oh everybody, thanks for your flexibility and our new time I was actually traveling all day I literally just walked in the door like 10 minutes ago wasn't sure I was going to make it. So bless it are the flexible for they are never bent out of shape. We're going to shift from this middle of the day, two o'clock thing which never really was all that great for a number of people who have real jobs and work. It's a bit unfortunate for our European friends. Um, we're going to be doing these q&a things on it this time going forward. It's just it's just better for a whole bunch of people thought that's okay with you all. So not a ton to announce. Outside of some really fun podcasts. I did one. Let's see LSE after you mind me so I did one with that Ico that's posted. You have to check that out. This one's really quite nicely connected to the happiness program we're doing next weekend. Then I did one with what we was the last one we had. Bruce, Bruce Tift my friend Bruce TIFF. So that'll be he's the guy who wrote already free more Buddhism, the psychotherapy on the path of liberation. He's he's really a remarkable individual. Tomorrow, I'm interviewing Frank White, the astronaut who coined the term overview effect. And then next Wednesday, Robert Moss, he's a really big miscalibrated like 15 books on dreams. So some fun stuff happening along those lines and there'll be paint out the only thing to announce program wise is a week from tomorrow we started our three day little happiness event. Which I'm actually quite excited about. It's somewhat I can't or can't is based on a book. I looked at this book in like 30 years. I almost forgot I wrote him. I wrote this book 30 years ago. And it's based on it in a certain way, augmenting it with a ton of stuff that I've discovered since then, going from more entry level conventional ways of relating to happiness, all the way as you might suspect to the really deep end to the pool. What is happiness? Really? What are we really after? And so I'm pretty excited about the opportunity to dive into all of that. But for now, what we do I answer questions. I'm the I attempt to be the answer man. Three or four questions were piped in. I'll start with those first if you have things you want to raise your hand for. Why not just let me know. Pause. recording in progress. There we go. recording in progress. Okay. So this one's from Harry. Yes. Bob Thurman has said if you want to get a sense of your last life, look at your current body if you want to know your next life, look at your mind. Yeah, so I'm gonna this is a longer question. So I'm going to just pause when it seems appropriate and run some commentary on it. This actually originally comes from Padma Sun bhava where he said if you want to get a sense of your last life, look at your present conditions. If you want to get a sense of your future lives, look at your present actions. So this is Bob's kind of extrapolation of that. Okay, and also talked about how easy it is to find past life regression therapists. Okay, it hasn't been all that easy to me. But hey, Bob knows more. He rolls in these circles more than I do. Yes, exactly. So this is the next part of your question, Mary. I have not found that easy. I agree. And I'm curious about my last life because I survived a traumatic footling vaginal breech delivery in a blizzard without an OB present. Geez. Yeah, that's intense. I'm curious if you're listening how you know that mean? That's kind of cool. I always take it to mean I was very eager and needed to be here. But I'm curious how karma arranged such an entry despite being paralyzed for a time after the birth I have no physical issues and a very healthy body. Yeah, so this is a loaded question. There's a ton here. The first thing is you cannot put all your eggs in the karmic basket, that you just can't do that. That's a subtle form of Eastern reductionism. Oh, everything's due to karma. It's not, it's not. And this is where the conflation comes in. This is where the problem is. Everything arises due to causes and conditions. Karma arises is basically the archetype of causes and conditions. And then there's the conflation. Everything therefore must be karma. No, that's wrong. It's not the Buddha himself off, you know, talked about it in one of the early Mahayana Hinayana sutras when he talked about the five Nia was the five orders. And these are words just a very brief pinging out just to show you that karma Yama is just one to five. So utility, if I remember these properly, we turn the Yama which is fundamentally what we know is physics, beach and a Yama which is fundamentally what we know is biology. Genetics. Shit in the Yama is basically what we know about mind psychology behavior, dharma Yama, which is basically the dharmic teachings that are applicable to this sort of thing. And then karma Yama, five behavioral consequences. So you can't do this isomorphic thing. You can't just say, oh, because I had this. You're gonna have this, you know, everything that happened now happened because of what happened in the previous slide. It just doesn't work that way. Oh, I'm parenthetically. I almost forgot. I'm in conversation with Jim Tucker, who basically at the University of Virginia, I'm going to be there in a couple of weeks at a conference. He's the guy who took over the mantle from Ian Stevenson, who did these amazing pioneering research studies at UVA, suggesting, you know, 1000s of studies, you read the literature, and it's incredibly powerfully suggestive suggestive of this whole rebirth reincarnation phenomenon in Jim Tucker MD, picked up the mantle and he's he's doing it now. So I'm we're gonna meet during the conference, and hopefully I'll be able to bring him in for an interview. But basically, here Mary, this is really actually this is really important. Everything arises because of causes and conditions, karma arises because of causes and conditions, but that it does not follow. And that's the conflation, that everything therefore is karma. No, it's not. Because then you have this kind of determinism thing going on in the world isn't that way. I mean, shit happens. Accidents happen. It's not all karma. So this is where it's helpful to know about the five the four other orders, the different factors that influence causality that influence phenomena arising. And so therefore, this type of question is almost impossible to answer. The only person who can even attempt to answer that are really completely realized or very highly realized beings, who can somehow tune into the 10 drawl, and say, This is what was due to a past situation. Now with that said, I'm not saying that there aren't these kinds of correlations. I'm not saying that. So I'm not swinging the pendulum all the way into the other positive baskets. I'm not saying that in fact, part of Yun Stevenson's work and Jim Tucker's work will come in and they'll have like a scar in this life or some little thing and then they do a past life thing or whatever they find out that there was were a bullet one and there's definitely something going on there. But you can't say that it's all due to karma. So in terms of like, what's going on there? You have to ask really, very, very, very few really highly realized beings have the capacity to tune into the tempo and say this is due to that. And here's what here's another thing. I understand where you're coming from here. And I get it. But let me just throw something out. This just came to my mind. That's on one level. Yes. Yes. Knowing the history and the conditioning and all that kind of stuff. Yes, provisionally that's important. But on another level, don't get too hung up on that sort of thing. If you know the beautiful quote from James Joyce. History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake. And and let me just share a story. A couple stories around this that I think are important one is from Zara Contra, Rinpoche I really liked this guy, wonderful Lama, semi raffle. I mean, his style is pretty cutting. And that's one of the reasons I really like him. And he was doing a presentation years and years and years ago up here in Boulder. There were a lot of Naropa students there and whatnot. And, and I'm paraphrasing I'm sure you know, I'm not doing what he said the proper nuance and justice but fundamentally what he said after listening to two or three days of questions from all these
students and whatnot, me paraphrasing and he said, you know, you Westerners, you're always processing processing, processing. This is just cut. Just cut in this is there's a lot to be said for that. I mean, I have never been, and again, I'm not criticizing the psychological thing. I'm not at all I'm an indigo students as a place that's why you interview Bruce Tift I'm not criticizing any of this stuff at all has a bandwidth here. But we just have to be really careful to put all our eggs in this one basket I've never heard one spiritual teacher and dozens and dozens and dozens that I've had interviews with to present with issues now one said tell me about your parents. Tell me about your past, not one, because they're more interested in the immediacy of the present moment. They're more interested in how are we going to relate to the phenomenal rising as it is now? Right? That's, I think, really something to pay attention to. And once again, I'm not dismissing the validity of doing the psycho graph doing the history during the trauma stuff. I mean, when you do if you do psychedelic assisted psychotherapy things and you're working with deep trauma 99.9% of this is due to stuff that happened in your history. That stuff really has to be worked through. I'm not criticizing that I'm just saying that we have to be a little careful. There's this is the fact precisely what I talked about with Bruce we just haven't released that interview yet. The difference between the developmental and the fruition of approaches. The traditional approach is more immediate presentational immediacy. Whitehead called it what's happening right now work with that. The developmental approach deals more with the history of the psychology the processing of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Yes, it has a place but I think you get the point here don't get too caught up and you know, all this processing stuff. On one level tadhack correction cut through. So part two of your question, does Buddhism have ideas about the circumstances of previous lives that lead to certain birth like breech twins face up? Yeah, of course they do. But they're not that much. You know, I mean, it's almost like tangential really and that's the way I relate to it's kind of interesting, but I'm not going to spend my time on it. Because first of all, well anyway, I leave it. Could it be related to the type of Death Violence war? Yes, for sure. I have a friend who was born the same way who feels it meant she was kicking and screaming not to come back to samsara? I, I that's an imputation. In my estimation, I mean, who am I to say that that's accurate or not, but I would be a little cautious about this kind of imputation projection thing in my world that doesn't carry a lot of traction. That's just me. Do you have any experience with or comments on past life regression? I don't roll a whole lot in this world. Michael Newton's work. Yeah, but Thurman talks about him. I don't roll a ton with as I did with him when I was a teenager. And again, I'm not criticizing this stuff, but when I was into the kind of new age thing, I'm not criticizing it. I did a little bit of that stuff I O. Wilson named William David, this wonderful guy. He was a past