Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace 2012 (part 47)

0:18 As a brief reminder, the definition in Buddhism of consciousness is that which has these two qualities, or is defined by the two qualities of luminosity and cognizance. Report an error in the passage at 0:18 Highlight the passage at 0:18

0:33 And they're kind of self-explanatory and they relate immediately to our experience. There's nothing really mysterious about them. But they are showing two aspects and I can impact one of them a little bit more. The cognizance is pretty straightforward. And that is simply, it is the knowing. And so we've been exercising this cognizant aspect. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

0:51 Of consciousness over the last six days, applying to one object after another, maintaining a flow of knowing of the breathing in three different modalities. And then, with perhaps a little bit more interest, maintaining a flow of knowing of the space of the mind and then the objective phenomena that arise, the subjective impulses that arise. Report an error in the passage at 0:51 Highlight the passage at 0:51

1:10 But it's really about maintaining that flow of knowing and not falling into laxity or just being carried away. And then we come to awareness of awareness, now going into knowing of knowing, right into the awareness of awareness. So overall, this last six days has been very much strong emphasis on the cognizant aspect, refining, developing, this cognizant aspect of consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:10 Highlight the passage at 1:10

1:30 The luminosity, as I explained before, of course, is just the aspect of consciousness that makes appearances manifest or experiences, any type of appearances manifest. But there's a little bit more to it than that. Report an error in the passage at 1:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30

1:44 We already know a lot about it, but often it's not highlighted that much. And that is, consciousness not only cognizes, which of course it does, it also creates. And so when you're dreaming, where did all the dreamscape come from? All the people, the sounds, the events taking place, where did that whole world come from? Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

2:06 Well, I mean, it really came from only one place, consciousness. And so this is just one little indicator of the extraordinary creative potential. Just with an untrained mind, anybody can dream. Some people who have no meditative training at all have extremely clear dreams and some of them are lucid dreamers to boot. Report an error in the passage at 2:06 Highlight the passage at 2:06

2:26 But just that, the fact that the consciousness with no training whatsoever can create an environment that is so detailed, so vivid, that we're actually taking it to be real, that suggests an enormous amount of creative power in consciousness itself, let alone the power of consciousness that might manifest. Report an error in the passage at 2:26 Highlight the passage at 2:26

2:42 When it's really deeply refined, rather like moving from a flashlight to a laser. Well, a flashlight can create a lot of things, brightness here and brightness there. But a laser, you can do eye surgery, you can blow up rockets in mid-air and so forth and so on. And that's what shamatha is. It's a laser. It's very focused, it's homogenous, it's bright, it's clear. Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:02 And you can do a lot of things with it, as you can with a laser. So that's the closest technology analogy that we have, is development of a laser. And that's why I call the practice of shamatha contemplative technology rather than contemplative science. But to emphasize also with lasers, what can you do? Holograph. Report an error in the passage at 3:02 Highlight the passage at 3:02

3:19 Holographic displays. That's all based on laser technology. Now you have these three-dimensional images. I've seen some of them. They're quite interesting, right? And what more technological progress could we have there of using laser technology, creating more and more vivid, high-definition... Three-dimensional displays, which in science fiction, like the holodeck of the Star Trek series, they've let their imaginations run. So what I'd like to do for our last meditation here is like the yin-yang symbol. Report an error in the passage at 3:19 Highlight the passage at 3:19

3:48 We've had a lot of the cognizant, cognizant, cognizant, now a little drop of luminosity, the other aspect of consciousness, but not so much simply in visualizing, which is again one manifestation of the luminous aspect. Report an error in the passage at 3:48 Highlight the passage at 3:48

4:05 But using our creativity, our imagination, and using it in a way that it profoundly complements everything we've been doing for the last six days. And that is going back to meditative cultivation of loving kindness and using a power of imagination, of creativity, of imagery. So let's do that. That would be a nice way to end. So please find a comfortable position. Overall, the sitting would be better, but not if you're uncomfortable. In which case, supine is just fine. Report an error in the passage at 4:05 Highlight the passage at 4:05

· · · silence, 1 minute

5:21 Alasso. We have just a few minutes. Time to look ahead, since we'll be in our cars fairly shortly, and envisioning in this same spirit of kind of looking ahead, how can we take this, how can we transition from a rather cloistered setting where all of our food is taken care of, pretty much everything is taken care of, very serene environment, religious environment, which is also good, and moving from there to wherever we're going. Report an error in the passage at 5:21 Highlight the passage at 5:21

