day's finished, you're doing everything, you get into bed, go into the Shavasana, why not? But then, with this complete sense of release, we've already done it now in multiple sessions, a complete sense of release, including releasing thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:53 Highlight the passage at 1:17:53

1:18:13 Just, the lights are off, you can have your eyes closed, it doesn't make any difference. And just rest there, ever so soft, light, loose, as you can do it right now, Report an error in the passage at 1:18:13 Highlight the passage at 1:18:13

1:18:28 resting in the awareness of being aware. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:28 Highlight the passage at 1:18:28

1:18:33 Any thoughts that come up, just like the little girl with the balloons, just right back. Really soft, not intense, not fierce, not like that, just present, just touching, like two pinkies touching each other. Let your awareness just be in touch with itself. Just resting there. Just resting and not doing anything. Just resting in awareness. Keeping the light on. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:33 Highlight the passage at 1:18:33

1:19:02 And see as you're doing that whether your body can fall asleep and your mind can fall asleep. And you just keep the light on. The light of awareness. This is where the distinction between mind and awareness really plays itself out. Because your mind goes to sleep and your awareness doesn't. And you actually can fall asleep consciously. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:02 Highlight the passage at 1:19:02

1:19:21 And unlike the settling the mind, when we're settling the mind, we're seeing this image and that thought and this memory and this desire. That's kind of like having me jerked. Like, oh, arousal, arousal, arousal. And that can keep you awake, right? This one, whatever's coming in the mind, you don't care. You're not paying any attention to it. You're not attending to any of the thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:21 Highlight the passage at 1:19:21

1:19:41 Whatever's coming up, just release it because you're doing the practice we did of today. So there's nothing that arouses you, excites you, like, you know, jerks you, jerks you awake. It's just calm, it's serene, it's quiet, but it's clear. And see if you can just take that one slender thread of clarity, go right down. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:41 Highlight the passage at 1:19:41

1:19:58 It's like going down a tunnel, a deep tunnel, down deep into the earth and just keeping the light on as you go deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, until you come to the bottom of the tunnel. And it's called substrate consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:58 Highlight the passage at 1:19:58

1:20:13 Good night. See you tomorrow morning. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:13 Highlight the passage at 1:20:13