life progressive guy, a classic mediator. Akashic mediators, you know, like Casey was that who could read the records? could read the Akasha. And then basically tell you, Oh, this is what's happening. And you know, what's happening in your life now, is that working out of this particular karma? I think there's some absolute positive positively. There's some validity to that. But I don't roll too much in these sorts of things past life regression stuff. I've never done it except for that one time and I didn't do it intentionally. I wasn't hypnotized. I wasn't regressed. This is just what some guy this guy said as a precaution ear. I don't rely too much in this world, simply because more and more traditional in the sense of like, what's happening presentational immediacy, what's happening now how can I relate to what's happening now? Because otherwise, like I mentioned, you can just get so caught up in all the factors. And a lot of this is really pretty conjecture. I mean, who's gonna say with any authority on this stuff, right? So that's just me. That's just my disposition. So anyway, Thanks, Mary. I hope that's helpful. Okay, from joy, when a beautiful name your presentation a few weeks ago with a transitional Life Care was excellent. Thank you so much. I did a riff for them. They're a wonderful group, and inspired me to begin reading your books. Oh, that's very kind. Thank you for doing that. The books are beginning to arrive. Oh, that's exciting. Now I'm wondering if you recommend reading them in any particular order, which Oh, you're still very kind which might be beneficial. I began reading preparing to die. Thank you for your high energy presentation. Certainly. So yeah, thank you joy for the kind words. You know, you know, joy, it kind of depends on what you're really interested in that that particular presentation was an end of life stuff. So I think beginning to read preparing to die would be the most appropriate in that instance. And then Ah, geez, what to say, you know, maybe my very first book, The Power and the pain, because that's a little bit connected to transitions and whatnot. And then maybe Dream Yoga. But you know, this is this is just like ah, there it is. There. It isn't Spanish, beautiful. It's kind of like what are you interested in if you're interested in really, really deep, profound philosophy kind of theory. You're so kind bringing up these books. Look at that. Oh, my gosh, that's so sweet. There's joy bringing up all these books. He's got it all. You were kidding. Oh, my God, Joy. You just made my whole day. There it is. Because you know, it's all about me. Oh, you're so sweet. Oh, my God. You just made my whole day. Thank you so much. So you know, if you're really into the deep, deep stuff, dreams of light is my deepest book. Meditation and iGeneration is probably the most accessible entry level book, The Harvard hit press. Our lucid dreaming workbook is also probably one of the more easier books and the other ones are slightly heavier lifting and then I've got you know, I've got two more coming up. So maybe just roll with those Joy see what you know, just inspires you when you look at the cover or whatnot, but I'm so touched that you even asked the question or even by my propaganda, thank you so much, actually, really, it really means a lot to me. Thank you. Okay, from Patrick. In the 11 months since I joined nightclub, that's those of you who may not be nightclub members. That's the platform that we started almost four years ago to help people with nocturnal meditations. Since in the last month since I joined a club I've had 10 lucid dreams. That's very good. I know I would not have been able to accomplish this without the site. Well, that's really great. Thank you, your help. And the members. That's Patrick, that really makes me happy. Thank you. My lucid dreams are mostly short, that's fine. That doesn't mean that they're somehow less effectual or less profound, short, lucid dreams are fine. I become lucid and then wake up in about 30 seconds. That's super common. Can you recommend any tips on how to prolong the lucid dream and not wake up? Yes, I can. So number one is asked for more. Like if you're a fundraiser, you know, it's amazing what you can get if you just ask for it. And so by this what I mean is we make a second order. First Order intentionality I want to attain lucidity in my dreams. And this is actually quite common, playful, comical when I do my Dream Yoga programs because 1234 or five days depending on the person. Somebody who's never had a lucid dream will almost invariably have one. They come in the next day. It's actually quite touching. It's really sweet. They're just bursting. They just this is I just had my first lucid dream. It's just unbelievable. And then I'd probably say 80% of the time they say exactly what you're saying the object, but it didn't last very long. And so then I go, okay, okay, well, let's take a look at this. What did you ask for? Is to have a lucid dream. You got what you asked for? asked for more. Second order intentionality, those listening to some teachings from suddenly rotate this week, where again, a single instruction he gives for Dream Yoga, slash lucid dreaming is intention. And he was talking about I hadn't heard this languaging from him before. I really liked what he said how it is that intentionality is that which bridges conscious and unconscious mind I thought that was spot on. And so basically what you do here Patrick is is second order intentionality put some octane in it. Yes, yes. Tonight I want to wake up I want to have my lucid dreams number one order, you know, but another order in I want to wake up in my dream and I want to have a longer dream so that I can do X, Y and Z. Right. So as seemingly simple as it is patronizingly set the intention, ask for more. And then the other thing you can do is
again, if you go back Patrick and listen to the some of the earlier webinars that we did on night club, I know I have at least one if not two webinars devoted to exactly this topic, because it's so common so if you if you go back through we did like 5060 webinars I can't remember how many we did. And we I think it's pretty comprehensive and exhaustive with all these sorts of things. So I know I devoted at least one if not two, webinars to this topic. So if you want to go back in and listen to that, if you're a nightclub member, that's a really good thing to do. But the next thing that is really, really helpful is with a little familiarity, you'll get a sense of when the dream is starting to dissipate. Well actually, let me say let me say there's two other things. So in addition to what I just said, when you have a lucid dream, you wake up in the dream. The first thing you want to do is remember okay, like Okay, wow, this is awesome. This is a lucid dream. Okay, well, what was I going to do today? This is why it's helpful to know and setting the intention, what you're going to do that'll help you stay in the dream. So what was I going to do today? Oh, yesterday I was going to do whatever, whatever fly Whatever. Stage two stage three, Dream Yoga, it doesn't matter that will help you stay in it. And then immediately participate in something whatever is happening in the dream. Get involved. Get involved in the dream because usually when you pop out of the dream is because you're you're you're in a certain sense, you're differentiating too far. You're backing out too far. And so lucidity is a tightrope. Not too tight, not too loose. If you're too loose. You're just gonna flop right into a non lucid dream. If you're too tight, you're gonna pop out and wake up. So this is where it takes a little bit of practice, but what I've discovered is raise your gaze down that keeps the winds down. So you're in a lucid dream, lower your gaze, because that actually even even though there's there's just your dream eyes in there, by lowering your gaze, you're lowering the winds which are going to keep the winds from coming up into your head and they're going to keep them in the throat. Sometimes just look down at the ground. Just literally look down participate with whatever action is happening in the dream, engage it right away. And then one thing that you can do is the dream starts to fade you'll start to notice this with some proficiency facility, you'll start to notice the colors become more black and white. The scenes become more disjointed, more fragmented. You'll start to know when a dream is starting to fall apart. When that happens, this is from Stephen, the bearish and there's a physiological reason for doing this and bloody works. You start spending like a whirling dervish. I can't tell you how many times I've done this. Literally just like a whirling dervish you start spinning that engages the dream has something to do with the vestibular apparatus that helps kind of maintain the consciousness in the dreaming state. And if you don't want to do that, the other one that I did that I discovered is just moving your arms like pinwheels. Again, it's just this kind of this idea of of participation in the participatory nature of the whole thing. So number one intention, second order intention asked for more. I want to have a lucid dream. So I can do this. I want to have longer dreams, right? You wake up in the dream. What am I going to do remember? Oh, yes, I'm going to do this. Engage the dream look down. And then number three, when it starts to fall apart, start spinning. Okay, part of me thinks this is happening because I'm coming to the end of an REM cycle in the morning, maybe I can't say that unless you actually hooked up in your sleep architecture can be registered. So that's I can't tell you if that's the case. And awareness lucidity is entering the dream. As it is coming to an end my last two lucid dreams have I have jumped, jumped while outside trying to fly. And I will catapult myself into the air real high and then come down landing making a pure parabolic shape. About a half mile from where I started. That sounds kind of cool. Any tips on how to stay in the air longer? Yes, fit yourself with a parachute man. Right. Put a parachute on your shoulder did generate a parachute I'm not kidding, right. Or propeller. I'm actually I mean serious. Best yet a propeller with a parachute. And then what intention again? Any tips on how to stay in the air longer that is just that it's just adorable. I love that and actually maneuver through the sky. Yeah, I mean, what is again, setting the intention. And then I'm also not kidding. Put a little propeller just fit a propeller on your forehead. You know, you don't need a plane, right? This is kind of cool. Just create a propeller on your forehead. Right? Right. fit yourself. With a parachute, and then go for it. So somewhat playfully, somewhat tongue in cheek but also somewhat somewhat serious, right? And then get back to me, Patrick, let me know how that goes. That's really kind of cool. Okay, so let me see if I'm missing anything else and then we can open it up to live questions. Let me see if there's one here. Oh, yeah. For Matt, this came in earlier. We'd love to hear your thoughts on use of using lucid dreaming to overcome addictions, specifically compulsive overeating. This is a good one. Well, I can say something a little bit more about the addiction part just generically the compulsive overeating thing. I mean, you have to have pretty stable, powerful lucid dreams to work with that kind of compulsivity. I'm not saying it's impossible on a dream. I think you can absolutely positively do it. But you got to be pretty stable. I've never tried