5:47 And so some very practical things is that we now have these three modes of shamatha, Like five forward gears on a car, three modes of mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind, awareness of awareness. Then from situation to situation, from day to day, morning to morning, evening to evening, to kind of take your own pulse and say, how's your mind now before you start meditating? Report an error in the passage at 5:47 Highlight the passage at 5:47

6:09 How are you doing? If you're feeling very tight, stressed out, it's the end of the day, one of those awful days, then you might really think, this is time for four-wheel drive, first gear, lots of torque. And that is go into your room, lie in your bed, turn off the lights and just go into meltdown. Just relax. And you fall asleep, you fall asleep. But if you don't, then you can start the balancing of deeply relaxing but maintaining that clarity. Report an error in the passage at 6:09 Highlight the passage at 6:09

6:35 So stage one, mindfulness of breathing. If you don't feel quite so ragged, you might feel, ah, don't feel stressed out, just agitated. Well, then rise and fall of the belly could be really good. Not that agitated, kind of normal. Then maybe up here to the apertures of the nostrils. If you gradually get the knack for being able to observe thoughts and not be carried away by every one of them, there's a tremendous richness to that practice. And then of course there's awareness of awareness, which is really going right into the very nucleus and the most profound shamatha that we've looked into. Report an error in the passage at 6:35 Highlight the passage at 6:35

7:05 So there is that, just kind of gauging, not thinking that you'll just do one unless you only want to do one, that's always an option. But I gave a variety, not only for different types of people, some may really want to focus on awareness of awareness, and that's primary. Other ones, another one and so forth. But also that these are kind of geared from coarseness to subtlety overall. And then you engage for yourself. So that's for the times formally on the cushion, whether it's 24 minute period or 10 minutes, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 7:05 Highlight the passage at 7:05

7:31 Maybe, oh, the Jews had a really good idea or the Jewish Bible, call it what you will. I mean, it's really quite bold. But taking out one day a week of Sabbath, but not Sabbath to watch rugby all day and eat chips and drink beer. Which is kind of the secular version of Sabbath, I think. But rather having one day out, just taking one day a week and saying, look, this day is for Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

7:56 It's just for Dharma. The other six days, give unto Caesar, Caesar's due. And that is for hedonic. We need to make a living, take care of our children, pay the taxes, do all the things that, you know, civic people do in society. Six days for hedonic, with, you know, peppered with, as much Dharma practice, formal as we can, but we really have things to do in the world. I do too. Report an error in the passage at 7:56 Highlight the passage at 7:56

8:16 But having one day a week that's just pretty sweet, just for Dharma, that'd be pretty nice. So that is always a possibility, or if that's not feasible, once every fortnight, once a month, whether by yourself, or maybe you have two or three companions, hey, why don't we just come over to my house, we'll have a one day retreat, you know, and just go back. Report an error in the passage at 8:16 Highlight the passage at 8:16

8:34 And you might play tapes of guided meditations, or you may just do your own thing, you might do some reading. It could be a mixture of meditation and reading. Contemplation may be a bit of kind of a study group, a book club. And talk about some Dharma. So that's a way to maintain, not only maintain the momentum, but also deepen it. So having some time for formal practice. But of course then there's all the other days of the week, six days a week or 30 days of the month or what have you, where we really do need to be engaged. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

8:59 And we're embracing this, this is our lives. In that context, when we're out and about in the world, cooking, washing dishes, taking care of kids and all that kind of stuff, then as much as possible, here's something that, in addition to all your other Dharma practice, can really, Give kind of a sweet taste to the whole day and that is seasoning the day. That's a phrase I really like a lot. Go back to the food analogy. And as we all know you don't have your food and then have a little cup of seasoning on the side but it's sprinkled depending on the food and then it gives the whole dish a nice flavor. Report an error in the passage at 8:59 Highlight the passage at 8:59

9:32 It enhances the flavor. So seasoning the day with 15 seconds here and 30 seconds there and 2 minutes there where you really can allow yourself the freedom to pause. One obvious one is red stoplights. Instead of just being, oh, when is it going to be over? Oh, good now! And just sitting with mild frustration because you couldn't quite make it in time and you had to hit the brake when you wanted to zip through and maybe there's police around. Report an error in the passage at 9:32 Highlight the passage at 9:32

