Hi everybody, always my favorite part, everybody gets to say hello, all these wonderful humanoids out there. Hello. That's awesome. Karate karate moto karate. Love it. So here's um. Welcome back, everybody, For those of you who may be new to what we do here, starting year ago during the COVID thing. We just started spontaneously hanging out together and we kind of just can't seem to stop. I love it. This is like my favorite gig, because I just show up. I do a little spontaneous riff. And then most of the time is just we just hang out the questions are always so rich. One was typed in from Tim that I'm gonna actually use my little introductory riff on a really great question about emptiness. And so this is the place to bring your questions, your offerings your challenges. If you here see something that doesn't work for you. Now's the time to talk about it so I love it it's open forum very relaxed. I always prefer kind of a live interaction, because then I can get clarification with your, with your questions and comments you know I get a little bit of feedback going on. So a couple announcements we usually do five minutes a little thingies. I'm trying to set up my next interview will be with Claire Johnson, she just wrote a fantastic book which which I was so happy to endorse for her best book on nightmares I've ever read. I think it's called The Art of transforming nightmares and Claire with PhD. She is I think she's the first person to get a PhD in lucid dreaming and she's a sweetheart, I adore her. She's so smart, and she's so sensitive and this book is just fantastic. So we're gonna do a riff about this book MVC, emphasizing how you can use lucidity principles to transform nightmares and to realize that she puts it so beautifully that night, nightmares are just fantastic gifts, gifts in really ugly wrapping paper. What a great line right every light mirror is some, some things there's some part of you is calling out for healing integration holing Hey, pay attention to me. It's really, really good stuff. So that's coming up and then I'm talking to some neuroscientists, there's some really interesting things in the works, but the really big news is just this week after months, hundreds of hours of effort. The whole nightclub community, which is, I guess my main most active platform these days. We've done a complete restructuring redesign. We just launched the app this week, and basically it will be offering something literally every day of the week meditation group on Monday night, book Study Group on Tuesday night we're about to finish dreams of light and transition into two other books. Wednesday webinars we have a sleep doctor, Dr O'Malley, my dear friends. Some of you may know because we've already done some PowerPoint webinars with him he's such a sharp guy. So the ability to actually literally have free consultations with, with a certified sleep doctor about your sleep issues once a night that Thursday this Friday is when we'll be trying to release the interviews which are going to continue. Saturday Andy's really delightful free movie night. And then Sunday the book sharing group, um and so and he's going to put in a column, there's a free link there, a free link, there's a link to free offerings as part of inviting people and we're gonna make the entire site available with with each week, offering a new aspect of it. And so, now that I'm gonna do a little bit about, I hate to use the word hard sell because this is marketing thing is just so not my thing. But for a number of reasons we have to increase membership around that and so we're going to grandfather in anybody who wants to come in forever at this original fee structure thing, so check that out. But, um, that's enough of the lemonade stand, I wanted to read my spontaneous riff for today, I usually spend five minutes talking about something and then we open it up, what occurred to me today with something I was working on this morning, I'm writing I think some of you know two books,
both of which are really about expanding my horizons. Outside of the nocturnal arena into lucidity principles altogether. Using lucidity against codeword for awareness and how awareness slash lucidity is beneficial, day or night, or even when you die, lucid dreaming leads to lucid living, and also leads to lucid die. And so, I'm writing two books to kind of expand the meditation aspect of it. And this particular excerpt downloaded read I was working on it this morning. I think it's important, and it, I was inspired to riff on this a little bit because of the really good question that I'm going to start with Tim wrote. So this is a little bit of a context prep for his quite good question. And so the title of little, this little assumption that the name of this book by the way, tentatively is okay, I'm mindful. Now what exploring the natural wonders of the mind, it's a it's simultaneously a critique of the mindfulness revolution which is brilliant. I mean, the mindfulness revolution is amazing, but it also has some shadow elements, some real shadow sides, mindfulness, the fact that mindfulness itself does not liberate it just pacifies. And so I do a gentle critique and mostly just to support okay, like now, what can we do. And so I riff on a bunch of stuff, some of which is from my really long three year retreat where some of these practices, practices are now in the public domain so it's all about, when you have that platform just like lucid dreaming is a platform for all the nocturnal meditations. Mindfulness is a platform to literally dozens of other meditations, some of which will be cascading through by the way on the Monday night, meditation group that's right that group started. So this book is a way to introduce people to all these different practices that they may be completely unaware of, you know there are dozens, so this is one section that I think is important that I want to share with you as a platform into our first question for today so training or discovery. Meditation can be looked at in two different ways the more relative and conventional ways that meditation teams and then trains the mind. Like any other discipline, the more you do it the better you get at it. And the more you harvest the results. This is an entirely valid way to look at meditation, but the limitation with this view is that it is dualistic. The results are out there somewhere in the future and you have to work to acquire them. The second way to look at meditation is more radical unconventional this more absolute approach is based on the non dual wisdom traditions is therefore unfamiliar to many in the West, from this more ancient traditional perspective the many qualities that meditation seems to develop are already present as innate qualities of the natural mind. Meditation simply serves to dis cover them, uncover them, just remove the adventitious defilements, you know you'll like adventitious means not inherent to like, like dust. Just remove the adventitious defilements obscurations clean off the dust and the golden qualities of the mind. For the meditative mind naturally shine forth. According to these traditions. We simply forgot. We forgot that we possess all these natural wonders of the mind. meditation jogs your memory. From this stance, the results you're after are always already here right now present. You simply have to unearth them. While meditation shares a great deal with other disciplines. It's unique in this regard, I'm a concert level canvas and competitive tennis player. I can sit at my keyboard or stand on the tennis courts till I'm blue in the face but I will never get better at either discipline, however if I'm shown how to sit properly on my meditation cushion. I will get better at meditation, even, even, you know the great master Trump or obj one said, by simply taking the proper posture in meditation. Sooner or later you will find yourself meditating, amazing statement. This by the way is why posture landscape so to speak is so important.