working with that sort of thing. I mean, you could do if you did try something just thinking out loud. You could try some kind of role playing thing. I have not read anything in the literature about this particular approach with compulsive overeating. Now the notion of addiction that no that's a different story that I can say something about and in fact, in the happiness program next week, I'm going to talk a little bit about because I've been reading books like this that will give you the title irresistible, the rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked. I'm super interested in the pathologies of online addiction, social media, toxicity, toxic spills, online, that kind of stuff. And so I'm very I've always been very interested in the phenomenology of addiction. I wrote quite, I wouldn't say extensively two, three chapters in my first book, power and pain, about the addiction principle, that fundamentally we're all addicts. We're all Yeah, Joy. If you look in the book, I think it's like part two, somewhere in there. There's a couple of chapters on addiction, what I call ground addiction, one ground addiction to I'm going to talk about this in the happiness program, because basically, we're all addicts in addiction. As a matter of degree. We're all addicts. We live in the realm of addiction because this is literally the realm of samsara. cosmologically. This is a realm of grasping passion. That's this is a realm of addiction. And so what we know is conventional addictions are just epiphenomenal displays of this fundamental root addiction. We're all addicts. And I'll share on the weekend how I discovered this when the primary substance abuse that I was engaged in my three year retreat was taken away from me stasis. And so this is where I discovered I said, wow, we're really we really truly are all addicts. I mean, this is not hyperbolic. This is literal. We're addicted. We're addicted to form. We're addicted to movement, which creates karma we're addicted to substance to the principal substance abuse is thought we abused that substance. The other substance we abuse is matter. It literally physicality. And so, in the deeper part of the weekend, I'm going to talk about the whole addiction addiction is a term that originally came about is a thinking in
was it in Greece related to paying off a debt will lead to slavery. So I'm going to I'll share some of the etymological in the first origin of the word addiction. So my thoughts on using lucid dreaming to overcome addictions hard stop, man now that you can use big time, this specific thing about compulsive overeating, OCD all these other kinds of things I think that's that's completely viable, pretty darn lucidity to do that kind of thing. But working to overcome addictions. That's that's part and parcel not so much for lucid dreaming but Dream Yoga, which transcends but includes lucid dreaming. And you could say right starting from ground 01 of the principal addictions we're trying to overcome is our addiction to non lucidity. lucidity is a code word for awareness. Non lucid dreams are distracted dreams. We are distraction junkies. We are addicted to distraction. That's why this is such a dark age. And so lucid dreaming Dream Yoga to overcome addictions. I mean, that's what Dream Yoga is all about. Addiction to all these bad habit patterns. I mean, habit patterns come into play here. Basically, habit formation is a tautology. We're addicted. To these things, karma. And so lucid dreaming Dream Yoga for overcoming that absolutely positively and so if you go to these kinds of root addictions, ground addictions as I call them, the principal ground addictions or addiction to movement or addiction to form to body to thought that kind of substance abuse this takes place all the time. You go after those ground addictions, all this other stuff is going to fall away because it's just a deck of House of Cards, and the compulsive overeating and all these other secondary, tertiary quaternary addictions. They're all epiphenomenal to these food addictions. And so that match this stuff is totally addressed somewhat a little bit and lucid dreaming massively in Dream Yoga. I mean, Dream Yoga is largely about just this. So I'm not sure if you're here, Matt, and you want to come on I can definitely riff a ton more on that. But that's what comes to mind for now. Okay. And I think that's all I have if if there's any live questions or comments if someone is here that I did address your question and you want to follow up or some points of clarification, you want me to say more? Just raise your hand and come up. In the meantime, I will look in the chat column and see what pops up here.
All right, we've got Jerry with his hand up. Dr. J.
Oh, yeah, that was yes. And the mechanics of happiness. Yes. It wasn't published. It was my it was a 400 page training book that I wrote in 1996. That I'm literally I told you when I'm doing the book stuff. The book club sharing thing that I generally don't read my books. I haven't read this book in 30 years. And so it's actually kind of fun. And I might I don't know if I'll pitch this to a publisher I might self publish it. If my house doesn't burn down, I don't I don't have this I hit I wrote this on an Apple Mac Apple would have screen about this big right? With a floppy and so I don't I don't even have that. So I only I have one hard copy in a three ring binder 400 pages. So if my house doesn't burn down, and that's gone. I might try to self publish it later. But yeah, that one I didn't publish yet. Okay, let me just get a couple more here from candy and they'll get Dr. J. Where did you address end of life stuff? Yeah. So candy. I did this. I did a presentation. You can find it on their site. TLC, transitional life care. They invited me to do a riff so I presented something there. Check out their website. This is they really have some wonderful people. A lot of llamas from DJs and whatnot have come on. And I was quite flattered when they invited me. So I did a fun rap riff with him a couple of years, couple of weeks ago. Transitional Life Center. You can find it there. I'm about to take a death doula training. It would love to know what other organizations are out there 90 missing? Well, you know, since you brought it up, I wasn't gonna say anything because we're going to start pitching this in two weeks after the happiness program is over. But if you go on my main site, candy, you'll see a link. We just posted it like a week ago. This is a program. No exaggeration. We've been working on it for 10 years. A three month really rigorous, comprehensive spiritual practical preparation for the end of life benefiting self another. I haven't started kind of promoting that just because those are the things that are aligned but the the actual program won't start until July 5. But it's it's really and we're super excited about it. So if you go on on the main site, my main site, we just put the link up there. It'll give you a really pretty systematic overview of what we're presenting there. I'm really excited about it. So much more on that later. Okay, hold on Dr. J. One from Tim and then to you I am still very interested in your three year retreat and have some questions. What were your main gains from that? Oh my gosh, Tim. This was the most transformative thing I ever did in my life. I wrote a paper on it. I think it's on my main site. It's called rocks into rubies. I wrote the first thing I ever wrote coming out of the retreat, this three year retreat was the most transformative thing I ever did in my life. I don't even know where to begin to tell you what were my main gains. One was I discovered that I'm an addict. I mean, that was a really powerful thing. The first three months were unbelievably difficult, and I really wasn't doing anything really and it's like, why is this so bloody hard? So I realized I was in a detox center, and I was detoxing from samsara. I was detoxing from Western, you know, I'm still in recovery from Western civilization. So I mean, I don't even know where to immediately this was the most impactful thing I've ever done in my life. The whole nocturnal meditation thing completely came alive for me. I did 5060 different practices over three years. Everything I've rift on since has been germinated from what happened in three year retreat, power and pain was inspired by that book. All the body yoga stuff I do all the dreaming stuff started in retreat. All the nature mind stuff I'm doing now. i i cannot there's no way I can overstate the impact of this time. I mean, three years of constant complete Exynos five years it was one year in when you're out when you're in when you're as a five year retreat. I don't even know where to stop it. There's just so much here. I know that your development of lucid dreaming was a very main and important one. But what about some of the others? Well, BARDA yoga came into into play Maha Mudra the UNM deities? I mean, you name it, man. I mean, this is a whole book right here. Do they remain after that we today did they fade away? Well, you know, that's a difference between yame and Topaz states and traits. Some of the states weren't stable, but that's why you come out and you stabilize them. So some faded others, the ones that I had a sweet spot for, stay with me and if turned somewhat stable. Did you stay there the whole three years now when you're in when you're out? I had a chance to mix meditation with post meditation to incorporate the first year's training and to prepare for the second year of training. So it was really a five year retreat. Did you basically live like a monkey? Yes. I did shaved head robes and everything you would loved it. Do you think this could be done and still maintain a marriage as possible? But it ended mine. I lost everything. I died. I lost my job. I lost my house. I lost my wife. I lost everything. It was a death. Can you do it and maintain a marriage? Yes. Is it easy? No. Somebody's got to really get ever really together kind of unit there. It can be done. I know people who've done it. It's just not easy. I have more but there's enough for now. Yes, I have more. But I also think that's enough for now. Yeah, you get me started on my three year retreat. We're gonna be here for three years. This is by far the most impactful transformative thing I have ever, ever done. And for people who are interested in like long retreat things I mean, I can't overstate the importance the preciousness of working with your mind and your heart without distraction for so long. So intensively it's it's a complete it'll change it'll turn your life upside down. It changes everything. So yeah, I'll stop there because otherwise we'll be here forever by far the best thing I've ever done in my life. Hands down. Okay, Dr. J. And then Mary. Hardaway, Dr. J. Oh,
hello, Andrew. You know, this Monday, I was listening to Jeffrey
Stevens. Oh, he's such a great guy. I love
as usual. It was a marvelous program. Marvelous. Immediately after the program ended immediately on my, you know, my web browser. I went to the New York Times the front page, and what I saw there was something mind boggling. You know, usually if you click on an article if you don't have a subscription, you know, something probably covers up the the
Yeah, no,
totally. But anyways, this time when I went to New York Times, you know, right at the top of the page on the right hand side, there was an article there was an interview of Dr. Roland
Griffin. Roland Griffiths. Yeah. Who's dying and he's a Psychedelica. Yeah, I'm gonna see him this summer when he comes to the maps conference.
