Buddy nice to see all the usual suspects. So this is my last event with you for a couple of weeks. I'm heading off to Mexico on Saturday. Hopefully I'll come back I was talking to Alyssa. Just before we came on and I I've always wanted to see what it would be like to be a drug lord. So I figured I might go down there and just kind of check out that vibe and see how that works. So if I don't come back, just because I'm giving that a little bit of a try. But anyway, um, if you're new to the search, they things we started with COVID Almost, I don't know, well over a year and a half ago, and they're extremely informal ways where I just show up and we have a chance to talk about whatever you want. Some questions came in. So I'll start with those. And then for those of you who are here, if you want to share something, discuss something, you can ping it in the chat column, you can raise your hand which is always a little bit better. And we can just run with it. Which is fun. I like these sessions because they're still informal. In terms of upcoming announcements and stuff, Swami Sarver Priya Nanda I was supposed to do my podcast with him, actually this morning that he had a conflict. So we scheduled for the 23rd He's amazing. This is he's one of the leading Advaita Vedanta teachers in the Western world. He's a bit of a rock star. So I'm very fortunate to be able to spend time with him. And we're going to be talking a lot about non duality what this thing called enlightenment really is so I'm super psyched about that. What else do we have coming up? There's a couple other guests in the works. I mentioned tenza One year rep. Jay. He has a new edition of his book, classic book, the venue of his dream and sleep that's going to be released by Shambala. I think he called me or something. And so he agreed to do a podcast with me but nothing is said on that. So I don't know when that'll happen. My guess is probably sometime next summer, but I really don't have a date, but that's a big one for us. He's really amazing on this topic. And then there's other my friend Bruce Taft, all these other really cool people. So hang tight with that. I think some fun stuff is coming up. The only thing I'm hearing in the chat column is the memo kind of death and dying thing that I'm doing with a group of really amazing people so lucky to hang out with these folks in and January 1 part of February. It's like a four or five day event with some pretty cool people Evan Alexander Deepak Chopra, Bob Thurman. Scholars and people from a number of different traditions. And so I'm really honored to be hanging out with these peeps. And so with that said, I'm just going to go ahead and jump right in with some of the questions that came in. And then for those of you who are here if you want to, if you have something you want to discuss, or something you want to share, doesn't always have to be a question. It can be an offering. It can also be a kind of a so called challenge. I really appreciate it when people step forward and raise this kind of objection or whatever. So anything, anything goes on these events. So here's a couple that came in and one is from I don't know how to pronounce his name, so I apologize. sachet SP a SSE apologize for the mispronunciation what is the best technique you know for astral projection? Okay, well as triple ejection is not something that is overtly taught in the traditions that I abide in adhere to the so called non dual wisdom traditions they don't really roll with this, the term is never used. The closest thing you will find is in Dream Yoga. And it's not it's not called astral projection. It's called a generation of a special green body. But it's a very similar type of thing so I don't really role in the world of astral projection. I can tell you who to look for in this arena. of Jay chop who's Charlie Morleys partner release was she does a lot on this kind of stuff. I have never attended anything with her but I get her mailings and stuff and she seems like a really cool lady. So J Cha works with the stuff in Monroe Institute. Works with this kind of stuff. And so the astral projection, it's just not in my event horizon, with the material that I work with outside of this special dream body thing in Dream Yoga, and so I could say just a little bit about that. So the best T technique for that is to study Dream Yoga, proper. And then his holiness actually in a rare rendering of this talks about it. Sleeping
dreaming, dying, sleeping, dreaming, dying conversations with scientists and consciousness. There's nothing edited by Francesco borella. It's kind of a classic book, actually. It's one of the 25 or so minute live dialogues, one of the very best ones. And in this book, His Holiness, there's a lot of stuff on dreaming lucid dreaming, Dream Yoga, and His Holiness talks a little bit about the special dream body there and so I would recommend you look at that book. Evan Thompson also wrote a book that's actually somewhat titled similarly waking, dreaming being he refs a little bit about this and and also challenges in a really interesting way kind of odd OBE the autobody phenomena, astral projection, and so within within my very limited view with this material understanding of it, the special dream body that cultivates with Dream Yoga, and then that acts your mind the other the other arena that you can work with, in this little bit. Again, the more traditional way, the pure line, teachings work with this sort of thing. But because I don't really run in this world, I'm a bit of a I just don't have that much more to say about this. I don't work with astral projection, but I do work with the special dream body thing. And that's something you can learn by studying a little bit Dream Yoga, I think in my book, literally the one that we're going through on alternate Thursdays. I think it's like stage seven in my part cartography of actual dream. Yoga practice. And so join us there probably takes us about 10 months to get to this topic. But I will definitely talk about it there. Okay, so here's another one. From Tim. Hi, Andrew. I've certainly had dreams where I really thought I was truly awake while I was dreaming. I have not however, and the opposite where I truly thought I was training while really awake. Have you ever had this occur? Oh, absolutely. Positively. That's what tam that's what this is a long question. So I'm going to pause and kind of address it because there's a number of questions embedded in this just basically is what the whole practice of illusory form is about working to see the dreamlike nature of reality so have you ever had this occur absolutely positively because it's a form of practice. If so, what did you do about it? Uh, well, I that's I'm not sure that question kind of computes in terms of what I did about it. It's more the experience itself, it's more the issue of de reifying one's reality. So one inherent question here that you don't ask overtly. Tim is like, why bother? Why would you want to do this? Well, because it's the nightmare of reification. They generate samsara. And so when you talk about this in terms of dreaming during the day, one of the things that I would engage in dialogue with you is what do you mean by dreaming? Do you mean some kind of super imposition? What does that really mean in your world? But seeing the illusory nature of the waking state is daytime Dream Yoga practice. That's kind of what you do is a way to DFI to lucify to D concretize the D materialize the waking state until really you understand and realize the economist nature of both Milarepa so many other masters have said in his his rendering in one of his daughters or sons a realization he says that seeing not seeing day and dream as deferring. This is as meditation as it can be. So this is really what it means. This is what the Buddha woke up from. This is what he woke up to right. You woke up from the nightmare of reification from seeing a world dualistic Lee in the way that we traditionally see it. He woke up from that ignorance from that non lucidity and he woke up to the dreamlike nature which means the empty nature of the phenomenal world. So this is such a colossal topic him that the entire second book in the trilogy, the dreams of life book is all about this. So what did I do about it? Well, again, I would the question kind of doesn't land with me. What do I do about it? Well, I cultivate it I nurture it. It's it's a fake it till you make it practice. So you have to remember he talks about this that when you engage in practices like this reform, daytime Dream Yoga, you're creating a template that's in harmony with reality you're faking it because you don't see the world that way. We just admit it.