When people ask me what we do at my meditation center or sometimes playfully say well we do nothing, but we do it really well. If you notice how hard it is to do nothing. Well, it's hard because we're not human beings we're human doings right so doing nothing. Well, which by the way is also connected to Bardo yoga. If you want to die well learn to do nothing well because that's what happens when you die, you're forced to do nothing. That's not so easy for human doings, not human beings, Meditation yeah we're doing it, doing it really well this Mr misstate this mischievous Maxim will come into play when we talk about some of the more advanced meditations coming up so just two more paragraphs, knowing about the seemingly opposite approaches to meditation helps us understand where the results come from the relative weight is more the path of effort and training while the absolute way is more the path of relaxation and D training. Why is this important first that helps us to relax. Sometimes people just try too hard. When they meditate and that effort can backfire. Secondly, while meditation may initially feel contrived and even artificial it's actually the most natural thing you could ever do. Ironically, meditation, only feels contrived at first, because of all the contrivances that have accrued to obscure the wonders of the natural mind. In other words, meditation, only feels unnatural in the beginning because of contrast, because of all the artificial realities that have accumulated over our lives. In terms of mindfulness meditation when you start to meditate, you're going against the monumental tide of all your mindless habits, all your previous training and distraction. This is the other thing that's worth throwing into the mix again I'm throwing in some comments. You know the word for meditation right you know what by now in Tibetan What is it gone G O M transliterated to become familiar with this has so many interesting implications and applications, one of which which is colossally important is that whether we know it or not, we're always meditating. We're always becoming increasingly familiar with either mindfulness or mindlessness, either presence or distraction. And so, This explains right off the bat why we're all so good at being mindless because we practice it all the time, it's our default literally what neuroscientists talk about is a default mode network. It's where the mind has been trained to go a fault in both senses, as in chasm and in in mistake. It's a fault that we comically create every time we habituate to distraction we make that fault into Grand Canyon, and we just fall into it naturally why because we've cut this groove. Naturally, I mean, I shouldn't say naturally naturally for the ego. So this is super important when you sit down to meditation in your mind is like Geez man I can't control my mind look this just like crazy. Well you're simply bearing witness to your proficiency and distraction, you're bearing witness to all the fruits of a lifetime and if you believe in this thing lifetimes of the unwitting practice of non lucidity mindlessness discursive pneus distraction. And so what we're trying to do is turn the massive this massive Titanic. We're trying to change that course and so you know you're not going to stop the Titanic on a dime. There's so much karma so much habit so much momentum that has to dissipate. Man, you can certainly turn to turn this behemoth this karmic momentum around. You've been unwittingly trained into distraction and mindlessness for so long it to such an extent that it now feels natural, but it's not natural mindlessness is totally artificial. It's a twisting and tangling of the natural mind. Mindfulness is actually what's natural. Let me say that again. Mindfulness is actually the natural state. Just like for the nocturnal people nocturnal meditation people just like lucidity, this may be an outrageous proclamation, but it's true. Lucid dreams are the natural type of dream. We've been trained into non lucidity. Mindfulness lucidity is an is what's natural and meditation does the untwisting and untangling that reveals this radical truth. We'd like to buy natural things at the grocery store products with no artificial ingredients all my editors on my writers telling me you know you got to throw as many images as much concretized imagery as many metaphors and analogies, so this is one that came to mind for me.
We like to buy natural things at the grocery store products without artificial colorings or ingredients. Meditation is the most, most green organic product you could ever buy, it's a return to nature, the nature of your own mind. Once you get the hang of it, meditation becomes the most natural thing in the world. Thirdly, if you're keeping track and then I'm done. This more unconventional approach to meditation is also really good news, Because it helps explain why the results can occur so quickly, because you're engaging in a practice that is in harmony with the way things really are a template that is in resonance with reality. Once you get over the initial hump of resistance you may be surprised at how rapidly progress because now you're doing something that's in resonance with reality. That's why when you kind of click into the flow the zone of meditation you know you've had this experience. It just feels like the most natural easiest thing in the world to do because you've literally in tantric language you've entered the action. You've entered the flow the natural state and it feels so natural. Feels like a homecoming. Instead of spinning you're spending your life swimming upstream, you finally relax and let the natural current take you where you, where you really want it to go all along. So that's my riff, again this also applies to lucidity that lucid dreamers, you know the relative approach to lucidity is training, learning the induction methods learning all the techniques, totally valid totally valid, but the more radical kind of Western contribution. Again as lucidity is just the natural state and so therefore the only thing you need to do both for success and a diurnal or nocturnal meditations is just what one word. Relax, relax, open. Relax. Everything you're looking for is right, they're actually right here. And so I wanted to read this because Tim had sent him this really good question. And so I'll read it and run around with this a little bit and then it's open, open territory for you all. So I'll read the question then I'll run the commentary on it this is a good one. Andrew is often spoken about the state of emptiness or nothingness, achieved by Buddha's and highly advanced beings. Sounds like a lot like annihilation. Can you please share how it is different and why we should seek it. Yeah, good question, amigo. So I'm going to take this apart a little bit with your permission and let's because it's such a good question we're going to divide and conquer a little bit so yeah so emptiness is arguably the courts, it's the center in kind of contract language it's the center of the monda level Buddhism, emptiness, everything in Buddhism circumambulate emptiness, everything, it's fantastic on one level, Shakespeare right. Much ado about NAFTA, nothing. Everything circumambulate nothing but here's the kicker. It's not nothing. It's no thing. So understanding emptiness is, is a, say it's a big deal is a, is a massive understatement, it's a colossal undertaking to understand what emptiness is it's not nothingness, it's no thingness just change one thing here. And so therefore, that's a really important thing in fact if you understand, and then eventually experience. Emptiness altogether. It's actually fullness, really.