It's what's amazing is if you clicked on it, it actually showed the article if you have a subscription or not. And, you know, he's the head of Center for psychedelics and consciousness. In the interview, he says you know, that he has stage four on curable colon cancer. Yeah, he's
dying. Yeah. He died. Oh, he's dying.
Oh, yeah. Yes, that's exactly what he said. And it was amazing what he said. Like, how happiness and joy and
use a beautiful human being. I mean, check out the movie aware. Is that what it's called? Listen, maybe you can help me aware. Something in consciousness. This is a really beautiful, beautiful film. I show it in my barber programs. And there's a really extensive little riff clip there with Roland Griffiths. He's one of the premier voices from Johns Hopkins actually in the world now in psychedelic, especially psilocybin. He's a colossus and he's a beautiful human being. You'll also hear a number of really beautiful, I don't know what, who the podcasts are off the top of my head. I'd have to dig him up. But he's done some really powerful, extensive podcast around what he's facing now. And I mean, yeah, I mean, I kind of cut you off a little bit, Dr. J, but he's a wonderful, wonderful man.
Yeah. You've met him personally. And so no, I mean, I mean,
over the summer. I haven't met him personally. No, I've never been to Johns Hopkins, but I definitely know his work. He's a giant in the world of psychedelic research. Colossus
because he said he says in the interview, his doctors give him a 5050 chance of living until Halloween.
Yeah, right. Right.
But it's a fantastic article.
Yeah, it's my friend David Lloyd sent it to me. He's amazing human being so if you can get it I highly recommend you read it completely. Oh, I did I I mean everybody, everybody here who's watching. Okay. Thanks, Dr. J. Berry. How are you?
Hi, can you hear me? I can. Okay. So I listened to your interview. today with Dr. Is it Fagin federal Federico phi gene by Gene. Yeah. I learned so much. Towards the end of the interview, you said I just want to get it right. That for many years you have drunk the Tibetan Buddhist Kool Aid. Yeah. For many, mostly for tax purposes. And I wondered if you could expand on that and explain it. As somebody who's taken your to pure retreats and many other Buddhist courses with you? I was I was I was perplexed.
Oh, it's interesting that that's what you were focused on. That's very playful. Yeah, you know, so yeah. You know, it's just my goofy humor with I really got into a playful place with that ego. You know, I mean, this guy's a genius, right. I mean, founder of the microprocessor, founder of the touchpad, founder of all these amazing companies. I mean, rich beyond means he's amazing. In his book, silicon is really interesting. And he has an incredibly sophisticated quantum bit quantum information base pan psychism view, unconsciousness, that is not at all easy to understand. So anyway, that's the sidebar. So I basically said that, if somewhat playfully you know, I definitely I've drunk the Tibetan Buddhist Kool Aid. I mean, that's the Kool Aid. I was drinking for five years. And retreat. I love the flavor. But I also acknowledge that you know, here's, you guys know if you know me at all. I'm a integral person. I'm a curious you know, I'm a, the Buddha wasn't a Buddhist for God's sake. Christ wasn't a Christian, right? And so, when I say I'm a Buddhist for tax purposes, I say that somewhat playfully, that I haven't again, I have tremendous, I mean, my shrine is over here. I've got shelves and shelves, all everything you're seeing here. These are my practice texts. These are all my liturgies I mean, I have probably 1000 books on Tibetan Buddhism. And so it's still this is like still my main gig, right? I am a deep conservative student of Tibetan Buddhism, but nobody has a patent on truth. And listen, we haven't posted it yet. But when? In my rift with Bruce tiff coming up, we talked about how there's no discipline, anywhere on the planet is complete in its description of reality. If they say they are BS, listen to my conversation with Sean SBR. And Hargens listen to any Indigo theorist. So I mean, I have tremendous allegiance to Tibetan Buddhism. It's my gig when I die. I'm going to visualize the DDS, I'm going to do my poor practices. I'm going to do everything I've been trained. But I'm also you know, I'm a deep fan of truth. The Buddha, wherever you find the truth, you will find my dharma. I don't care where it comes from. I'll take it from the physicists. I'll take it from the philosophers from the neuroscientists. And so therefore, that that was just a little bit of a playful thing of of don't limit yourself don't ossify your tradition. Don't circle the wagons around your own thing. Because if you do that I had this thing on every one of my emails is beautiful quote from tick, not harm. The minute you start to think you know, everything that's the end of your progress, the minute you think you have one, whatever, that's going to solve it. Right off the rest of your evolution. You're that's just ego coming into play. And so the Buddhists are completely aware of this self liberate even the antidote, the emptiness of emptiness thing. They have this really very powerful self self corrective mechanism that if you really pay attention to the Buddhist teachings altogether, they're just a raft to get you to the to the other shore, and then you you know, run around with a raft on your back, you leave it on the shore, you let it all behind, celebrate even the antidote. So I don't know where else to run with this Mary. But you know, basically, i i bide very powerfully by the tennis I think it's for me, it's the most powerful, descriptive mechanism, plus all the skillful means for exploring mind in reality and that's why I do consider myself a card carrying Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist. But
I asked because I didn't pick up the humor at all, so I'm really happy I asked you Oh, yeah,
yeah, it was probably just went too fast. No, it's all said tongue in cheek right. So hopefully that helps.
Yeah, thanks so much. You're welcome.
Hey, Julian name right.