We don't see the world like a dream. And then understanding what that means. By the way, this is a really deep question. What does it really mean to say, this world is a dream this is really deep. It basically means fundamentally saying that the world is no is not other than mind that the world is made of mind stuff. That even deeper just like in a nighttime dream. There's absolutely no subject no object, no consciousness, connecting the two. So when when you talk about seeing the dreamlike nature of reality, this goes exceedingly deep. It's not just saying like an acid trip or some drug thing that you're tripping out and things and it's all wavy and dreamlike. No, no, no. Seeing the world as a dream is an exceedingly profound type of perception. I mean, this is the way that Buddhists see the world. So let's see what else do you see here? I could see the potential for that to happen with such continued deep immersion in dream work. Yes. By the way, this is one of the things that absolutely positively differentiates lucid dreaming from Dream Yoga. Lucid Dreaming has nothing to do with this. In Dream Yoga, this is actually this is the main practice. By the way. Dream Yoga is a subset of illusory form. So illusory form is actually the main practice. Dream Yoga is just the bi directional support for it. Uh, if that could actually if that would actually occur. I could also see some mental health issues possibly arising if our boundaries between states of awareness get to blurred absolutely, positively. That's why people and there are some warnings with this stuff. There are people who suffer from any depersonalization. derealization dissociation disorders should not play with this stuff. Because if you don't have is like a jack Engler, the famous psychiatrist, Buddhist practitioner very, very famously said you have to be somebody before you can be nobody are already laying the mystic swims in the same ocean where the psychotic drowns. So saying, an illusory world. You have to kind of have your ducks, your psychic ducks all lined up or whatever metaphor you want to use. You kind of have to have it a little bit together before you take it apart. Because otherwise the result is not awakening, it's psychosis. And so you're absolutely right here that there are some possible mental health issues with people who suffer from the realization, dissociative identity disorders, depersonalization disorders, you don't want to play around with these practices. Most people tend to self select, I've been doing this for decades, maybe one out of two or 3000 will come in and I always do surveys for my programs and every once in a while I say you know this may not be the program for you based on your particular kind of psycho graph. Any suggestions on how to keep our balance and maintain our mental health through these Pakistan's Yes. Understand the developmental nature of all these things that again, you have to have a stable self sense ego is not inherently a problem not at all. Differentiated relative self sense is necessary for human evolution. And human development and you have to have that kind of infrastructure intact. Before you can play with all of these things. So suggestions on how to maintain balance is first of all, having a stable, healthy, ego, healthy ego. If you do that, then you can use that as a platform, and you're not going to have a problem at all. So conjoined with that is having the right view, understanding the outlook like what are you really doing here? How can these practices go astray? But again, I've been doing this for many, many, many years and it's exceedingly rare, tends to self select. Most people who come to this material are already kind of prepped for it. So last part once again, Oh, thanks again. For all you do a nightclub with these Q and A's and satsang. Yeah, thanks for saying that. Tim. It's fun. It's really it's a good thing to do this community of like minded lunatics like minded lunatics, that that'd be us to have an opportunity to share each other's experiences to support each other, to challenge each other in a healthy way. That's why we created this whole thing and that's why I continue to invest in it. timewise because I think it's helpful because otherwise, especially meditation, the solitary nocturnal meditations are really solitary. This is a pretty lonely kind of thing. And so to have a community where we can get together and support and talk about this stuff, I mean, it's really the power of the Sangha, right. So in the Buddhist tradition,
you take refuge when you become a card carrying Buddhists you take refuge in three things the Buddha, some teacher, real teacher, the Dharma, the teachings, and then the Sangha, the community. So taking refuge in a community is a colossal thing. And it's also parenthetically the one that everybody has the most problem with. Because it's like, oh, I can take refuge in the Buddha or some awakened being I can take refuge in the teachings, but I really have a hard time taking refuge with the community because they're in a real way because they're too much like me. Right? It's like, what did Woody Allen say? I would never be a Club member in a club where everybody was like me or something like that. So the the community of the Sangha is incredibly important. They are there to support you to needle you to irritate you. Like when I did my three year retreat. It was a group retreat. There were 16 of us and then we lost about half. But it was by design, you're in a group by design. Because the community base we support each other we irritate the beams. out of each other. We were like mirrors, we get a chance to reflect all Reynosa neurosis off of each other. So thanks for saying the thing about the community. Tim. It's really important, especially in my opinion, with these doctoral practices, otherwise, I would have never started this nightclub thing. Okay, so this one is from Wendy and Wendy. I hope you're here because I don't understand a lot of your questions. So I'm just going to read it and run with it as best I can. But if you are here and can come up and clarify, there's a lot of this I just don't get. I put up painting of Manjushri Okay, that's great, wonderful. User a really cool guy bodhisattva of wisdom and like, every morning I chant and recite before contemplation. So, are you talking about the four measurables? The four thoughts that turn the mind what four contemplations are you talking about? This has the opposite effect of what they are meant to do. I can't address that because I don't know which four contemplations you're talking about. I love this little ritual. I find it comforting. I know that there is now a sangha that I belong to. Excellent. Love it. Love to hear that Wendy. I am now even more attached to the conference of samsara. So I don't know how I don't know what to do with this one Wednesday because I just don't understand it. So I need to know what the four contemplations are, how they happen, have the opposite effect. And then if you were here and want to come on, how are they making you more attached to samsara to me if I had to guess it sounds like you're talking about the four thoughts that turn the mind that are designed to turn the mind away from samsara.
But I'm not. I'm telling me I hear
what you're there, okay. Yes. Okay.
So I say the one contemplate the preciousness of being so free. Well, favorite, the one you gave us at that retreat? And he said, We should memorize it. So I put up a picture of Manjushri and I started doing Omura poetry on a diorama and I started doing that, but I love this little ritual so much. And it's making me more attached to being here. And I just feel so like warm and cozy and protected by by the Sangha that's you behind me and I and one more thing that I love about being here I'm trying to like detach from all the, the part that gets me in the last of the kind of patients is not so much the wealth, but the comforts and you know, and the home and comfort so I love my little altar and I love the comfort of doing it.
Well that's different. So a couple of things. Thank you. That's super helpful. That that kind of I wouldn't use the word attachment. But that may be that sense of refuge there's a difference between there are there are near like, we talk a lot. I talk a lot about near enemies. Wherever there's a noble side, there's an ignoble component. But this is a bi directional process, which means they're also near friends. So the near friend of attachment in this case would be the sense of refuge that you take with your rituals with his community. That is not a bad thing. That's great. But the question is, as you put it in, this is where it becomes very interesting for us, is what my teacher talked a lot about is love without attachment. In other words, being aware of the potential stickiness to that I don't I'm not I don't hear that in what you're saying. I'm hearing. Yeah, I'm hearing and I guarantee correct me if I'm wrong, but you're taking a nice kind of solace and refuge in the ritual, the Manjushri and the chanting. That's fantastic. That's what that's what it's designed for. The important thing, however, that I'm hearing is and this is thank you for being so honest and transparent. It is your attachment to your comfort zone. Oh my gosh, Wendy. I mean, this is something that we're going to have to work with, up until we're completely out of samsara. So our comfort zone is really what dictates the large the vast majority of our lives, right? We just want to make our comfort zone more stable, more secure. We want to expand it and inherit there's nothing inherently wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having a reasonable home and your bills paid and money in the bank. All that kind of thing. I mean, we kind of need that. But the near enemy of that, of course, is his comfort as the indulgence where you just, you just kind of get lost in your bubble bath, your hot tub, your comfort plan. That could be a problem, because eventually the water is going to get cold. It's going to drain out. You get the idea is not always going to be comfortable, eventually is all going to fall apart. Welcome to samsara. Welcome to impermanence. Welcome to old age, sex of the death. And so there's nothing inherently wrong with comfort as as in fact there's nothing inherently wrong with anything that arises. The issue is not the arising of a particular circumstance. The issue is one's relationship to it, how attached we are to it, how sticky we are, how we want to sustain it, those kind of grasping qualities. And so those are the things like you that I work with all the time that we I think there we do have to be all a little bit cautious, because that type of thing is really addicting. And I remember a physicist once said a Zen priest who was also a physicist, like 3040 years ago, he said something that really struck me back then he said, there's no tyranny as great as the tyranny of success. I thought that was just brilliant. And what it means here in relation to this is the tyranny of the success of being so comfortable. That's God Rome mentality. That's where everybody wants to be. But even the gods die. That level it's all going to end and so it's really our relationship to these arisings especially with comfort thing, that if you if you make your entire life, one of enhancing that expanding that then that's just samsara on steroids. If by comforts, you're more talking about this quality of refuge and the practices in the community, that's actually a really beautiful thing. So I'll pause for a second and see if that's addressing what you're asking.