Emptiness really means fundamentally empty of self nature, it means that if you take a very close look at anything, you won't find any essential thingness there everything arises in a deep ecological way everything arises dependent on a vast nexus of causes and conditions extending throughout the globe and extending throughout history, everything arises in dependence on everything else so emptiness is a nothingness, it's everything this empty of self means full of other. And so this also gives rise to things like compassion and so when you. The question is like why should we seek it well. On one level, because it's the it's the essence of compassion. And this is one way to know if you've actually experienced it, because the spontaneous. An effective action expression of this emptiness is actually a fullness of radiance, tremendous compassion. So, if you feel like you may have, like tuned into emptiness, but you're not living your life on the service of others, then you haven't experienced that. Because that automatic reflex of expression of this emptiness is compassionate activity it's one metric it's one way to know if someone's actually actualized this to some degree, you become more and more self less. So the other thing that's super important here Tim is that emptiness is not something that's achieved, it's something that's recognized this is important. It's not something that it's that's achieved it's recognized emptiness is also really important, emptiness is not the source of reality it's not the source of things, emptiness is the essence of everything. It's both cause and effect, it's not a location. This is really important because otherwise it's very easy to think, oh I somehow I have to return to emptiness or I have to get to emptiness I have to get someplace. This is why Norman Fischer writes so beautifully that, you know, emptiness slash enlightenment by the way, this is another reason in Buddhist language, like why you might want to actualize it because it's synonymous with enlightenment is it's not a destination. It's a false destination. And so you never achieve it, it's like it's like achieving your feet, you know, to achieve your feet, you might look down and recognize that you have them. In fact, trying to, it's like Trump Rama Jae Hwan said it the more refined levels of a path, striving itself is the only obstacle, seeking for something presumes the absence of that which you seek. And so this, this view is super important because otherwise we end up looking for it when it's not it's not a matter of looking in fact looking can actually prevent you from finding it. This is why when the investigations that point this out. For some of you this language might need something might mean something like the Mahamudra investigations, or the dialectics and the teachings on the job market for those of you who know these terms, you know, they give you all these tools for looking looking investigating investigating, and they often say, not finding is the best finding that finding is the best finding. So, it's, it's, it's right here right now, it sounds the best so back to you it sounds like a lot like annihilation, which most of us don't want. Well, It's the annihilation of the ego. And yeah, yes ego does not want that. It's the annihilation of all those adventitious defilements, I was talking about, it's it's more appropriately, the term is negation, or literally in Hindu thought that being negativa neti neti not this, Not that. In Christian theology, the apophatic way. The way of negation. And so that's why, Tim, there's so much negation on the path because, you know, they sometimes talk about the two extreme views, one being a misinterpretation of emptiness which is nihilism. The other one is a misinterpretation of reality which is eternalism thinking that things really exist and so Tim The reason there's so much in the gating really even, even the terms for enlightenment or negation terms you know Nirvana and I are Sanskrit is a negative term Nirvana to extinguish to blow out. Neo Roda cessation mutebi culpa to deconstruct nespra poncho to deconstruct proliferation. So the reason there's so much cutting it first so much slashing negation is because it's what pornography refers to the extreme path to the middle where so much eternalists we so much believe that things exist, that in order to, to find our way back to the middle to reality,
which is not the middle way between the two. By the way, it's just called the middle way. We have to cut, cut, cut the gate and the gate and the gate. And so that's why there's so much negation that first, because we have to get rid in a certain way, we are all extremists, we're all fundamentalists in a very deep way we just don't even know it. We're extremists and our belief that that things are truly existent that's a form of extremism. And so to find our way back into the middle initially there has to be a little bit of slashing and burning, purifying cutting, and that's why the path is a little bit painful, it's really why one of the reasons I wrote my first book power and pain, is that you know it's like, it's necessary surgery, getting rid of all this stuff that's just, you know, removing these defilements. So what else did I say here, um. Oh yeah. So one last thing and then and then we'll just let this go for now because it's such a huge topic. I shared with some of you that I had a really interesting session with a couple other people with a neuroscientist. Also, contemplative neuroscientists, really cool guy. And he says something very compelling here that ties into meditation, where he said literally resting in the present moment is annihilation. Wow, what an interesting statement, resting in the present moment is annihilation in what he was meeting you again using neuroscientific principles is that when you're when you actually resting in, in the present moment. It boycotts it interrupts it annihilates your storylines, and that's all that ego is ego is just this really sad, pathetic, ongoing narrative, a really sad story with an even sadder ending it's called death. But see, there's another reason why you might want to actualize emptiness, because when you actualize emptiness fullness, then there is no such thing as death. That only applies to the world of form, so that's another reason you want to reach immortality, die now. Wake up to the truth of emptiness now death only applies to the world of form. Ego is the archetype of form exclusive identification to form. And so if we can differentiate dis identify let go of our exclusive identification to form, that's one way to look at what the spiritual path is. We actually kind of back our way into the truth into emptiness into reality. And then that path is a little bit like death and slow motion, it's not very comfortable. It is a type of death, you have to let go. That's why when many people, parenthetically on the spiritual path, have so many death related dreams, they're not, they're not literal, they're symbolic of transformation and release. If he had some of these, I mean you know so many practitioners, tell me about all these death dreams and even suicide dreams. They're extreme extremely rarely are they literal or precognitive they're usually symbolic it's because there has to be this dying process. Now if you die before you die then when you die you will not die. So, Tom, thanks for a great platform. I probably should let that one go, otherwise we'll be here all day on that one. Great question, my friend. So two more came in and then we can go live, Charles Lee. Oh, I guess this is a yes, two books Yes, seeing the freeze I know both these books, meditations on emptiness and dependent arising Yep. Emptiness A Practical Guide for meditators. They're both really good. My personal favorite book just because it's so pithy, and I'm a little biased because he's my main teacher for so many years, Khenpo tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche a progressive stages of meditation on emptiness, this is a masterpiece of a book by 120 pages very pithy right to the point, it's not easy because it's so direct. Plus, it's not easy because emotionally. This is also important, ego doesn't want to hear this, you know, it's like, again, Trump and say, ego cannot attend its own funeral, this is the funeral for ego that's why, like you put, put in your question and most of us don't want it, because most of us don't want a funeral. Right. But