It's Killian but you'd be right million with a heartbeat right? 90% of the time, so keep keep with it, but thank you. Can I want to ask a question and I'm gonna apologize to all of you because I was part of the nightclub and then I'm working a lot. So it's sort of one of those. I'm seeing clients by night and teaching by day so it's, it's too much but so I'm asking a novice question about dreams. And is is and it's a little raspy and with meditation, I'm not grasping like I've sort of, you know, when I've loved your books, by the way, the power and the pain was really helpful to me. In a time I really needed it. And it was like a little those floats in a lake. You know, the like the dock in the lake in the middle of the lake. So thank you. I've used your dreams of light in a little, you know, smoke short retreat, you know, but I really I've got it from you were in Joe's group the other night. And so I've you know, I've I've pulled it out because I want to start reading dreams of light again, and and delving into it and thinking about it, you know, during my work day, during my workday, but with the dreams let me give you a little quick. Okay, I'm calling about I've got a little bit on the phone that I'm a little raspy. I think I'm a little raspy and part of it is I'm so busy and I wish the dreams were more. You know, there's dreams. There's karma of this this this life dreams where I'm dreaming about my parents aging and I'm very like they're very sweet. And so I know I'm just getting that kind of anticipatory grief. Fine. You know, I'm bewilderingly dreaming of of sort of teenage I mean, really high school like I didn't even like high school. I sort of got out and I never went to a reunion but I'm having dreams of people I knew then. Then another level that interesting. You know, it's just that more metaphoric, recurring dreams of cleaning dirty toilets and abandoned houses. That's my wonderful growing dream. Everyone now knows my dirty laundry. Thank you, everyone here. You know, we have that we have that kind of dream. Then when I have dreams where you know, chokyi Nyima Rinpoche comes and it's know me things were suddenly revealed to me things and I don't it with great respect. I mean, I believe in blessings and these are teachers of mine, but I do think that's still me in these particular instances. One dogo can't say came and gave me an actual breath practice that was like shocking. And so who knows, you know, I don't know. If the only one I know and I'm not grasping for this. It's just miraculous was I was here and a person very close to me was in Nepal and took my name was given to Churchill Rinpoche. And I was I was woken by a phone call saying, and it's dreaming of children Rinpoche, and he was during purification on me and as the phone rang, the person is saying, I'm going to the Shedra but I gave her name to chotto Rinpoche so that I say only to say how beautiful that we are in the ocean and ocean together, that a master could can do that. And so because of that, I have to admit my dreams are usually just cluttered clogged and that's the heart of my question is my dreams are usually cluttered clogged. Hermit this life dreams that's, I have not loosened. I haven't tried. I don't. I need to make time in my life. But I wanted to ask if you have any thoughts on that unclogging the karmic clutter dreams you know.
Yeah, I mean, really great stuff. Thank you for being so, so open and candid. It's great. I mean, you know, here's the wonderful thing about the whole dream arena. There are so many ways to engage that particular display of the mind right. And dreams just like there's so many different states of mind during the day. Our dreams vary across a tremendous spectrum, from kind of low level neurological noise that really is utterly meaningless. Just just discharge of whatever. Now that doesn't mean you can't use those dreams to initiate lucidity and then practice lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. That's the cool thing. Whatever dream it is, it doesn't matter. You can go lucid in the dream, even if it is neurological noise, and then you can transform that into something to do on the path. So that's really cool. So if you're staying just within the bandwidth of the applicability and spectrum of dreams altogether, they range from mere just completely ignore neurological noise in terms of like interpretation and whatnot, just it's just meaningless. All the way up to these hyper lucid the authentic dreams where these are life changing dreams, the big dreams dreams of clear light dreams of clarity. I mean, I've been blessed to have a number of these. These are among the most precious, impactful dreams I've ever had. And not even say dreams experiences. Most of them are lucid, but not all. I mean, some of these most incredibly powerful dreams are not lucid dreams, but they came with such tremendous impact there was like wow, this is huge. So one thing is to become familiar with the spectrum of dreams, the spectrum of mind and how it generates these dreams. And I believe in my book again, shameless self promotion, the Dream Yoga Book, talk about the taxonomy of dreams. I talk a little bit more specifically about all the different ways that these dreams actually arise. And again, this is such a massive topic but one thing that that is definitely worth saying when you talk about these experiences, we've tried to run the CHE or chicken EMA or whatever entering your dream could they you know, are they just, they're called dreams. Clarity, dreams, these are just basically dreams that are good karmic dreams. They're still within samsara. But it's just the penthouse of samsara, where you're just having really great dreams of these tears. But when you have something like what you mentioned, were taught to Rinpoche let me let me just share a story with you. This was shared to me not too terribly long ago with a person who, who I've known for decades, and who was very, very, very close to Trungpa Rinpoche, by the way, whose party Nirvana was just a few days ago, and she shared this amazing story with me. She said she was in an intimate situation with him. And she was sharing a dream about him. And Rinpoche turned and looked at her very directly in the face, and said, Well, you know that that was me. And she went, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Thanks. No. He got more serious, more direct. That was me. And then you know, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for Michelle. Really nice thing to say. Yeah. Third time almost raffle. That was me. That was he did enter her mindstream and so therefore, these clear light dreams were were the you know, that the parameters of the statute of limitations in all the things that create boundaries in samsara, they does not. That's why the laws of physics don't apply and as you become more prosperous, I used to think of being more conservative, a scientist scientists kind of guy I used to think that all dreams were solipsistic, they were all just part of your mind. They're not especially when you become more porous to yourself and you open it open. Your mind stream can definitely be infiltrated by these these agencies. And so chapter one vajay can absolutely positively enter your mind stream it's not an archetype, it's him. I more and more convinced of that before I was like, I'm not so sure about this. This doesn't fit into the neuroscience thing. But I really trust these people. And I've had these experiences myself I've had, I've been so blessed. And sometimes I just know I said, Man, that that was not me. So you know, in terms of like, the interpretation thing, again, you're throwing so many noodles against the wall. Imitation is super powerful. It's not part of Dream Yoga, Dream Yoga, doesn't care about dream content at all. It's like the difference between meditation and therapy when you're engaged in meditation. You're you don't care about the contents of your mind. You care about how you relate to those contents. It's therapeutic, but it's not therapy, right? So if we let I'm not dissing it at all, that's fine. Then you start processing, working with the content and that kind of thing. Meditation doesn't care. About that period. Psychology does meditation doesn't same thing with with Dream Yoga. Dream Yoga doesn't give a wit about dream content. Yes, there can be parenthetical benefits, collateral benefits with this type of ferocity. I've discovered this a lot. The more I do this, I just have more and more of these really amazing dreams. But Dream Yoga is not even dream content. It's interested in how you relate to that content, how you transform it, what you do with it. Now with that said that the dream and interpretation thing analysis thing is tremendously important. In particular, my favorite is young in depth psychology, working with dreams and that capacity. Absolutely brilliant. And I know people who are really sophisticated unions and others alarians and others that work with dream interpretation, spot on, do it. But again, Dream Yoga transcends but includes that. So understand that that's just a particular bandwidth. Yes, you can process stuff Yes. You can release stuff. Yes. All this stuff, starting with Freud and his monumental interpretation of dreams all the way up to the most recent thing. I mean, moss moss has many books on this hunch that valid I'm not dissing that at all. But in the integral spectrum of things that has a particular bandwidth that Dream Yoga is just not that interested in so like grasping partied say more a little bit, a little bit more about that before I let you go with this. What do you mean by the grasping quality that you want something out of it? Or you're you're just give me a little bit more about what you mean by that.
It's just it's the most I mean, other than burping and you know, with a llama telling you something you know, in the way you know, the dreams are the most powerful teacher in an instant you know, I mean, in my life like when I have you know, but it's it's just, it's haunting and it's it's I'm Oka sir gendlin focuser for like 23 years. So it's like, gentlemen, yeah, I'm a focus. I don't know. But I mean, I'm a genuine focuser you know, like, yeah, so but it's like, and I work like Leslie Ellis is, you know, is a dream person that does focusing with dreams, but that I mean, that's sort of an aside like focusing is another powerful space for him. But dreams it's like, I think why I shared and I was willing to share some of this stuff here with people is that we're all friends and bringing up the chart or you know, the fact that that's possible. The fact that I think sometimes it is me, you know, and talking to us there but like the Dilgo can say when I'm too young to have met him, but it's very odd. I mean, it's so powerful. He gave me a breath practice. I don't want to talk about it here. But it was it was so powerful. It was like a moment of death practice and, and yet my mind it's so cluttered. There's Devin from high school on the skateboard. I mean, I processing my parents that I don't mind but some
solid Devin skateboard away don't pay attention to Yeah, you know, and then invite deagle cancer in Bucha yen. Right? And then and then and then just really pay homage to that and then fie that and you know, I mean, here's the other thing you said is I
am interested in preferring that's what I'm saying about grasping is I am preferring you know meditation, it's sort of, I've learned but I am being grasped in the sense of please send me more dreams.