Yes, it's just I feel like I'm too happy I'm almost 80 years old, and I'm trying to like, you know, when I read this thing, says, you know, this body will be a corpse and I read that and everything but I'm just so happy about my little altar and my little camping. And I just don't want to leave this stuff.
No, here's the here's very interesting thing. First of all, I chuckled. I think it's a very rare problem, my dear. Happy you are in a very elite group. If your problem is too much happiness, I've we should switch roles, you should become the teacher and I will listen
to you. I worked hard to demo. As I said, I'm almost 80 I wasn't happy when I was 13. I've worked really hard all these years.
Yeah. And so now you're reaping the fruits of your good efforts and your good karma and you should celebrate that. Oh my gosh, I mean, high five. But really, it's, here's here's one thing that I will leave you with as a contemplation. This is the end of the this first book that I wrote in one of the riffs at the end of the book is how it is that the vast majority of what the human population does outside of really deep contemplatives and meditators mystics on the like is we were always clamoring for certain types of external conditions, power, money, fame, material, but you never fill in the blank. All of us clamor for certain particular external circumstances to bring about fundamentally and this is the kicker, fundamentally designed to bring about an internal state of mind. And so what I might invite you to look at is the what's really happening when you have these particular qualities with the shrine with whatnot and they evoke these particular qualities. The power of that evocation is not inherent in that external situation, is what it evokes within you and so what's important here is is the internal quality and state of mind. And the reason I say this is because this is what you will not lose. This is that this is what does not die. So that's why we want to be able to centrifuge out the seeming external, fundamentally, but not even external, but that's a different story. We want to be able to send a few gel the circumstances that create particular states of mind, with the states of mind themselves because what you're really after are not those external circumstances, you may think you are but that's not really it. What you're really after is a state of mind. And so as as a little bit of perhaps just a coupon for you Wendy or something to work and play with would be maybe something along those lines that that particular quality that's indestructible. And so if you if you can send a beat that I'll take refuge in that, that is something that you will not lose. And if we can separate the wheat from the chaff in that regard, that that might help you relate to these external circumstances. But basically, I would love to have your problem. I'm jealous. The excess of happiness problem, good for you. But anyway, thank you for coming on. Wendy. I appreciate the clarification. Okay, so there's a couple people that have asked a couple things far away. We have some hands raised. Oh, here's one I'll read. I'll get this one later. What are the hell the ego I'll get to that in a second. Okay.
I think we're good now.
Okay. So Young. Yes. Is that how you pronounce your name? Yeah,
give him Yeah. Hi. Hello, Andrew. Hi, everyone. So I had a question. Because I'm exhibiting a tight corner. I had to adopt my practice my spiritual practice because of health issues. And so have you tried to try to do things differently from compared to before? Did you hear me? Yes. I'll go do it. Just just check. So anyway, so in my Okay, good. I'm just trying to fix a bit my situation in terms of health and sometimes different things. Okay. I just wanted you knew what I want. Just wanted to ask you what you thought of past life regressions. That's something I'm going to try. Quite soon. I've tried many, many things. I'm dealing with a lot of health issues. And so I'm kind of feeling a bit of everything. So Western medicine. I'm under medication right now. on pain medication, and so on. So I'm just trying different alternatives. And that's something I've read about a lot. And so just Yeah, I wanted to know your opinion about Okay,
so. Okay, so let me ask you one or two questions. So it seems to me that you're, I'm understanding what you're saying you're that you're trying to suss out a little bit more. Some of the factors that may be at play with your particular health circumstances that am I am I on the right track with that?
Yeah. And so I, the idea is that it could help in some ways, it's, I'm not necessarily expecting it to like fix my health or be like the solution to everything, but I think it could help in some ways. I've, unless you've heard of like Brian ways. That's from that way.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I can I can just simply give you my opinion on these sorts of things. I have personally never engaged in the past life regression approach. I know people who do it, and they seem to really derive a great deal. Very, very early in my early 20s, like lifetimes ago I actually did meet with a guy William David. This is when I was really deep into my New Age stuff. Well before Buddhism. He was a really interesting guy. He's, he's what's called an Akashic mediator and the Akasha is a very interesting phenomena, mostly in Hinduism, the Akashic records. But there's, there's also some somewhat interesting recent, the work of Laszlo and others who write about the Akashic field for a really interesting description of the foundations of Yeah, the foundations of mind in reality, and so my friend William David, way back when, as an Akashic mediator, this is actually what he did. He was able allegedly, I don't really know I I'm pretty agnostic on this stuff. He was allegedly able to tune in to some particular dissonance from some kind of past life that was being played out in the current circumstance. And I mean, who knows, but I found it actually very interesting. And so how helpful is this? I think it has a place but when, when I in the rare times when I do talk about this sort of thing with people. One of my first questions is and you seem to explain this a little bit as like, what's your motivation? What are you trying to get out of it? And so if there's another motivation of learning of understanding, yeah, and of course, that's a beautiful thing, that in fact, it may be helpful to understand what some of the residues that karmic discourse like there are there are karmic trajectories that cold conspire to create your particular situation, for sure. Well, let me just throw a caveat in right away, but it's right here. It's very important in my opinion, and that's not a rift about enough in Buddhism in particular, where even the Buddha talked about the five fundamental orders are causative vectors that bring about phenomenon arising of which karma is just one. And so yes, when you're not measuring what the other four are, when you're involved and understanding these behavioral consequences that can be helpful. That's one vector of causation. But I also find that this is a subtle form of Eastern reductionism in the pejorative sense in the negative sense where I see this problem a lot. And my friend Ken Wilber has shared some really interesting stories like when his wife, Trey, I've got cancer. And you wrote about it and grace and grit that movie, they just came out and she died from it. He was sharing how people would get on the phone and basically tell her that this was her karma and he would just lose it on them. Just saying you cannot do that because you know, here's the conflation. I'm saying this because this is really important. Karma arises based on causes and conditions. Everything in the phenomenal world rises based on causes and conditions. But the conflation is therefore to reduce everything that arises to karma you can't do that. And so therefore, the important thing is yes, I think you can learn about this past life regression thing. I personally, I don't I'm very leery I'm extremely cautious. I put on my skeptical hat. When people say they can actually do that, but I'm also agnostic. I'm just gonna say I don't know about the credibility, that kind of thing. But what I do know a little bit about is even if you get full 100% answers from this particular vector, it's just going to explain 20% of your experience. You then you've got the other four orders that bring about and it sounds like you're working with some of these other vectors. So I'll pause for a second to see if that's kind of what you're asking. But that's what comes to mind.