in 120 pages Campbell River che goes through the five kind of classic stages of meditations on emptiness, giving the doctrinal traditional supports and then most specifically practices. And another reason I love this book so much is with each of these five stages, he has a dream contemplation, because this is really a Dream Yoga is just a fantastic place to discover the truth of emptiness. Make your MPJ go so far as to say that you know the daytime, classroom is tough when it comes to emptiness the nighttime classroom is easier. You said you can learn more about emptiness in your dreams, because you're experiencing more the empty nature the de reified nature of your mind. In the dreamscape, but those are both good books, I would toss in as welcome parameters book. So Beatrice is there a way to raise humans from infancy so they stay lucid and don't get conditioned to believe on a separate solid self, so they wouldn't have to unlearn habitual contraction. What a great question. Oh, if there is Beatrice let me know who you know, the closest we can get. And let me just say my view on this whole Tuco phenomena is what they do with, with these reincarnated masters, you may have seen there's so many movies now probably a dozen on this topic, hidden child, I mean there's so many, so many movies about how, when a meditation master dies, you know, they go to the Dalai Lama Karmapa or somebody and they want to find him ASAP, for just this reason. Because the sooner you can find one of these precious gems and bring them into a sequestered environment exactly like you're talking about Beatrice, the less detoxes involved. So, is there a way to do that Yangtze dicey I wish there was, but unfortunately there isn't because, you know, this is actually interesting because this is like an indoor version of pure lands, really. This is why Pure Land teachings and pure land principle are so important, because unfortunately, just because of the way, relative reality is we're born into an impure environment into an impure land. We're inculcated toxified by all these wrong views. And so in using this particular metaphor in a very real way, the meditative path is really a process of detoxification. I felt this acutely when I did my really long retreat nice glasses there Andy goes are awesome, man. You know, it's why I wrote my book parent pain because the first three, four months of this thing were just a blast furnace for me it was so hard. And so I thought about exactly what you're saying here I thought about I was like why, why is it so hard, I'm just sitting in this room by myself, you know, almost 24 Seven. Why is that so hard. It started to feel like you know as I walked down the hall into my room which started to feel like a prison chamber first. You know, it was really really struggling and I started to do kind of analytic meditation and I was like what is going on here. Why is this so hard for me. And I realized, I've never been a substance abuser, in the classical sense, but I realized on a very real level I was going through a kind of detox from the Substance Abuse of reality itself, turning reality into a substance of form. And so is there a way to do it. Oh boy, you know, the only thing we can do is if you have a family is, is try to create as much of this type of environment of truth as you possibly can. Outside of that, I am all ears for suggestions I mean this is why we have spiritual communities. This is why we have retreat centers. This is why we go into these sequestered environments as a way to really either prevent this toxification process or detoxify.
But yeah, what you're saying is so true, we, we have to unlearn a great deal of habitual karmic contraction habits and the like. And it's like, remember I was sharing, actually not in the session in another group. You've all know Harare is great, you know, fantastic historian, he's written three landmark books in the last 10 years. The most famous one is sapiens. And in this book he talks about how the human Homo sapiens sapiens is really unique in the evolutionary spectrum of beings because, unlike most beings who come out you know pretty much full cooked, mostly relatively compared to us, humans come out half baked. And that's you know I mean you couldn't live for a day without a holding environment a caring environment. And so therefore we are much more susceptible to the inculcation of these worldviews. And the other thing is very interesting about the human brain. This is the work of Bruce Lipton, the EPA geneticists that the human brain, the great peril and promise of the brain, one of the great perils, is that the human brain has so much power that we can actually literally learn perceptions, other animals have to have direct perception in order to learn their reality. The brain is so powerful that you can the brain can actually be trained, you can actually therefore inhabit it. Acquire the perceptions of others, literally, you literally start to see the world through the eyes of others, they're your caretakers and your families of origins and the like. And so all this stuff ties in Beatrice to a just a fantastic question on your part and that's the best I can do with that one. So, unless somebody else has something to ask contribute or offer around that, I'll let take over now, that if we have some live, live ones more than welcome.
Yeah, Shintoism raised hand.
Hey there, Andrew. Hey I just actually wanted to riff off
what we were just talking about, rather than don't
have like children. So, yeah, we obviously just past Easter weekend, and I sort of had a little bit of an argument with my sister, my brother who have children, and I was kind of saying to them, Like, don't you think it's more healthy to like not teach them about like an Easter Bunny that there's like an actual kind of thing out there that's delivering the eggs, versus just having a little celebration of like hiding the eggs but let it come from the parents don't create this like illusion of a rabbit. Because when I discovered it wasn't true and I was like a, like, an elderly child when I finally figured it out, because I was just so like in this like imaginal world. I felt like there was a dissociation like, well what's actually real and it's kind of traumatizing in a way so I wanted your thoughts I honestly thought of Youth Week and I'm like, What would Andrew say about like teaching kids about stuff because it seems like the path of like, even the tool coups, like they go through life trying to detoxify to to get to the essence of something, oh my God and Jesus.