I grasp that there's a difference between that and as aspiration you know, so said if your job to grasp the thing and cultivate the aspirational thing. And in terms of the odd thing, I mean, Jeff Zucker Paul I really love this guy, Jeffrey Crapo. Rice University religious scholar, I really like his thinking. He once said something that's just spot on, the weirder it is the truer it is. So when you have something really odd really just whatever weird I mean, these are intimations of the non dual. So who says it's odd? Aristotle, the Western world conventional science, to me these kinds of anomalous experiences that are intimations of reality. And so therefore, when you start to become an agonist, it leads to completely connected to dreams because dreams are generally are really odd, right? That's why dreams more in contact with reality. So when if something's really weird, high five, that means you actually have more approximating truth, opening yourself up to these really dark things that are only bizarre because they don't fit into your view of reality, or whatever your western culture says your view should be. So let's say if you haven't listened to the two podcasts I did on spy and Hargens. Listen to that. I mean, this guy is freaking brilliant on this stuff. So basically, I understand the grasping thing, maybe just replace that with more aspirations. Just treasure treasure open these lines of communication treasure, your super conscious unconscious mind who do that the more you become a ready conversationalist, it's like the universe responds and the world your dream world will just explode. That doesn't mean it's all dreams. Bubbles are fine, they're great, but it just means your whole dream arena. Will will just will just flower. More dreams, clearer dream, stronger dreams, weirder dreams, I mean, all kinds of wonderful, magical things that take place when the mind starts to basically get crowbarred out of this exclusive identification with real external form. So okay,
thank you really well. Welcome.
Yeah, great questions. I appreciate it. Okay, maybe two more from from Matt and then Shari. Putra. AKA, Ms.
I have a question about wanting to make a brief list first. Okay. And that is and by the way, our audio is breaking up a little bit. For me, hopefully it isn't for you. But me, it's probably my calendar, but
my modem router is usually not coming from me. Anyway. Yeah.
Yeah. So I did your puroland retreat the first one and I thought I really really helpful. I purchased it online. I wanted to purchase the second one but apparently that isn't available. So I wanted to to purchase. So I want to ask first if that might change. And also Alisa suggested that you might be doing an another one of the puroland two retreats sometime in the future.
Oh, no. Maybe not definitely not this year my cup overflows. But but let me check with my peeps mad about the second puroland program in where that is in terms of like availability. I literally just don't know. So let me check. And then Alyssa, this is your job.
I know the answer. You know the answer. You do so
online but okay, wait, wait. She hasn't let her
speak. Yeah, we were just going to not have it available for purchase because we weren't going to do one in the future. So we were just hanging on to the recording for now. Because we're gonna do one in the future is that Yep, that was the plan.
I guess I'm going to do it and if you don't pay me pay me mad ping me via my Android anahata.com email address that will go to Alyssa she'll forwarded to me and then I can tell you a little bit more about what what is going on around all that I'm sure lessons right I have so much stuff going on right now. I just don't really know. But thank you for your interest in ping me at that address. And then I can let you know. Okay,
thank you. Yeah, I'm highly interested. I thought it was it was really so interesting.
I appreciate you. I can tell you one thing. Here's one thing I can't tell you. And this has not been announced to anybody yet. Alyssa doesn't even know this. I have my fourth Bardo week coming up this August that Drella Mountain Center. The fifth program, which I've never done before, it's going to be a week long sutra Tantra puroland. So it's basically going to be both those weekends plus a whole lot more packed. into a seven day program. so that's coming up next August. that's going to be the fifth week in the five year program. so nobody knows about that. you're the first to know. So that's another
Okay, Okay, that sounds great. So my question is maybe a simple question. This is about the relationship between sleep yoga and after death Bardos. So, I believe I heard you say, at some point somewhere that you were talking about how difficult it is to you know, to recognize the clear.
because we're in deep sleep seems to me so I guess my question. Yeah, so my question is whether that's an analogy or actually a kind of criteria. So, if you can't if you be aware of in deep sleep, then you know that that's a good indicator you're not going to be able to recognize the clear
light and sound when you talk to people. Because if you if you ask some people, they will say it's, it's completely indicative. It's a pop quiz for the final exam. I mean, I'll just tell you what I've heard. If you don't have consistency and lucidity in a lucid dream state, you're not going to have a lucid Bardo, becoming. If you don't have consistency and lucid sleep, you're not going to have a lucid Dermatol experience. That really, you know, can be here. What does that make sense? Other teachers will tell you that that just because Plan A isn't working, it doesn't mean Plan B or Plan C may not kick into gear. So this one depends on who you ask. It depends. And I actually like I mean, this is just the way I roll with this. I get I mean I understand the basic correlations around the more kind of hardcore you don't get your own st you'll see this now you're not gonna see it then. Yeah, I mean, here's one thing if you have a glimpse, here's the here's the kicker this is a really good news. When you're in the Bardot's everything is exaggerated, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, seven to nine times and that's an archetypal number. It means more than that. So you can have a very bare bare recognition of the child luminosity, the clear light, and then that can grow up that can that can basically lead all the way to the 10th Bhumi. So I personally the way I roll, even though I see the logic behind the little bit, the limit kind of thing. To me, it seems to make a little bit more sense just me that it's not quite that ironclad cold, but I again I've asked a lot of teachers that really kind of depends on who you ask. I'm a little bit more coming to my class. You know, it's easier to pass my exam by my father. Easier than most I think you're you know, if you have a glimpse of the nature of mind, it doesn't take much for like lamps to flash into a full blown gaze at them at the moment of death. You know, if the child recognizes the mother and that's enlightenment and one life that makes the, I don't know, makes a lot of sense to me.
Plus, it gives me a little bit more hope, you know,
I look like I'm screwed. You know, you just you're totally screwed. If you don't have this level of recognition, that starts to sound pretty. I'll say this with all the love I can kind of Christian to me, right. You know, if you don't believe in whatever, you're screwed. I don't know. That doesn't work very well with
me. That's just me. Good. Yeah. Well see, that's exactly my feeling about it. Because I don't I don't have I have a lot of lucidity and dreams that alone in in deep sleep. So it just makes it seem as if Oh, you know, doing all this other work and you know, working in nature of mind is at least at that point, it's not going to be at all helpful. Unless I have this one particular skill, which, at least right
now I don't doesn't make sense. Yeah. Just make sense to me, right? I think more forgiving than that. Maybe naive and blindly hopeful, but no, I don't think so. I mean, anyway, that's the way
okay, but yeah, okay, guys,
thank you so much. It was really helpful. Okay, sorry. Putra.
Then somebody else was there but they disappeared.
Yes. Sir.
I like to serve part.
You mentioned a little earlier about some of the more profound dreams clear light dreams that you've had, but then maybe I misunderstood that. You said some of them you've been you have not been lucid? Correct. So does that mean that you just had a vivid memory of them? Not with them being what a clear light drink of those dreams of those
profound dream? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, you just wake up from them even though the dream wasn't lucid. You wake up from them and you're going holy mo fell. That was one massive dream. And I've had a number of those that weren't lucid. I wasn't aware when I was in the dream that I was dreaming. But I wake up from them and I'm just shaking. I mean, in a really great way. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And so yeah, I mean, I don't know what else to say.