9:59 And now you're just waiting. And instead of waiting, just don't wait. Say, ah, good, thank goodness it was a red light. I was hoping one of them would turn red. Report an error in the passage at 9:59 Highlight the passage at 9:59

10:09 Green, green, green. They have to always drive. They always have to be engaged with the traffic. But red light, finally. Good. Let it be a long one. And then with your eyes open enough you can see the light turning so you don't bug the people behind you. Then just go right in. Just practice however long the light stays red. Or you've just put down the telephone. Do you really need to leap immediately to the next task? Report an error in the passage at 10:09 Highlight the passage at 10:09

10:31 Or could you take 15 seconds? So many, really nobody is so busy that it's really wall to wall. I don't think anybody is that busy. We make ourselves that way, but reality doesn't demand it. 30 seconds here, a minute there, but the more, you know, 10, 15, 20 times a day, just those sequences of seconds where you just come back in any mode you like. Report an error in the passage at 10:31 Highlight the passage at 10:31

10:53 Mindfulness of breathing, oh yeah, oh nice, back to my body. And it's free, you know, it's free. And so coming back and seasoning the day with as many moments of that sort as you can. It can be very helpful. It rather elevates the whole level of mindfulness, attentiveness, introspection for the whole day to season it with that. So then we're engaging in a conversation. Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:16 You're doing work and so forth. There is a greater presence, a greater unification of awareness, which then is just bound to be good. So there's purely pragmatically. And then in terms of the basic food groups, I'm imagining most, if not all of you, came to this retreat already having some type of spiritual practice, perhaps meditation that you're already engaging in. Report an error in the passage at 11:16 Highlight the passage at 11:16

11:36 I utterly mean it when I say that shamatha is not in competition with any type of practice. It is a meditative practice. It is in the service of all other types of meditative practice, Kabbalistic, Christian, Taoist, whatever it may be, let alone Buddhist. And so that you can then introduce, if you found this six days helpful, that you can introduce any one or more of the practices we followed here and let this be then rounding out your diet, like enzymes or what have you. Report an error in the passage at 11:36 Highlight the passage at 11:36

12:04 Rounding out the diet, bringing greater stability, clarity and so forth to any other meditative practice. But according to your own inclination, seeing that you do have a balanced diet. Shantideva by itself is not balanced. It's really good. I love it. But all by itself, I'd say it's kind of like brown rice. If you could only eat one food, well, brown rice would probably be a pretty good option. Report an error in the passage at 12:04 Highlight the passage at 12:04

12:25 But still, it's not a balanced diet. It's a good food. And so to balance that out with something for the heart, like the cultivation of loving kindness. Something for the mind, whether it's reading, whether it's meditation, what have you. Something for wisdom, something for the heart, and then something to make the mind serviceable is a really good idea. Report an error in the passage at 12:25 Highlight the passage at 12:25

12:44 And then you have a balanced diet. And then you gradually just see your garden grow as you're cultivating your heart and mind and your whole way of life. And then with just a couple of minutes to go, I'd like to leave you with a truly extraordinary hypothesis that is then just open for inquiry. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:03 And that's exactly what I mean. It's open for inquiry. But it really is a startlingly different way of viewing reality. And that's just taking in the hole of what's happening. Report an error in the passage at 13:03 Highlight the passage at 13:03

13:13 And it has everything to do with eudaimonia or human flourishing, genuine happiness. I think all of us here are old enough to know that reality, just what's happening in the world, reality is not always friendly to our hedonic desires. Report an error in the passage at 13:13 Highlight the passage at 13:13

13:31 We hear celebrities get up on stage and say, to what do you attribute success? Just believe in yourself. And then all the people out in the audience were complete failures. Yeah, I tried that. It didn't work. So there are a lot of these little wonderful sound bites that very successful people say. They'll give these little sound bites. But there are other people who did exactly that. Report an error in the passage at 13:31 Highlight the passage at 13:31

13:49 And they're not successful. They're not on stage. They're sitting home eating their livers. It's like, I tried that. I believed in myself and nobody else did. Network, yeah I tried that, a bunch of flakes. Whatever they come up with, there's no formula for becoming rich, famous and incredibly successful. Report an error in the passage at 13:49 Highlight the passage at 13:49