I might sound like a Grinch Andrew but I just, I don't want to do this right now.
Well, let me turn it back to you and then, then we can play a little tennis here. What do you think, I mean, where do you land with all this. Are you Are you a parent, by the way,
I am not a parent.
Okay, irrespective of that where do you go with this, what would you, what would you like to see how does this land review.
For me, and kind of seeing, like, I guess the pathologies I guess you could say growing up believing in things that weren't necessarily there, I kind of feel like it, maybe made me not as, how can I say it like looking at things for what it is like I kept trying to find magical in certain things so I feel as though like it shouldn't I think you should actually kind of like, you know, teach kids, what is real, like what's actually real. So if you're going to have an Easter egg hunt, let it come from a parent's, that's sort of my thing.
Yeah, again this is, this is a fantastic question. I mean it really there's so many avenues to run with this. One thing that needs to be borne in mind is that we have to really be aware of both physiological and psychological limitations that are part and parcel of the growing up trajectory, right, that there are, there are certain, you know, it's really not until I mean, just to give you one of many examples, it's not until you're like 2425 that you're the executive functions of your brain or even their right, you know the prefrontal cortex is fully online and so if each stage of of physical maturation there's a corresponding stage of psychological development and so this requires just exquisite sensitivity and understanding of the whole developmental process altogether all the things that are involved with it. And for those of you who are parents out there or who are thinking about being parents, I might recommend one thing before I forget it. I've been talking a little bit about Bruce Lipton's really quite, there's a reason this was a bestseller book, Biology of Belief he has a, he's a really clever guys very brave scientist. He has a chapter in there on the conscious parenting, that, that should be like mandatory reading, it's just such a sensitive. And again, rigorous, look at the responsibilities of parenthood, what's involved taking everything I've said here and so much more about how in fact we hand off our worldviews to to our progeny, how there's just a tremendous responsibility involved here how literally, you know, especially in the early stages, we, we digest metabolize experience for our children, we literally feed those like the images like when you know birds. Sometimes the parent will actually eat the food and then regurgitate into the baby, I mean that's that's the perfect metaphor you know so the our children live on our regurgitated reality. And so, wow, I mean, It's just such a fantastic question. It's, it kind of stops my mind just because it's so bloody big, I think on one level, allegiance to reality really should supersede virtually everything and so for instance, like hiding people from death, you know again I think of Trump or Michi when in born in Tibet, he talked about how, unlike in the west where death is, you know, virtually, like it's like pornography, we gotta hide it, we bury it we you know we got to hide it from everybody. We then have this really unfortunate adverse relationship to a completely natural experience. And so, Remy che talks about his winning part of this training was a nice experience was literally every week, being just around death all the time, where it just became it was just no big deal, it's just like this natural process and so this is a really delicate dance of of the sensitivities of the perceptual and physiological structures of the developing child, and also realizing that truth is curative that awareness is curative, and that, you know, the earlier we, you know, children like stem cells right the earlier, we put them in a in a, like a crappy environment filled with fake news, you know they imbibe and live in a world of fake news and then, then they have this really painful process if they even ever come to admit it, that wow I've been completely polluted by all these wrong views. And so,
if there are psychologists listening or parents of the like, I'm not a parent so I also want to be a little bit careful that I don't want to speak merely as a ivory tower, you know, kind of scholar here, but I think these principles, you know, to me the most important thing is really coming back to just the enormous responsibility that's involved in parenting, that you know it's it's a colossal enterprise and I'm sure you know this from your, from your own lived experience or from those around you, I mean I know people who are literally life long casualties from an appropriate and digested and metabolized even sometimes obviously traumatic experiences their entire life is, is, is a kind of consequence Aquarela of this sort of thing. So yes, I think what you're saying on one level is really true, but you know we also then have to kind of titrate, you know what that marine mean the word means to kind of, We have to be sensitive enough to drip into their systems, levels of truth, that they can actually handle and that level of sensitivity is or is really is really challenging depending on the circumstances environment the sensitivity of the child. Some children are so, so amazingly hypersensitive and open that this becomes really a delicate situation and so for me it's, it's, it's easy. And I don't want to say that it's facile to think that spiritual principles can somehow rule the day here. I very readily open myself to psychologist biologists child psychologist child's anybody who really works in this area in an integral kind of systemic way. That's the way I would approach it, so you don't just put all your eggs in the spiritual basket or all your eggs in the, you know, physiological basket, you look at this in a really broad kind of systemic way for the deepest possible answers, but it's a fantastic question. And I'm just gonna let it run for now because again, you know, they're just so great that we can do another whole class on this dude. Thank you so much. Oh Joseph. Thank you so Joe has a comment here. Yes, on the Tibetan tradition they started, they start studying at age five, but don't start meditating, meditation training until age eight. Yeah, I didn't actually know that Joe that it was actually around age eight that's somewhat interesting in terms of in terms of PJ's work, you know, formal operational thinking that starts around age seven, That's interesting. So thanks for that contribution. And if you have something else to say Joe, feel free to come out and bury my dear friend Barry Waldorf schools are aimed to educate children not violate. Yes, exactly. So thanks for throwing that in Barry walled off again I'm not a parent, so I can't speak with too much authority on these sorts of things. But Waldorf schools and I'm sure there are others that some of you who have kids know about more than than me, that are really kind of generated out of this aspiration. So yes, okay, Robert. Robert has hand raised. Hey, Robert.