Yeah, I think it's really good. And as we're saying, there's a motivation behind doing this just not out of curiosity, because there's some people are just like, fascinated with the idea of past lives and so they want to explore more and more the past and have new like, real attachment to getting to know what happened and who I was before. It's really just if there's some saint you learn from it, because I've read several books in first years ago and I never had the occasion occasion to try and know I do have the opportunity to try this with some with someone who's who seems to be harnessed and was not like, you know, telling me he's going to be able to like fix, fix everything or whatever. So it's really about trying to see what he can bring to me. If it can bring just some, you know, a part of the answer, but I'm not expecting expecting to be like the absolute answer. And
I think that beyond that, I think that's really healthy. I think that's really cool. And so with that in mind, I think I would cautiously endorse it, but again, a little bit like the Estoril thing, I don't really roll that much in this sort of thing. Let me share two other things here that have really been helpful for me. One is I have never been to a spiritual teacher and I got a little bug up my butt last year. Because I spent so much time in India, Nepal, Asia. I woke up one day and I said, How many llamas capitalism Ember js whatever is I've had the opportunity to interact with and so I over the next week, I was just like, Oh, there's another one I met when I was doing this and this and so I came up with like, 60 It was amazing. 60 amazing individuals that I've had the great good fortune of spending some time with and and I have to share one thing with you. Not one of these people, not one when I went to see them ever said something like, tell me about your past. Tell me about your family of origin. Now I'm again I'm not saying that doesn't have validity in a psychotherapeutic sense and a karmic sense. It has some validity, but not one. And we said that in to tie this into the second thing I was going to say zero contra Rinpoche and other like this guy cuz he's got a nice edge. He was once I was teaching with him, where there's one person was going on and on and on about how they're working with this and processing this and processing that and doing this and doing that therapy and again, I'm not dissing it. And Rinpoche in his in his wonderful blade style, very gently listen, and then he said, You know, I'm paraphrasing him. He says roughly something like this. He said, You know, you Westerners, you're always processing, processing, cut, cut. In other words, pay attention to what's happening right here right now work with the present moment. So this is one of the things that we all have to work out on our own Of what value is our historicity of what value are the vectors that brought us to this particular point? Of course, they have some some, some power, but on a more kind of absolute level. It's more like, how are you going to relate what's happening phenomenologically right here right now. So I think somewhere if you hold those two vectors, there might be some benefits to that. Now putting all your eggs in the history basket. And then also, just being here now about working with some of these deeper understanding. Does that make sense?
Yeah, cuz I just want to add something. I totally agree. And I'm trying to really find bones because I've been dealing with health issues for ages. So I've been I've been like to extremes in some ways. So and I'm not extremely interested in like analyzing the past. I mean, I've been through this and I didn't find it. So Ephesians and like analyzing the past why never again and I've also seen therapists trying to like telling me that I had been this or that in past life or that are a certain events had happened in my childhood. And so on. But that's not like you know, I saw a therapist about a week ago, a bit more than a week ago, and was supposedly able to know what had like killed me in a past life. And so when I went there because my dad wanted me to go there too. I was like, okay, but you know, she told me things, but I was I'm not easily impressed by like, so like psycho spiritual people, like see stuff and so on. So I'm not not impressed by this kind of stuff. And I'm more interested in direct experience, like, regression people see things and so regardless whether you know, whether it's made up by their mind, like out of like some new like, like a kind of like a dream, or whether it's actual memories. The point is, sometimes people, people get out of this experience with a change with something was learning something. The profits are free investment. So I'm open to that. Yeah, I'm not like blindly, you know, something, but that's, I'm trying to find balance. So yeah, that's it.
I think sounds really healthy. And I think if you if you approach it with that attitude, I think it could actually be very confused. So to me, really, my approach, if you've been writing on my blog blog for a while is always the integral approach. They're all they're all these different strands, vectors causative streams, and it really is interesting to look at all of them. I always just get a little bit interested in slash concerned, when all the eggs are put in one basket and then we just capitulate to that. Then I'm a little bit like, Well, why are you doing that? But from from what I can hear from what you're saying, so sharing it sounds very interesting and you can you can learn a lot but we also don't want to be become victims of our histories. I mean, James Joyce said it beautifully once right history is a nightmare from which I'm trying to wake. It's all that somewhere on all that there's the truth. There's somewhere in there working with it, not getting too involved with it. Like you said, paying to direct experience and what's happening here now. But yeah, I mean, that's what comes to mind. Okay, my friend. Cool, good. Okay. All right. Hey, Amanda. You're welcome.
I'm here. Yeah. Thank you so much for that fantastic, Deep Dive. With the retreat recently. I'm absolutely immersed in it all these sort of cross dressers. And I find it very interesting. Now what I'm working on at the moment is particularly I'm actually seeing things differently.
So what can I ask you which retreat you're referring to? I've been I've done a lot
with the dream one recently, the dream one, you know, do weekend's it was fantastic. I mean, I related a lot to what Alex said about being an agent, and relationships. You know, we are agents in the world as well. So we're trying to bring it to a practical level. You know what I mean? Bringing our practice Yeah, so anyway, I'm reading Arthur Zajonc book.