I just Yeah, I just sort of implied that that if if one has accurate memory of the dream, is that sort of on the path to lucidity? Is that sort of an interim
state? I mean, that's worth something or, Oh, absolutely, positively. Right. I mean, you know, even it's even the Bear says right if you soften this, but he used to say that if you can't remember at least two dreams at night don't even bother with lucid dreaming. And so one of the characteristics of progress is people say they don't dream everybody dreams, unless they have extremely rare brain organic dysfunctions. Everybody dreams, they just don't remember. So you start working with this and then you start to have flickers of recollection with dreams. You start remembering more dreams, they become clearer they last longer they become, you know, micro lucid dream listed. There's that there's a kind of a natural progression, but it's not particularly linear. It's like a tide coming in. Right comes in and comes back comes in comes back comes in comes back. But generally you know your relationship to your dream mind your dream experience would absolutely, positively just continue to unfold. And does that mean constant lucidity all the time? And necessarily, it could mean just that heightened everything I just talked about, right? And that's one of the really cool things about Dream Yoga, and all that other nocturnal meditations like liminal dreaming, you know, it's just it's just so much more than the specific limited bandwidth of lucid dreaming, and that's why I roll with all these other I mean, for other liminal nocturnal meditations, it's all about the entire arena of relating to the nocturnal mind. That's the whole Dream Yoga sleep yoga rubric. And along that then there's all these other massive collateral benefits. It's not all about just 100% success metric of lucidity. No, no,
no, I experienced with this for 40 years. So in summary, if one is able to accurately and vividly remember a dream,
that that has some value on the Absolutely, yeah. Now that doesn't that again, that doesn't necessarily mean that
particular dream carry a particular
content right once again, but the ability to recollect
Well, absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Very helpful. The other question I had you know, you mentioned that you drank the Buddha's kool aid, but you know, no, no. System or whatever has the ultimate claim on understanding reality complete. Then how would you respond to someone who has sort of mastered the nature of mind? experience whether it's a Dilgo Kansei or a Milarepa or whatever? Do they not have a claim? On our understanding of ultimate reality fully?
Well, no, no, no, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that that's a particular human if you have that, right. It doesn't mean you become omniscient and all these other
domains. You know, of course not right, right. Yeah. Yeah. You can't become a master chess player.
or something. Yeah, yeah. So that's, that last question is not entirely clear to me. I mean, what
what do you just say? What? It what you said maybe I misunderstood but it implied that there's there's nobody in any tradition that has a clear understanding of
the of the Absolute Truth. No, I didn't say that. I definitely did not say that. Oh, I misunderstood. Yeah. Well, first of all, who am I to say that forgotten say, Oh, I would never say that. I mean, how do we know I mean, here's, you know, so it's just like, it's just this ongoing dance, right? I mean, here's one of the things about enlightenment and kind of absolutism and this kind of reified finality. If that doesn't work for me, I hardly even use the word enlightenment. anymore. You know, this is an endless ongoing play just continues to unfold. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't some access to the changeless nature, understanding the display from this this kind of wonderful, fantastic so called
enlightened space, but forms will forever evolve. Oh, yeah,
definitely. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So am I saying that anyway,
I think we I think we got it I think we're good. My last question very quickly, you said Rupert Spira absolutist
perspective, you know, I'm going to be very cautious. I am extremely hesitant to talk about other people.
Unless I can talk about them and completely compliment not not that he's good or bad. But what what is, what do you mean by absolutist right.
That's kind of what I meant. Well, yeah. So So let's just take Advaita Vedanta and again, I've had these conversations with Swami Satyananda and other people. There's, there's you know, the EPS, the whole non dual thing, the Absolute Truth thing. Hey, man, I mean, how can you criticize that? Well, I think the only way you can criticize it is if you become absolutist IK and you don't acknowledge things like developmental structures you don't develop you don't recognize some of the play of karma, some of the play of evolution, you know, you really it's called quadrate absolutism and integral theory you become some it's kind of a spiritual bypass, where everything kind of thrown in the emptiness basket in Buddhist language. And that is that to me is a colossal mistake. And it's also a it doesn't acknowledge the multifarious display of the relative reality. And so this is where things get really tricky because people think, oh, you know, gotta get out of this complex, messy, materialistic thing and get into the absolute spiritual thing. Well, yes, I guess at one level, that's true, but then what happens to all the messy materialistic physical things right? So I just get a little uncomfortable with some of the absolute non dual approaches, because I think they can very easily fall and again, I'm not saying this about Rupert, I'll be very clear about this. I think Rupert is amazing. But everybody in this little I talked about with Bruce, everybody, by by nature, by definition, everybody is limited, man. I mean, sorry. Everybody is limited. And to think that you're not that's a major limitation right there. Right. Everybody has colossal blind spots, in my opinion, and maybe it's just me, everybody has their stick, I mean, whatever. And so the absolute thing I get a little bit tweaked about by that because it's very easy. To do. Just do it. That Nike approach just, you know, put all your eggs in the absolute emptiness basket. No, don't do that. Because then you've just swung the pendulum all the way into spiritualism. And then that's just, I mean, I think that's really, really highly limiting. That's kind of the Dharmakaya trap. Then what do you do with a group of pious? I mean, the fundamental fruition is that the Dharmakaya even though it seems to be like Oh, you gotta go the Dharmakaya pointing out the Dharmakaya. Everything's that Dharmakaya. No, it's not. The Dharmakaya is just 1/3 of it, so to speak. What do you do with a Rupa chi is what do you do with some neurotic isenburger? Chi? To me, it's all about integration, working with all these different plays. So that's just the way I roll. I just had a little tweak, personally, because I know a lot of people me included, and I'd say this because I slipped into these traps. Think that you can just slide into the absolute camp, and it's just going to take care of everything. I don't think so.
Am I that's just me. I don't think so. Thank you for clarifying. And again, the tradition emphasizes the integration of the three guys
with the swastika, right, totally. The Hindus do a two three theta. Yeah, the integration is key. Because otherwise Yeah, it's so easy. To just slide off into these, you know, versions of spiritual escapism, fundamentally, I think that's highly problematic. Super Sharpshooter. Okay, Luke, one more and then I'm going to pick up one or two in the chat column, and we'll call it for today,
by the way, but thank you, Andrew. Pleasure to be here. Actually, just one thing I wanted to share at the beginning was in terms of the weird space of phenomena of reality, very recently, having done a private a personal retreat I was doing about your armor retreat. I was by myself for three days. And in the midst of a lot of flotsam, jetsam dreaming, I had, what appeared like what I'd call an intergalactic Saudi in action, and I have no idea why. And it was like, the experience of like We interrupt this program to bring you and this first this head, this being showing up, and I was just like, what's going on? Who are you? And I immediately auto ejected out of that reality. Because I just was a little bit surprised but, you know, to Gilliam's point into what the conversation you were having, it was to me it was very rich in the sense that I was like, Okay, this was a beam. This was not my mind. I don't if it were my mind. I don't know how I arrived to that point and how I interrupted my previously recorded program but flotsam and jetsam. That's, so that was something I just wanted to share with that, but I love it. Thank you for sharing that. That's Yeah, my pleasure. I guess you know what, uh, things might my questions. I've been a seeker and Dream Yoga for a very long time, probably half my life. The first book I picked up I was 20. And I was joking. Okay, Norbu his book on Dream Yoga. And that really set me on the path into and having said that, you know, I have applied these practices and maybe like guilty and I feel like, I experience a lot of detritus, I do I am aware, like if I eat a late meal, I will dream of vampires and zombies. And I know that this is just my body's expression, and my manifestation of of not have completely digested a meal. But I am curious, you started today talking about second kind of creating this intention into the space of dreaming. And I find that I, I somehow when I do, whether it's the red or the white or the heart or wherever it is, I lose sight of that and I become very porous. And I feel like it's a porous meaning. I don't feel like I have a direct base. And I'm wondering how you can speak to this. I haven't completed reading your book Dream Yoga, but
I figured this is a question and answer and I would ask, so looping say more when you mean directive, like way to four,
to activate the dream. To activate I had some brain scans done in the waking life, and it showed that I had a lot of what he called dreamy, quality in waking state and he's like, I don't know if you're a meditator. But you know, your EEG is showing just a lot of what he called like theta, alpha, and he was talking about in terms of just like, a very dreamlike quality. He's like it might be difficult for you to focus on things and I was like, Yeah, but I'm very present. And I you know, being in the world. I am very, you know, I've spent and devoted my professional life to being present with others in the body, through through breathing through manual therapy. But in my dream state, I feel like I am kind of diffusive rather than having a directive or being able to, to stay with the meditation that I bring in.