Hi, Andrew. I'm not sure where the question, where the question is in what I'm going to say, it's just, I suppose I'm, I've been doing lucid dreaming for about a year now and I read your books on the Dream Yoga and clear light and it's, it's really got me interested in pursuing the Dream Yoga aspect of it, because my mind's not the same now as it was before I started thinking about all these things, saying here is happened to me today, and I work in mental health, rehabilitation and chap came to me with schizophrenia. And he said to me. I want to I want to start a business. I've worked I've got a website together. And it's, I'm going to teleport people. And I'm saying to him, Are you sure cuz I'm not sure there's a technology for that. Yeah, he goes yep I can do it. And he wouldn't give up and he said he could teleport me. So I kind of said to him, Well, okay. I'm not sure that this consisted of Sydney car, and I'll teleport you. So I did that, later on I thought well, you know, he's not going to be challenged on this, so I thought with all the stuff I get up to at night sometimes when teleporting is probably one of them anyway. So, I thought. So, I kind of did the exercise set and then car for 10 minutes looking at the steering wheel. Of course this is after work anyway and course I didn't go anywhere. So in the morning. He was very disappointed. He didn't, he thought he had teleported me, but he hadn't so I phoned him up because he was a bit distressed about what do I do with all these visions. And so I said to him You know well, you know, you could write these things down. And the main thing was, was, you could you teleport yourself anywhere, and he said no only other people are there you are this. That's the, that's the you get the clarity you know on the, on the reality of it. Can you do it yourself. Because then, after start having that thought I realized that is our nature of reality of what we think or let's say all day long is pretty much totally deluded. In terms of my thoughts that I have aren't real. So, I thought actually this moment is more lucid than I am, Because at least, who knows.
Yeah, well said.
And I and I can't stop thinking about this now.
Yeah, well, first of all thanks for sharing that, um, you know, it's interesting that one of the real noble aspects of what's called contemporary psychotherapy and some forms of transpersonal psychology is that, that we, you know, mental what we call mental illness is really just a matter of degree, and so on one level when we see someone like a schizophrenic and I have some traffic with this, my sister is actually institutionalized schizophrenics so this is this condition is not unknown to me, and even levels of psychosis and it really extreme states you know Borderline Personality Disorders really intractable challenging states. Yes, yes, there are no doubt, kind of organic underlying brain conditions for sure there are neurological correlates. But what's important is a little bit like what I'm hearing you saying is that you actually got a bit of a teaching transmission from this because, you know, these types of mental states that we label, mental illness or just matters, largely often matters of degree, and that therefore, on many levels we're all a little bit psychotic, and so this actually carries some really substantive truth because you know psychosis is someone who's really not in contact with reality. Well then, then what, that's completely dependent contingent upon upon what you call reality. And so therefore, like with the schizophrenics in the you know the clinical psychotics, it kind of a broad stroke orienting generalization. Is that one of the things that perhaps could be used as a characterization of these extreme states of death osis or high levels of reification how solidly they take the contents of their experience on their mind. I mean they like my sister. She knows for sure she's talking to Hemingway, she knows for sure she's in these locations. Well, I might have a thought about Hemingway, I don't feel like he's talking to me because I don't reify that experience and so what, what we can therefore see you know it's a little bit like, we often see and others what we are blind to in ourselves. And so you saw and something other that helped you eliminate something within yourself, that in fact, what you're experiencing is exactly, perhaps a lesson because it's maybe a little bit less suffering involved levels of confabulation of reification and therefore, you know, corrective levels of suffering so that's what I what I, you didn't ask to direct question but that's what comes to mind around that. I do want to ask something that you asked that you presented at the very outset you said something about, you know, your mind is being different, if you don't mind me asking you, what is it about your mind that is different when you started your question. Do you remember.
Yeah, I suppose, you know, I've been thinking differently. Look, going through the Dream Yoga say looking at the stages and stuff. But of course, you know, it's not just that one thing everything, I'm thinking about in terms of meditation and teaching mouth mindfulness in the mental health thing is changing all the time, and compassion is becoming like a more of a living thing, like even I know, I noticed today. You know what I did just say, I suppose is an act of compassion because, you know I went with him on it, I didn't judge him on it and, and I thought well you know, that actually felt really really good. You know, I was really worried though cuz I thought what am I doing, and then, but when it worked out this more, I thought, brilliant. I just didn't know where I was going with any of this. So, I suppose my mind's expanding like the universe and I don't know where it's going.
Yeah, that's fantastic, thank you for sharing that because really it's it's you know my favorite definition of meditation, these days, is in fact aligned with this habituation to openness, parenthetically, in relation to Tim's earlier question, I just want to throw this in a synonym for emptiness is openness, so when you talk about habituation to openness and inner rendering of that in relation to Tim's question is increased. Habituation to emptiness, so I just wanted to throw that in for him. But but yeah this is exactly my, My journey as well that you know that we, as we engage in these skillful means, they actually invite us, sometimes with crowbar sometimes with, you know, more compassionate skillful ways to increasingly open the aperture of our awareness, open, open, open, And, you know, we, I think, the attitude that you express is a really important one just have insatiable curiosity, you know, in fact, I playfully say when people ask me like, well, I hear you're a Buddhist. Well I know when I'm in a spunky mood, I'll say, well you know it's actually not quite true. I'm a curious. I'm a curious. I'm curious about the nature of mind and reality. In the Buddhists just seem to have a kind of cool thing couple of cool things to say about it and so for me it's like, you know, Bob Thurman talks about the cycle not you know, the, the intrepid fearless explorer of the inner space of one's own mind. So to me it's this intrepid fearless quality that is integral to to successful journeys where you remain agnostic humble open, you know, in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities in the experts mind there are few, so maintain an open beginner's mind, and the universe will continue to reveal itself to you, tech not Han says it's actually at the moment that you think you really know something that your development stops. That's a fantastic statement. No, it's when you think you finally know something that your development actually stops, and so cared for, you know, fundamentally, we should always remain incredibly humble open receptive thinking on one level that we really don't know anything. Free John talked about his divine ignorance, and then from there, the world will continue to unfold before you and then you'll know nothing.