It's actually pronounced science believes. Z A jonc. is pronounced science. But anyway,
it's a good book. Well, I think he's great because what I've done is I've actually seen a lot of these people you refer to, you know, on YouTube or giving presentation. I think it's fantastic. That the complete range people and their different ways of getting their message over I find him particularly good with his mind and life connection. You know, I find he's a fascinating man. Well, anyway, during the practice when we were doing the generation practice, and you said, Turn your eyes inwards, right? The thing is, because I've been doing Sakuni Rinpoche has been coming to Europe for the last eight years. So I have been doing these long retreats with him. So I'm quite familiar with getting into that emptiness. So when the eyes go in, okay, what I feel, I can see the high frequency and a sense of light, but there's a sort of energy there. So there's an energy but there's space and light. So one of the questions I was going to ask you was okay, so, you know, my intention with all this practice is, I mean, it sounds highfalutin, doesn't it but the idea is that, you know, obviously to help other people in their suffering, or whatever else, you know, to show up in the world in a way that's going to be beneficial, you know, so, it's how to use that space, productively. And then in the dream state, I've had a couple of experiences. So So I just wanted to sort of put those things past you really, I think it's this thing at the moment of vision. So when I went into the National Gallery the other day, you know, I'm just looking at the eyes of the people and you know, things were moving. So this is what the people were saying in the retreat about they were looking at Buddha and the Buddha was moving Do you remember you know, yeah, so, so basically, I suppose, you know, when I'm walking around, I'm seeing things moving. I mean, you know, things. I'm seeing them in a different way, which is okay, I mean, I'm seeing a portrait of somebody, I see their eyes, but I can sort of feel the person that the painter was obviously trying to, you know, to paint so it's a sort of different way of seeing things, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. So I mean, really, you said you're hanging out a lot of really wonderful things that in so many ways, the, the path is more perceptual than the actual let me say that again, this is worth writing down. sticking on your forehead, putting on your refrigerator. The path is more perceptual than actual, you're not going anywhere. And so the this notion of altering one's perception, therefore is enormous. That's why literally, first the most important of the eightfold factors on the noble path the Four Noble Path is what right view right view has multiple multiple levels of meaning. One is right view his outlook philosophy theory. Yeah, but on another level, right view actually has very literal you literally literally not metaphorically change the way you see. And in the reason we want to do that there's got so much to say here is because vision is by far the most dominant sense where visual beings two thirds of brain processing power is devoted to processing visual data. There's there's a there's a reason why their traditions work so exclusively, that all completely exclusively but so much with vision. Because vision, if we don't relate to it properly, it's our most dualistic sense. If we do relate to it properly, it becomes the most transformative sense. And so therefore, what you're sharing is really very rich. That when you start to work with this stuff, it literally changes the way you see literally, because you're changing the way you think you're changing the view and we we perceive externally what what we kind of wear internally and so that kind of altering of your literal perceptual field where you're seeing things in different ways being more receptive, more even psychic more open or whatever you want to call it. That's a marvelous thing. The one thing that's not entirely clear to me Amanda, maybe you can say a little bit more about this is you mentioned you made an allusion to how you can work or engage these particular energetic states. For the benefit of others. There's something that can you say a little bit more about that? That's not entirely clear to me. Yeah.
Well, well, what I mean is, um, um, well, some of the work I do I am interacting with people who you know, are suffering. So, so the idea what my impression is, is if I show up and I'm in, you know, a nice clear state, it does benefit other people because they can feel okay, so this basically what I'm saying is, this is I mean, I've been doing meditation starting off really, really from the Christian tradition. And then of course, there was this as you say, cross dressing and then the Buddhist you know, they're all interwoven, you know, would be Griffin starting off, you know, we then you know, how to add an ashram in India. But, you know, and, and all of these people and, you know, John main and the other fellow died, it was recycled kind of his name. Anyway, so there was that initial starting and it was very much I was very aware of how important it was to come back into that state of connection with whatever that force is. It's a what I would say it's like an electric frequency. So when I'm around you know, and it's important that I do that, because it's important that I show up like that. So you know, it's a recharging thing in a way, isn't it? For me it is anyway.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so absolutely. When we connect to whatever I can't say with complete authority, what it is you're actually experiencing, and first of all, who am I to say, but it's an
energy, you know, it's an energy, you know, it's a frequency. It's like an electric current, you know, that sort of thing.
Exactly. If that can sell how lights you up, energize you, inspire you. That's a really fantastic thing and also what I'm hearing this also really great is when you're able to show up, more completely more embodied more awake, then you're you're much more responsive and much more receptive, you're less projective. I mean, usually, we're completely plastering people in situations with our hopes and fears and transparency, countertransference and projection and all these levels. And usually our relationship to people and phenomena is really pretty messy. It's not very clean. We don't really see things the way they are. That's what it means to be dreaming and then negative sense dreams, manifestation projection of mine and so when you clean up on your side, you settle you see things more clearly. That is almost like really like you're removing these cataracts of confusion and you're more empathetic, you're more empathic, you're more sensitive, be more responsive, you're less reactive. These are colossal things. These are really big deal things. And therefore when you show up, you can really you can be so much more effective, because now you're really in tune with what's really happening instead of your inversion or your interpretation of what's happening. And so let me share one story around this that may speak to you when when I would sometimes meet with my central teachers like the real people that really guided me. I would sometimes come in with my particular blah, blah, blah, question, verbal question. And they would often respond to something that was coming from my body language. In other words, they wouldn't even address what I was saying verbally, because they were so open, so sensitive, so in tune, it's like I didn't even have to say anything. They would have this connection to this first thing of vision. They call it my book, dreams of light, our footnote on this, so you might want to look at it there but the person aparcamiento literature talks about is the five divine eyes literally the five types of vision. Yeah, that they take place when the cataracts of confusion are removed. And I remember many times one of my teachers would do almost like scan me like an fMRI is like they're doing this kind of diagnostic gaze, reading my karmic DNA. They weren't even paying attention to that question, because they were getting to questions I didn't even know I had. And so that type of thing has always really inspired me that if I can shut up, really shut up. It really listen and really be present and really be open, then I can maybe have a real idea of what's going on with this person, then you can really help. really help so that's what I'm hearing from you, which is like a high five. That's beautiful.
Well, I mean, I think it's what I'm Saki Rinpoche, he calls it essence love. You know, you will you know him, don't you? I mean, that's his big thing. His big thing. So So in these retreats, he's really you know, aiming at that. So I'm quite familiar with that. So that that's really I think that's what we're talking about. But in the dream state, there's just a couple of things. It's very quick this so in one dream, okay. I was aware that I was meditating, but it wasn't very lucid in the way that I wasn't able to direct the meditation the way I heard in the retreat, you know, Jill was talking about doing Tong Len, you know, for hours during the night I thought got a very busy, you know what I mean? So, so anyway, so I need a bit of a booster. So the other thing I had another dream about was that I was in a car and somebody else was driving and we were about to run over somebody. So I took over the driving and we avoided killing someone. And I'm very pleased about that because it shows I took action you know better and also I do have the thing about worrying the way people are walking all over, you know, the streets and they've got things in their ears and they don't know where they're going. I mean, one thing I would not want to do is kill someone driving. So it was interesting. I had that sort of dream. So I have managed to do some lucid dreams were actually changed behavior like that. But you think I should know take some Galantamine to try and encourage this because I need to I need to encourage all this a bit. Now you know, time's running out, you know, are getting old.
Right? Yeah, well, it's it's a, it's like Milarepa said, hasten slowly. Not too tight, not too loose. So the most important thing Amanda is constancy, stability, just like the gait of an elephant, you just keep going. Now, what like things like Galantamine, if you want a little boost, a little kick like that, that's fine. I wouldn't make it a regular occurrence. But if you want to like up the ante for a little bit, do the Galantamine
for what else? Well, I've never done it what would be the first thing to try in terms of well another would there be anything else I could try instead that would help to boost the lucidity
all the other agents but that's the one that I have the most familiar with Emily okay. That's the one that's also been studied the most. There are other stuff. David J. Brown has written a book called dreaming wide awake or something like that, where he has like two chapters on like 20 different agents. That is interesting for people who are interested in that kind of thing. Thomas you Shaq also wrote a book called advanced lucid dreaming, right? Like these are non scientific. They're anecdotal. But they go through 2030 different meds. And all in all, like, I can't speak with authority on most. I just haven't tried them.
No. Thing is my brother had a bad experience with LSD and it put me off doing any sort of drugs. I'm kind of worried because I sort of feel my brain up.