14:08 Totally flaky people get really successful. And incredibly brilliant people sometimes don't. Extremely gifted people. Sometimes the chips just don't fall their way and they just dissolve back into anonymity from which they came. There's no guarantee. So there's just no reason to believe that what Buddhists call saṃsāra, we just call the world, that if we really believe in ourselves and we try hard, that somehow just by that power, reality is going to rise up to meet us and we will succeed in whatever we put our minds to. Report an error in the passage at 14:08 Highlight the passage at 14:08

14:36 Just put your mind to it and persist. Maybe, maybe not, but... It often doesn't happen, and that's just the raw, ugly truth of it. For some, yes, some not, and sometimes you can kind of figure it out, and sometimes you say, why did he succeed? Why? Dumb luck. And then that's not an answer at all. That's just saying, that's another way of saying, I don't know. And so, there we are. Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

14:59 So that's it for hedonic pleasure. It's an investment. It's like going to Las Vegas and investing in gambling. And there are people who get lucky. People who leave with big, happy smiles. Most people don't. And there is this deal, it's true in Las Vegas, or I don't know if you have towns like that, we have a whole state just devoted to iniquity. It's called Nevada. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:23 It's kind of like time out for the other 49 states. But there's a statement that's true for all casinos and cities of casinos, and that is if you stay long enough, the house always wins. Report an error in the passage at 15:23 Highlight the passage at 15:23

15:38 And so Whitney Houston, she won. She really won. But then the house won. And all of her beauty, she doesn't have any beauty anymore. And nothing else that she acquired in terms of hedonic pleasures. And I say that she's a sister. She says, I'm a sister. Do not think, please, that I'm looking down on her. Report an error in the passage at 15:38 Highlight the passage at 15:38

15:54 I'm not. But whatever it is, whatever we're acquiring in terms of hedonic pleasures, the household will just live long enough. And you die, and then the house wins. All that you acquire for yourself, you lose. Some of it you may lose incrementally. Disaster here, catastrophe there, divorce here, child dies there, you get cancer here, you can lose it by increments, but come what may, you just wind up losing all of it, no matter what. Report an error in the passage at 15:54 Highlight the passage at 15:54

16:18 So that's kind of the end game for the pursuit of hedonic pleasure. You lose. Whatever you acquired, you lose. And if that's the whole of life, then one sees why life can really be regarded as an ocean of suffering. But then there's this other aspect, yudaamonia, genuine happiness. Not getting from the world, offering to the world. Report an error in the passage at 16:18 Highlight the passage at 16:18

16:39 Aligning one's priorities is not to say that you don't like ice cream anymore, you don't like vacations, you'll never watch TV again. It's not to say that you just step on all of your hedonic pleasures. It is to say that you prioritize. And this is the spiritual truth that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years across different disciplines. St. Augustine, we're in a Christian setting here, let's quote their greatest authority after St. Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

17:00 Paul, St. Augustine. He said, the love of God is simply a matter of prioritizing your desires. That your love of God, and he described that as the passionate yearning to know God. That let that be your highest desire and everything else falls under that. Right? Very Christian. And I think very profound. If you're a theist, what better to know God? As he said, you know, face to face. And let all other desires be kind of subservient to that, supporting that like a pyramid. Report an error in the passage at 17:00 Highlight the passage at 17:00

17:28 But that's the apex right there. In Mayana Buddhism we say, okay, what's the highest? What's the apex? It's bodhicitta. And it's really simple. There's a really snappy, correct answer. Let your highest aspiration be to achieve perfect awakening in order to be of greatest possible benefit to the world around you. Report an error in the passage at 17:28 Highlight the passage at 17:28

17:46 And then everything else subservient to that. The pursuit of ultimate genuine happiness. Now that's a Mahāyāna Buddhist ideal. Taoists don't share that. Hindus don't share that. Okay. But where is the common denominator? From Aristotle to St. Augustine to Taoism to Buddhism to Vedanta and so forth. This theme of genuine happiness really runs throughout. Report an error in the passage at 17:46 Highlight the passage at 17:46

18:05 You don't even have to be religious, you certainly don't have to be theistic. But there it is, it's something real. And insofar as one says, all right, as in accordance with this meditation we just completed, if your aspiration for genuine happiness, and as you bring greater richness and wisdom and greater wisdom to that, as you mature in your own practice, your vision of genuine happiness, as you hold that as a north star for navigating your life, the pursuit of genuine happiness, not only for yourself in isolation, because you don't exist in isolation, But as we wish for genuine happiness for ourselves and others, entangled as one great big family, if we hold that as the highest aspiration, and then give it nuance as you wish, as a Christian, a Buddhist, Hindu or what have you, but there it is, it really forms around, like a pearl forming around a little nugget, the pearl of the aspiration of genuine happiness for ourselves and those around us. Report an error in the passage at 18:05 Highlight the passage at 18:05