Okay, yeah,
thanks me go.
Yeah, nice. Hi Myra,
my dear friend myRA.
Oh my goodness. I'm just a mom just a comment to the couple of questions behind, born and raised in Puerto Rico, I did not know the money. When I came here and I had children 30 So many years ago. I have to get used to the bunny. But, um, I think we have to trust children because imagination is so important and the bunny and the whatever the, The, the traditions are part of the culture and time on place, and that's part of the identity in their imaginations run so while I mean like imaginary friends and I used to just play in the imagination. And I guess. I remember being disappointed just from in the Christmas season, when I discovered my parents, but I think that's part of the story. And then I came to kind of celebrate the bunny and they're 33 and I just sent a basket. This last week. So just to for her it is I think that is part of our own story and the cultural story but imagination, and the story of the culture in the great perspective. Children learn from us for what they observe and know what we say. And so it's a very complicated issue. So, if it comes to the story of what it is, or why it came about eventually it's something that is discussed and it becomes one of the one of those family tales. That's my point and
that's a wonderful contribution. I love Thank you. You look great by the way you were very spring like, Oh, well, well
Michigan a 70 So imagine Michigan 70 We feel like winning real puroland already. Yeah. Thank you. This weekend was use it this weekend was just fabulous. I think that there has to be to see Dr trim in the way that, um, it's just like he blew my mind. Yeah, thank
you so much,
Mike was talking about a pure lamp thing I did what I thought it was the best one yet. I mean he like, you know, you were like super prepared I thought his, his PowerPoint presentations were incredibly interesting. Yeah, I thought it was the best bargain we've done yet, so thanks for being there thanks for sharing that. It was cool.
He's, he's impressed with you that's why
you have to prepare. Yeah maybe. Let's hope I thought I thought it was a topic of soul mate, thank you. When he rock Thank you everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you free tomorrow thanks for saying that. Okay, from Charles E oh eight. If the story of the Easter Bunny is empty. Isn't the story of Buddhism also empty. Yes, good for you. Yes, everything's empty. And believe it or not, there's even a book by this title the emptiness of emptiness. So yes, yeah, everything is empty even empty emptiness itself. So I'm not sure if there's anything else you wanted to say along those lines, but a Maho completely agree with you. But you know, here's the deal, the story of Buddhism is in fact a story. But Buddhism is aware that it's a story, it's just a better story it's a story that sends you in the direction of truth. Real News and Buddhists are completely aware of that, that's why you get, you know, teachings technically called, You know, non affirming negations nothing is actually affirmed. You get teachings on, you know, self liberate even the antidote, that, that the Buddhist tradition is acutely aware that this is just a raft, again mixing metaphors for taking you across the ocean of suffering and then you know when you get across to the so called, other side, which is really not the other side it's seeing this side as the other side, then you don't keep walking around with a raft on your shoulder you let go of the raft. So fundamentally emptiness is perhaps one of the most refined rafts to nowhere a raft that carries you nowhere. Fantastic are now here. And then, you know, you you just shed that as well and then you end up just writing on fundamentally reality itself. So the Buddhists are aware that even the story of Buddhism is itself empty, indeed. Okay, anybody else. Questions, comments jokes offerings. Oh, I can go to the chat column.
So, oh, nevermind. Okay, and went up and now the hands down so oh well, we'll bring your hand back up if you'd like, otherwise I'm going to go through this chat column.
Yeah.
Did the hand come back up. Oh, a bunch of hands came out oh a bunch of hands I knew I shouldn't I should have ran while
there is Wendy, Judith and Sonia. Okay, fire away guys. Okay, not all at once. First one,
you have to unmute.
When do you still need to see that.
Okay. We'll come back to you, Wendy, we'll jump over to Judy.
Hi, Andy,
I heard you.
Hi, Andy, I was thinking about meditation and also. And also, teachings, and I'm thinking to myself, well, what's more important the teachings on meditation I know that both important. But it seems to be like, you can't. There wouldn't be any point in going in going to teach didn't meditate. And without the teachings, I don't know maybe you can meditate more without the teachings but he, it just, I just wondered what you thought about that, you know.
Yeah, well, what do they say you know, meditation without the teachings can be blind, the teachings without meditation is lame. So you need both the teachings help you know where you're going. And meditation gets you there, which as we saw earlier gets you nowhere so they're both critically important different. Like, for instance in Tibetan Buddhism, of the four schools, you know two of the four Kagi Nigma, that's my, those are my two lineages they're known as more of the meditation or practice lineages. But just as powerful buyable, you know, the gaillac sokkia which are more of the study traditions the Scholastic traditions and so why not engage both. I think they're incredibly important because they both have their strengths and weaknesses again if you're only involved in study, you can just become then a mere philosopher and philosophy will never change you, you know, made stimulate you do all these kinds of intellectual thingies but it fundamentally won't change you. If you're a meditator, and you're not supporting supplementing augmenting your practice with the teachings, it's super easy to deceive yourself to waste a ton of time getting lost in detours cul de sacs and traps and so my was, I was trained with equal emphasis on both on one level, you could say yes, there, there seems to be in the contemplative meditative traditions and some superior increased emphasis on meditation. And I think there's some real power and validity to that, and this is what Judas, you heard me talk many times is that you know the three projects in this pedagogical approach right hearing contemplating meditating ingest digest metabolize if you just stay at the level of teaching hearing, you're just adjusting adjusting adjusting adjusting and you can just become a fat scholar. You know you want to get it into your system into your body, contemplation and then meditation, it's only at the level of meditation that these teachings soak in to become you. And so, I, I'm a profound proponent of both. You know I study and practices if my hair was on fire. It's the only game in town,
so why not do both. Why don't you and so you really, I mean just by going to the teachings you wouldn't ever be able to be enlightened right do you have to meditate in order to become enlightened.