Yeah, well, it might also might mess with your ego. I. Yeah. There is a place and again, I say this with every possible disclaimer, that I'm not in a public setting. I'm not endorsing this. I'm just saying it has a place. I'm actually a little bit more interested in things like iOS guy in the cycle. It's like It's like each of these days. I think they really do have a place. So I'm serious. It has to be the right place at the right setting. A doctor had I shared a conversation with a quite a famous author the other day,
James Caitlin. No, no, because he took it didn't he James, England. I
wasn't James. I know he's written about it. This is another person who's really I respect him enormously. And we were having a conversation and we were talking about transformation, and I asked him I said we actually talking about this really we have a really long conversation about what affects transformation. How do people grow? This is a really this is a topic that has challenged philosophers thinkers developmentalists for millennia, and what he shared this guy, he's a really bright guy. Big time thinker philosopher. And he shared his he said, his experience hands down. The most transformers thing he did outside of really long meditation retreats, where the psychedelic agents and so again, I say this with tremendum I'm not this will ruin my political career. Like it's saying everybody should run out like Timothy Leary was to put LSD in the water. I'm not saying yeah, yeah, thing. These things have a place and here's a book. I haven't read it yet. But I had a conversation with an MD PhD, a different person the other day, and we were talking about the same kind of thing. And he I haven't read it, but he told me this is one of the best books he's read in the last 10 years LSD in the cosmic mind. by Chris Bosh, be a CAG, he said is just the dazzling book. Well, rigorous, scientific is it can get very rigorous exposition by a rigorous thinker on the power of these agents to affect change. Yep. Oh, if you want to play all the stuff, Stan's graphs and graphs work. Yeah, yeah. There's there's places for that, but I'm always very cautious in a public setting. Because these ages Are still illegal or schedule one drugs, they're illegal. So it's difficult to endorse this kind of stuff. Yeah. And I'd say oh, you know, anthropologic said we should take LSD and then whatever you get the idea. I'm not saying
that. Okay. Give me one last thing about the eyes just quickly, because also actually my family do have macular degeneration. So while I've got my sight, you know, I want to be able to use it but sometimes when you start the meditation, you do kind of really stare a bit, and I've started doing that, you know, so when I know but I want to ask you about this, because when I did this, my first retreat with Saucony Rinpoche I think I did have my eyes quite wide open and I was really connected. Anyway for about six months after the retreat. I mean, something had definitely happened. And it's something to do something was going on with the eyes, I think, I don't know or whether it was just being in his energy. I don't know. But you know, I definitely felt different for six months I to the extent and I know this sounds awful because I shouldn't I didn't want to be attached to it, but I didn't even drink any alcohol. anyone wondering because I thought I do want to upset my mind. And it's quite interesting that but what do you think's happening there with eyeball to eyeball? Something happens? No,
this is a really I would have to ask you so many questions. We really just apart this this stuff is infinitely fascinating to me. i Yeah, I love this topic. I have conversations regularly with literally with perceptual scientists, cognitive neuroscientists, people that specialize in vision. I find this stuff off the charts interesting. Because it really the way we perceive is foundational and the way we relate to the world. And most people think that vision is a fixed kind of entity. It's like Oliver Sacks famously said we do not see with our eyes we see rain rain. Yeah. And so the whole study of vision and I can refer you to dozens of sources here because I absolutely love this topic. Read Donald Hoffman's book visual intelligence. Yeah, yeah. Read Richard Gregory psychology of saying, Yeah, I thought the whole list like off the charts interesting. And so
this is a new area for me. You see so it's quite challenging. I'm really being stretched by this. I'm being stretched, you know? And it's good. And it's good that I go into a museum and the pictures start moving. I mean, I think that's good. I have no expectations. By the way. I don't I don't have any expectations at all at this age about anybody, but I think to have that happening is interesting. You know,
it's beyond interesting. If you relate to it in an open, curious, playful way, and humor to Yes, humor, tremendous humor and you start looking at things and seeing things start to fall apart or things get really wavy. At least you know, you're not really going crazy. You're seeing the world in a solid reified, dualistic way. That's the crazy way of saying, yeah, there to open the aperture of your awareness. You also open the aperture of your eyes and you will literally see things differently and I find this breathtakingly fascinating. I love it. And we could talk about this Amanda for nothing. But maybe that's enough for now.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you all work on all those books. Looking. Thank you very much.
Great stuff out there. Yeah, good stuff. I love always love hearing from you. Okay. So there were there was one or two things here and then we'll see if anybody else has anything to say from candy. What is a healthy ego? Are there practices to work through the anxiety of realizing I am not by ego? Oh, yes, good question. So yes, a healthy ego is a healthy sense of agency. The ability to realize that ego is a particular bandwidth in the spectrum of psychological and spiritual evolution, but ego absolutely, positively has a place but somewhat in line with what Amanda is saying. And Pema children says this, when we start to criticize a limit that or put that bandwidth, the perception in its proper place. She sometimes says the ego is just a very funny way of looking at things. I think that's point blank, very simple. So, healthy ego is the ability to healthfully separate ourselves from other there if we didn't have this relative capacity or immune systems wouldn't work. We wouldn't be able to create healthy boundaries. There would be pathological pathological fusion, some of these kind of pathological feminine disorders, which are fusion disorders and so the ability to actually differentiate but not dissociated. See, differentiation is healthy, that's healthy ego. dissociation is pathological ego that's overly contracted ego. So a healthy ego is that if you want to know more about this three, the developmentalist the structuralist, they talk about this in a beautiful way. Are there practices to help work through the anxiety of realizing I am not my ego? Well, the most important thing is realizing just what you said, candy that you are not your ego. So the practices that help you do that are deeper understanding of that radical truth that that we exist in a vast spectrum of identity along two vectors, a horizontal and a vertical vector. And so the ego is associated with both and so understanding the two vectors of developments the work of John Wellwood, the anti realists structuralists in the light is very helpful because then it really does help you understand what ego is, as a form of development. There's no such thing as an ego. It's not a reified thing. It's basically a way of relating to the world. It's a developmental structure. Like age two, or whatever. And so understanding the role of ego understanding the growth, transcends but includes the ego, anything along those lines will help you so the meditation path altogether will help you work through the anxiety of realizing that you're not an ego. It's not an easy thing to detoxify because we are so exclusively identified with form that's what ego is. Ego is pathological exclusive identification with form. And so on that level unhealthy egos turn us into form junkies, thought junkies. And so what we have to engage in as is practitioners on the psychological spiritual path is this kind of withdrawal from our addiction to form our addiction to thought to body all these things that we exclusively identify with. And so that question really is answered by the entirety of the spiritual path all together. So if you want to come on and have some more specificity around that, the second question is an enormous one. We will release our anxiety around the ego and it's released and it's transcendence or death by better understanding its place in the spectrum because if we only identify with that, that's who we think we are, then we're gonna completely freak. We don't want to do any of this stuff. Because really, it's the type of death Well, you don't really grow until you release transcend. Die to earlier stages. And so this is where understanding the psycho spiritual spectrum is super helpful. Because if you realize there's something beyond that transcends ego, but similarly includes it, you always have recourse to that funny way of looking at things, then you're going to be much more prone to let go of it. Oh, it's like oh my god, the view is so much better from the 94 then on the second floor, and so you'd be willing to climb the step to the 19th floor because you realize the second floor is just a limited way of looking at things and so therefore, understanding just the development and this is where the West can really help. Western renderings of development are very helpful long slides, because then you situate your experience more and you're no longer so identified with it, you're ready to let go of it when you realize that the view is better. The air is fresher. You can see farther, it's cleaner. The higher up you Okay,