19:01 If that becomes the North Star, that guiding principle, and everything else is leading to that, all other desires. Thank you for not falling. All other desires are leading to that, supporting that, but that is the desire of desires, the innermost, the heart's desire. If you lead a life in that way, where you have one single desire that is above all the others, but all of the others are not in competition with it, but serving to it, including just watching television sometimes to relax. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:27 That's part of it. Sometimes relax. Watch some television. Watch something fun. This is not draconian. It's not austere. It's not puritanical. It's not mean. Report an error in the passage at 19:27 Highlight the passage at 19:27

19:37 Gentle. If you hold that, then here's the hypothesis. To be tested with your experience. Be a scientist of life. And that is insofar as, because it's not being, you know, insiders and outsiders, insofar as we orient our lives around that vision, that highest ideal. And my life is all about finding genuine happiness for myself and others. Then with that, not hedonic, but this, then watch. Report an error in the passage at 19:37 Highlight the passage at 19:37

20:09 Watch. Does reality rise up to meet you? More than a psychological gimmick, making lemons out of lemonade, we have all kinds of little phrases for that, of just putting a good face on things, right? I'm not talking about that. That has its place of being psychologically clever to try to massage things and, okay, I can see that there was an upside after all. But I'm referring to something ontological. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:31 I'm referring to the nature of the universe, which we're assuming, materialists, secularists assume, it's just a great big mindless machine. If it could think, it wouldn't care about you at all. But it doesn't think, therefore you may assume, reality doesn't care about you at all. Because it doesn't care about anything, because it doesn't care because it's not conscious. But what if consciousness really does lie at the root? Report an error in the passage at 20:31 Highlight the passage at 20:31

20:53 It is core, as fundamental as anything else. What if it is this pristine awareness, called by whatever name, and we're aligning ourselves with the ultimate source of genuine happiness? We're gravitating to that. Might it be the case that as, or insofar as we align ourselves, orient ourselves, Towards the pursuit of genuine happiness, truly reality-based aspiration. That reality really does rise up to meet us. Report an error in the passage at 20:53 Highlight the passage at 20:53

21:21 The path unfolds before us in a non-random way, a meaningful way. That life unfolds in a meaningful way to us as we bring meaning to it. Then it's an entanglement. It's not just, thy will be done, God. I don't have a clue. Guide me. So it's not a dance. It's kind of like, drag me. Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

21:45 It's not, I shall do it all by myself, look out reality, I'm coming in elbows first. It's a dance. Reality does not rise in a meaningful way if you don't rise with meaning to it. If you're still looking for hedonic pleasure, lots of luck, but that's all it is. Or karma, whichever way you want to spin it. But if you rise to, like this dance, if you rise to reality in the pursuit of meaning, Eudaimonic well-being rooted in reality, then this reality says, yes, I'll dance with you in a non-random but a meaningful way. And you find realities unfolding to you in a meaningful way as you're unfolding to reality in a meaningful way. Report an error in the passage at 21:45 Highlight the passage at 21:45

22:25 Could reality be profoundly different than how it's absolutely typically presented in the modern media? It's just 13.7 billion years of mass energy expanding, which is utterly indifferent. Might that be part of the truth, but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So that's a question. I'm not here to indoctrinate, to dogmatize, but if that were the truth, wouldn't that be absolutely extraordinary if reality was user-friendly to those in the pursuit of genuine happiness? Report an error in the passage at 22:25 Highlight the passage at 22:25

23:03 And if it's just hedonic pleasure you want, welcome to Las Vegas. Luck of the draw, and the house always wins. Oh yeah. We're finished. So thank you all for coming. I certainly enjoy the time with you. Hope there's some benefit for you. I thank also, just before Claudio gets the microphone, the people behind the scenes, Tony Steele and Beth and the many other people that may end. Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

23:30 Wei Chong, correct? Thank you. Always have to work with the syllables there. And Claudio as well. Thank you all for making this possible so I can just come in, offer my best. So thank you all. Hope there's some benefit. Claudio, the microphone is yours. Thank you, Alan. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 23:30 Highlight the passage at 23:30