Well, this is really, I mean, really good. Comments, Luke, Luke, and thank you for sharing it. You know, there's so many ways to engage somebody cancer, the earlier statement. There's so many ways to engage to the nocturnal mind in the sleep, dream and even liminal space, right. And so even though there is some kind of organizational template with with the dream yoga practices, and chromatography, these nine stages and all that kind of stuff, there's tremendous kind of validity to that skeleton. But that doesn't necessarily mean everything should be kind of forced fed into that particular framework, right. And so this is where it actually becomes helpful to work with someone who can guide you a little bit more specifically, because that doesn't in any way negate the validity of what you're already working with in your dream experience. See, and so if you're feeling like this translucency this porosity kind of thing. I mean, that's really quite beautiful. I mean, that in itself is a consequence of your opening. And so does that mean that you're somehow deficient in classic Sleep and Dream Yoga curriculums? Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. Again, this is part of this larger embrace. This is the way I roll with these things. That even though there are yes, these particular classic stages or all these sorts of things, I kind of like that I think there's some level to that level, some credibility to that level of articulation. Because otherwise, fundamentally when you're working with a nocturnal mind, almost by definition, it's fuzzy and bewildered and unfocused and just all over the effing place, right. So having some kind of frameworks and what that can be actually very helpful. But that doesn't mean you're somehow a lesser practitioner. If your particular style is communicating in the bandwidth is you seem to be sharing but this is something gets gets a little bit tricky to summarize and quick, tidy sound bites bullet points in a context like this. This is something that would warrant a little bit more fleshing out with, like, what are you doing in your day? What are you doing around all these things? And then that can this experience could be a little bit more situated within that kind of context. So it's the blessing and curse of having any type of map right so don't let the map squeeze the territory? Got it. You haven't experienced that's the territory. Is it benefiting you? Are you relating to your world? Are you becoming more kind, are you? I mean, hey, that's effing great. Does that mean you're somehow failing in Dream Yoga? I don't think so. This is where you have to in my opinion, just kind of relax some of the boundaries around these natural practices. That's why again, in my mapping, there's five of these suckers. Yeah, there's no there's a way to really bring lucidity and awareness outside of these someone class params. And to me that just seems to make it a lot more workable. A little bit more playful. You're still engaged in Samadhi is a really lovely set of comments and questions, Luke. So basically, you know, I mean, for purposes of time, I would just say carry on maybe with a more celebratory attitude. That something is being transformed to work with. And then yes, it's helpful to be aware of the metrics and the so called practices themselves, but don't
again, don't let the map shrink the territory. Wonderful.
Thank you for thank you very much. Yeah, welcome. Okay. Aidan. All right,
this time a hard stop after you okay, but alright, so I was just wondering because I'm really new to this during yoga, so but beginner's mind is good mind. So I can remember my dreams, right? And last night, I don't know it was some sort of video I watched but it was you gave like a link and it was the prayer by do gentleman. Something I don't know if you remember that. But I did that. Now. Also, I did a meetup practice because I resonate a lot with Amitabha. And yeah, and I dreamed Amitabha last night. Cool. We had a conversation but it's really big. Fall so I was just wondering if you had any practices for the day or nighttime. For for recognizing the dream
state? Oh, okay. Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, high five with Amitabha coming to say hi, that's really pretty cool. You know, the best thing you can do again, if you're new to the whole business and the nightclub thing in terms of like stuff I already have, you know, the probably the Harvard depress book since joy, so graciously flash that up there. The lucid dreaming handbook. There's all kinds of stuff I riff on there. But I'll give you a couple of things here. And then again, if you are a member, the nightclub platform, I don't know how many webinars we have specifically on this topic. But outside of intentionality. By far the next best thing you can do if you don't have a meditation practice, that's, that's really the best thing you can do because lucidity is a code word for mindfulness awareness. A lucid dream is a mindful dream. It's an aware dream. And basically, the more you develop lucidity towards the contents of your mind during the day, what is found now is found then, the more you'll develop acidity towards the contents of your mind as it displays itself at night. And so this is why in fact, my friend Benjamin Baird, Ellis, I don't know if we still have that study. He's a neuroscientist out of Austin now, Texas. He's doing a study he asked me to send it out. And I've been trying to do that to whatever extent they can. Basically trying to substantiate the claim which I haven't formally substantiated. For decades, the meditators have more lucid dreams. So he's actually doing a study on this. So basically, intentionality is meditation and then all the different lucidity techniques of which there are dozens. Those are really helpful. The other last one that I'll say and then I'll let it go is the practice the daytime practice of illusory form. That's what my whole book dreams of light was all about. This is basically very simply saying as often as you can throughout the day this is a dream. This is a dream, you know, challenging the status of this reality in basically saying the dreamlike qualities here. Those two those three intentionality, meditation, loose reform are huge. And then outside of that, my friend Oh my gosh, that's too much to say the prospective memory practices, the HX dream signs, there's just a whole battery and that's that's kind of what happened riffing on for years. But just to give you something to go on intentionality strength on that. If you don't have meditation practice, I highly recommend you engage in that. That's huge. That's a dream yoga thing. It's not so much a lucid dreaming thing. And then do even go a step beyond that work with the practices of illusory form. I mean, these are really, really powerful gigs. I mean, when I did these, you know, it might have been a really long retreat. I mean, non lucidity doesn't stand a chance. And when you do this kind of triple barreled approach, you're gonna blow the doors
wide open to lucidity. Okay, but, alright,
thank you so much. You're welcome. So let me just go through a couple of things real quick before we go because I haven't eaten in like 10 hours and I'm getting quite hungry. So yeah, so I'm Karen, what are the five? Yeah, these are called the Five knee Yamas are orders is that five parts of karma? They're basically they're called the five new yamas and Iwai a ma the five orders outta you. I think it's up to you to you, you know to you to Vuitton the Yama that's basically physics. BJ big ace delivery means see that's basically biology genetics. Check that ch AI TTA and Sanskrit means mind. That's basically psychology. Dharma Yama. That's basically what it sounds like order of the Dharma. This time to say about that. And then the last one is karma. Yama, causality, as it's basically brought about through behavior, behavioral consequences. That's what karma is about. Don't forget the other four. Okay, what do you think of the Monroe Institute? I don't know much about it prompt us. So I might I don't know much about it. I know a lot of people have done it. They've gotten a lot of really cool things out of it. I don't know much about it. So I'm going to refrain from any comments from David the link that Dr. Jain Oh, yeah. So that's, that's down here below that's in New York Times thing that Jerry Yeah, put up there we go. Oh, last one. Here, our former student with with whom I've had ongoing conversations keeps referring to himself as delinquent. It takes some time for me to understand what he is describing might be best called divine madness. The meaning of this his word choice came to me in a dream, okay. He is noticing that he doesn't quite fit into the social professional intellectual conventions over time. He's a liminal being than high five good for him liminal being he's coming off a divorce and is about to enter the Navy. Okay, I've been guiding, guiding his through guiding him through this transition and I wonder if you have some good readings that could help him. appreciate his encounter with the unconventional Yes, read Jeffrey cripple. Start with his book, The Flip Jeffrey's got a ton written on this. Listen to my two podcasts with Sean Espeon Hargens on edge of mind platform. This guy is amazing with his riffs on excellence studies that alone will definitely give you enough to work on. Read the book extraordinary knowing by Elizabeth Myers. I mean there's so much here but every carrot Crapo really rocks this will. His sense that this isn't all there is Yeah, no kidding, right? That what he is calling delinquency may may be his encounter with what is maybe I can't say he's been having lucid dreams. And now reality doesn't seem as solid as it is. Yes, it used to be because it's not.
Reality is not solid.
To dream. lucidity and sleep is translating into lucidity and so called waking consciousness high five. Bravo tell him that he's really on spot on. Tell him to be brave, courageous. Be fearless in his liminality liminal beings are beings that don't fit and they are more in contact with reality and then people who do fit so just to give him a big hug, tell him whatever he's doing. He's doing something right. As we hear no, it is deep at the deep end. And I would like to send my former student and friend a few lifelines There you go. Jeffrey cripple. Sean Espeon. Hargens. Elizabeth Lloyd Meyer, I think extraordinary knowing there's so much stuff out there. Okay, here we go. Are we done? If we're done, and it goes nice to see everybody. Sorry, is a little speedy today. I literally I was traveling the whole day. So I did a little speedy when I get back from all that sort of thing. But gather whatever matter. We just spread it out to the entire world helping all the beings sentient beings, the planet itself. Otherwise what we're doing here, it's irrelevant. None of this zip man. If we can't help each other if we can't help the world, what we're doing here is utterly completely irrelevant. So always remember, you're doing this so you can clean up your stuff so you can help others. That's the whole point. That's the only game in town. So with that said, if you want to unmute yourself and turn on your camera, we do this geeky little kind of group hug. Love you all. See you come join us and our happiness program. Everyone today recording has stopped recording stops