all right. And I can I jump in? Because I'm here. Okay, totally. Yeah. Um, so I to have was at your weekend, the last couple of weekends and this whole discussion today is really touching me. So, since that time, I've been doing a lot of practices also since that time, I've been less busy than I've ever been. So I in the past 20 months, I've found myself being so busy. That I just don't have time for anything else. And so what has come up since then, I've never had a lucid dream, although I have a very active dream life. A lucid dream that I know of. Is that just a whole lot of anxiety and I am a therapist. I get the developmental part. I read a lot of Ken Wilber so I kind of get his stick. And and I also was it Bruce to that you were talking about that? I just got his book. I've been reading that. Yeah. I'm just finding that I'm doing more practices and I think in doing that and being less busy in my mind, I'm just I have so much more anxiety in my every day. Yeah. So I don't know. I just, you know, you and your teachings have been so helpful for me. Because I've kind of lost my practice over time. And and I feel like I found it again. Yeah,
yeah. Well, let me say a little bit about anxiety because this is a really important topic. And again, I I did a whole course on this. It's on my website working with during anxiety and an uncertain world. And so I love studying this fear anxiety issue because it's so colossal. And so being anything is super interesting. And you'll read about this in Bruce's book where we're basically anxiety and again, there's healthy anxiety and then there's not healthy anxiety, there's binding anxiety is you know, it's a really wonderful, rich topic, but fundamentally for our purposes, one of the reasons you actually may be feeling anxious, and again, I can't say for sure, because on another level, this is the age of anxiety. Oh my god, if you're not anxious, you're not in tune with what's happening in the world. Basically, really, if you're, if you're not anxious, you're lost in your comfort bubble bath. And so that type of anxiety is endemic in the world today because we are in a heap of trouble. So that's that's one level of anxiety that can therefore spur action can spur activity can spur the desire for change. On a deeper level, just like with fear, anxiety manifests on a spectrum. And when you start to get down to the really deep kind of ontological, the deepest levels of anxiety you start to realize that fundamentally anxiety his egos relationship to emptiness is basically a egos inability to tolerate the truth of inherent non existence, and this goes incredibly deep therefore, and we fundamentally need to understand this because the deeper we go into ourselves, the deeper we go and farther we go along on the path. The more we're going to enter these deep interior domains of anxiety and fear because they are the core of the relative samsaric mandola. This is the fabric of the relative self sense. And so therefore, if you understand that dimension of it, this is a really big deal because therefore it means when you feel anxiety and fear, it can actually be a really good sign. Again, it's not comfortable, but it's a really could be a really good sign. Why because you're getting closer to the truth. And basically what ego does is it uses fear and anxiety is one of the most powerful deterrence, one of which is why you intimate and I can't say for sure there's kind of act of laziness. We're just so consumed with busyness that we don't even bother with these deeper enterprises. But what's so important here is understanding the generative role of fear and anxiety in the creation of the samsaric narrative and the construction of the ego. And so therefore, when things fall apart, or you're starting to feel real anxiety, this is really good news. It means you're starting to get somewhere. But if you don't understand that, you're going to go eff this, I'm gonna go back to my samsara thing. I'm not smart enough, I don't have time for this. This is bullshit. You're gonna run ego we have one yet again. But if you have the right view, you understand Whoa, what is the nature of fear? What is the nature of anxiety? At its deepest levels is basically smoke screens that keep you away from truth. And so therefore, when you start to feel it and you understand it, then what you do is you go directly into it, you reverse your strategy, and you go directly into the fear directly into the anxiety that's not easy to do. It's especially if you don't have the right view. If you have the right view, then you go, Well, I'm going to go right through this sucker. I'm going to establish I'm going to penetrate the mystery of this thing called anxiety and fear. And one thing you may play with candy is and I do this now a fair amount without indulging. Try to feel that anxiety as fully as you possibly can do the opposite of what you would do. Don't go to the movies don't turn on the TV or Netflix. Don't get a drink or smoke your cigarette, don't walk your dog, stay within anxiety and try to be with it. 100% That doesn't mean indulging in the narrative. The trick with this is when you start to see the storylines coming in and the narratives, you've lost it. Then you come that the idea is to stay with that
energy. Non conceptual level somatic level, where do I feel it in my body? What does it feel like? Can I actually feel anxious 100% I won't tell you what will happen because I don't I don't want to be spoiler alert here guy. But that type of relationship born a proper understanding will radically transform not only your experience of anxiety, but it will radically transform anxiety altogether. And so this is this is an unconventional way I'm writing a lot about this stuff. Right now, because I think this is a technique that we could really use that can completely transform we relate to these unwanted states. And so as a little bit of a con for your practice I might recommend don't try to get rid of it. Go into it. 100% What is it like to be I want to be 100% anxious person and then just see what happens. Okay,
I love that. Thank you so much. Because I've you know, as I've been wanting to come to one of your retreats and especially in Mexico, I'd love to go and then there's this other part of me I don't want to go I'm too busy. I can't go and next
year, but hopefully Yeah,
what you just gave me was beautiful. Thank you. That's really really, really helpful.
I know I'm telling you I'm speaking from direct experience. It's what this is done with me. Like when I feel grief when I feel heartache when I feel any so called unwanted experience. Now, I have this kind of indestructible quality born of like, I know if I'm just if I'm feeling this, whatever it is 100% That's just going to radically change it and I do this with every unwanted experience. And it is it has completely altered my relationship to all this and then I'll say more about it later. I don't want to say too much about it now, but these are these are really powerful ways. These are kind of tantric ways of working with these energies that can completely transform your life. So give her a try and let me know. Okay. Okay, Stephanie. One more and then probably another one. All right. Or something. Hi, there. Hi there.
Hi there. So my gosh. I'm so glad you're here and this
like minded lunatic group. So what you just everything you were just talking about? I don't see you on the screen now.
Everything you were just talking about I it was helpful for me to hear and be reminded of I'm in all this stuff about anxiety and ego and being stretched and all this. I'm being challenged. Are you I don't see him at all. Here. Oh, there you are. Yeah. I am being challenged by some things right now in my family. I have a sister on an ICU in New York fighting for her life and a mom on a slugger just this kind of things like stuff that's life stuff but I'm being challenged because it's bringing up all kinds of stuff for me and I am you know I have roles in things I need to do in relation to
my family members and and I on the one hand, it's lit a fire under my butt to meditate more and just keep practicing and keep my try to keep my calm so that I can be helpful. And on the other hand, I just really recognize how fast my ego takes off on these trains. I mean, like, you know, the anxiety it's like to sit down to you know, jump on that train to nowhere jump on another train to you know, it's like so fast that Caboose or whatever. So it's like it's kind of this bouncing back and forth, you know, between you know, just doing what I need to do. That's wiser, I suppose. And then the other part that's totally freaking out. And the one thing and and some of what you said resonated with some things that are happening with me which I'm i Some people have made suggestions to me about just how my mind runs down these roads fear base, just running to solve things and what to do and how to and how to find the place where I am responsible for others and and also responsible to take care of myself because I do sometimes have trouble not taking care of myself in a healthy ego I guess way in the situation. So I need to keep that in its place and I'm in a wise place. Um, but what I did notice is is that my ego or my thoughts train running down the road so fast um it's like the the spinning thoughts which happened when I even when I sit down to practice look, you can even hear it and how I'm trying to talk now. I'm I'm a little all over the place and um, but what I did notice is that those anxious runs down the road or are usually in response to some kind of thought ego thing. Um, as opposed to the actual moment of what requires response in the present moment. So it's just, it's like fear and anxiety that I can't handle something or it's it's old stuff in some ways. It's like some thought pattern that is generating these I don't know if I'm making sense Are you understanding at all what I'm saying or am I I may have to think this through more to verbalize it. Yeah, I'm in the middle, I guess of a lot and sometimes I just want to it's not so much reach for a drink retreat, but it just like crash out. Just like like deer in the headlights just crash out like not practice any dream stuff, not just crash out. So you know my mind lesson. This has a place. We have the psychic structure, which is really lofty and advanced, where we can just bring everything onto the path that there are times where mindlessness has a place. Not too tight not too loose so you don't want to be too tight. You want you want to you know this kind of playful curious Yeah, I was like approach sometimes it's really helpful and give yourself a break give yourself a drink. It again this is different right from some of the other comments and questions and statements from from today. But that's why it's really helpful to bounce the sort of stuff off the people and get different views because sometimes just taking a break meditation is not always the best thing to do. I mean sometimes in retreat, people come and you'll just say, don't, don't do the session, take take the morning off, take the day off, go for a walk, or someone's like feeling particularly dissociated and whatnot. Sometimes meditation is contraindicated. And we'll say go work in the garden. Go in nature Don't Don't even worry about meditation. So meditation is not a panacea. It's just one
skill set and a vast array of vast armamentarium of skill sets that we have at our disposal and, and so I think it's it's a colossal near enemy of the whole meditative thing that sometimes we swing the pendulum too far the other way. And we feel that meditation can handle everything. Well, theoretically, yes, because emptiness can handle everything. But on a practical level. No. Sometimes it's just realized meditation is just part of this bandwidth, which is why again, I love the interval thing. I love working with psychology, working with all this other stuff, because meditation is not the only game in town. It is. Yeah, it's not it's not like I feel like I'm meditating too much on any level. It's that my mind because of meditation and in these has become so aware of in some ways of what it's doing in response to stuff. And it's like I'm aware, it going off, you know, of it all over the map, but I am not sufficiently right, yelled at at reining it in or recognizing how to how to let it release somehow it's not even that meditation. Practice is a problem. It's more than the meditation has given me more awareness over time, and a psychological issues, all kinds of things going on, that are all happening. At one time. And that's where I'm getting kind of like, a little over like I think, you know, there's something to be said about giving myself a break. I that is good advice for me a lot. But but it's not just meditation as an issue. I'm not like it's not like that. I'm pushing myself to meditate. It's that it doesn't go away the awareness of all this stuff, right isn't going away. Yeah, exactly. That's really well said. And really the way I work with this stuff is that is that yes, when we do this meditation stuff, we do actually become more awake. We do become more aware. And there are times when we are going to just simply become more sensitive neurotics.
Exactly, we're just going to be gonna be we're going to be more touchy and irritable and somewhat so called negative sense, because it takes a little bit of time. You know, we again we don't The reason we have to cut ourselves a little bit of slack is because this is why the spectrum of identity thing is so helpful. That there are times yes, when we're, we're so called spiritual we're open we're on that seemingly upper bandwidth puts if this were a vast mass of complex different strands of causes and conditions, and karmic propensities and habits were just the collage of the sorts of things. Well, therefore there are times when those those lower so called lower frequencies still have their effect. And so instead of like, judging ourselves What do you propose to say in this, this might be the take home message for you? The highest form of spiritual practice is self observation without judgment. Or just sit back, watch the whole bloody thing kind of witness awareness. Let it go. Take a vacation, go on the beach, go for a walk. And just cut yourself a little bit of slack because if you if you get too tight around the sensitivity thing, it's just going to tie you into knots and it's going to get you speedy and all whipped out and sometimes you can just just drop the whole effing thing you know, they talk about fresh start, not only first start within a meditation session, first start within a whole path. Let the whole bloody thing go. Just drop it all. And then allow just allow the germination, the gestation whatever to take place. And then you may find yourself a little bit more naturally coming back and saying okay, I'm going to dip my toes back into those waters because there's we all have aspirations and you're a little bit like me, kind of type A driven which is really great. But one of the near enemies is trying too hard. Trying to accomplish too much. And so this is why, yeah, what did remember, this is another thing for you that I love this for my teacher camp. RFJ when he said so beautifully said airing and airing. I walk the unerring path. Yeah, we're gonna make 1000 mistakes and we're gonna make I mean, we're human right and it's just a shit show. And there's all kinds of stuff. And if we relate to the whole thing, with this playful, but yet persevered relationship, finding our way, pinging off of extremes making mistakes falling down like Pema children she she gave a really quite a now famous talking for the new rubber graduates a couple years ago, the China into a little booklet fail fail fail again better. This is this was her commencement speech. Like all these people are graduating and her messages fail, fail fail again better and so we just somewhere in there, we just find our way and always remember that the journey is the goal. The fact that you're doing this that's the goal. Don't set the bars don't set the standards, expectations, premeditated disappointment, and just enjoy the ride because otherwise what's the point? Yeah, you're just tying yourself in knots. It's like oh my God, why am I doing this? I'm just just turning into a spiritual narcissism neurotic mess here, right? So those would be the words I would chosen but yeah, they're worth defining right. So I think you're gonna have something like that. Okay, darn good. Okay. Welcome so much. So let me just Well, one or two things here that I probably need to run. I gotta, I gotta take a drink. You guys are you guys are all stressing me out. I gotta get a drink here. Just kidding.
I think you got all the ones out the chat.
Here. Oh. Yeah, the two books Donald Hoffman visual intelligence on the psychology of saying those are really great books. They're classics. Yeah, the sticky note thing right? The path is perceptual, not actual.
Call. I think we're there. Yay. Everybody. Thank you so much.
I'm off to Mexico. If I don't come back, is because I decided to be a drug dealer. I'm going to try it out for a couple of weeks. I always wanted to see what it was like to be a drug dealer. So if I don't come back, it means I'm down there in jail. I everybody safe trip. My friends will be taking care of stuff for me. Joseph and Jeffrey and obviously Thursday's probably not much because I'm full on teaching these retreats. But I'll see you back in a couple of weeks with Swami sobre pre Ananda this guy's a total rock star. You're gonna love him whenever you come on. We got some really cool things coming up. So great to see everybody really always very fun. We do is totally geeky thing if you're still there. Everybody turns their cameras on everybody does this really ridiculous love fest hug. And it's really it's fun. It's so great to just hang out and do this. Whatever. Thank you so much. Everybody, everybody Yeah.