Well, that's an interesting question. I think eventually, there's another way to say that you have to release all conceptual reality. And so, if you call that meditation, then, then that's meditation but here's the point. fundamentally when you're stuck with the level of the map. The map is never the territory, I don't care how subtle it is. It's never the territory. You know, it's very, it's a very subtle diving board platform, and eventually have to leap. Can you take an instantaneous leap, just by studying into fully enlightened state, I suppose. Yes, theoretically, that's possible, but experientially, it doesn't seem to work that way because of The Power of Habit karma. No, there's just so much stuff that needs to be purified detoxified released, so theoretically what you say is possible. I've never seen it actually happen in reality I'm sure somewhere, someone has professed that truth but I would be pretty suspicious to that effect. You have to transcend concept you have to transcend intellect. And, you know, I don't care how you do I don't care what you call it, if you call it meditation, then we'd say you have to meditate. If something else will get you there. It doesn't matter. But somehow or the other, you know, you don't get stuck on the map, that's the point.
Okay. Okay. Thanks, Tim.
All right, well bring in, Wendy next.
I think I succeeded in unmuting oh there we go. Okay, I'm on my phone and it's not as easy as on a computer.
Oh good. So,
this may be a little off track, but I'm curious, for the last year I've been studying mediumship. As part of my interest in all states of mind. And what I found is that I can absolutely connect with the person spirits and identify evidence that's recognizable to the people across for me, and that it's very akin to a meditative state that allows me to do that, but I have to put aside my ego or no connection exists, And that this meditation and these classes are really helpful to me. And what's interesting is the teachers of mediumship, kind of don't believe in meditation. I don't, because they really don't know what it's about, you know that they've taken their track their life down a different track and some idea that's not accurate, but I just wonder, how is that possible you know if there is no continuity, that we can see someone's life and Persil their personality, and, you know, years after they've died, and that they're apparently still here, for their loved ones and want their loved ones to know that.
Yeah, geez. Yeah, this is a tricky one. First of all, I again I'm just going to speak what comes to mind, this is, this is a tricky it's a rich topic. It's tricky. It's it's full of landmines, but landmines are cool, Right, they actually might blow something up and you might actually see something so. So a couple things. First is that in fact, are you in fact or any medium truly in contact with this, this alleged entity, I'm not contesting it, that's a very open question to me. That's the first thing isn't is in fact that an accurate phenomenology or is there some kind of projection imputation reification taking place. So that's one thing. Secondly is that, you know, in the, I can speak with a little bit more authority about the Buddhist approach to this than others because that's just what I've studied for, you know, decades. And that, according to their view of mind and reality, especially the Bardo teachings really come into play. To a certain extent there does seem to be, for lack of a better phrase kind of statute of limitations, how long someone can be this embodied and floating around in a, in a non body form, but there are, you know, usually within 49 days and again we shouldn't take any of this stuff, literally, because of the force of karma or whatnot these beings will become ensconced in a new form, and then it becomes a little bit harder to access that, but that does not mean that you cannot in fact access dimensions of that mindstream what's called Chitta something that they're you know, even though a mindstream may be embodied, it doesn't mean it can't be accessed and even though you're accessing, you know, even though that person is living at a particular frequency and a new form, they still have these dimensions of their being in their substrate mind and so perhaps this is all hypothetical I have really nothing but my own intuitions to rest on here. There have somehow your you or whoever else may be tuning into the substrate dimensions. That's one thing. Second thing is, it's also possible. When someone dies that they don't know they're dead, and they can hang out, you know, they go well past the kind of 49 day, and they can hang out, in, in these sort of disembodied states sometimes for years sometimes much longer, and so is in fact then are you contacting someone in that arena Who on earth outside of a fully awakened one can really say. I certainly can't, so theoretically this stuff does have a place I could make some educated guesses as to what's happening, but I I'm also I know. Yeah, I don't want to say too much, because it's just as a territory that I have a ton of traffic in to me what's more magical about this is how it points to the wonders of mind and reality, how can channel, a challenges conditional status. And, you know a little bit like what I guess it was Robert was saying earlier, how it just, you know blows open a horizons as to what's real. But the question for me becomes what is in fact real here. Are we in fact, engaging in some type of process that is in fact real or is it in fact, there's some confabulations of light going on. I'm not going to judge that I don't know. I'm just saying, I'm a little bit on the more cautious side around these sorts of things and, you know, because it's again one of these massively beautiful complex questions that sort of stats on my. What is it with you guys today, You're like throwing me these questions that are like, let's just talk about, you know, the master, or something like that anyway beautiful question there I'm not sure where else I can go with that unless you have a follow up, or some clarity around that.
Well, I can tell you that it's a very different state of mind when you're being psychic and reading the person that's sitting there versus connecting with a spirit. So I see some comments by people but ESP, it feels really different. It is just another state of mind, and if you know, it's no more real than this state of mind is what I'll say, you know, if this isn't real, that's not real but it's all part of the playground.
Yeah, open to us, I think I would probably rest with that it's all part of the playground, you know whether it whether it has, you know this kind of ontological veracity is the same as it does here this is this is a hotly debated contested point, but I think I love what you said there at the end it's all part of this infinite playground. And if we just maintain an open heart and minds, you know, we make ourselves available parents ethically I do have to say, I think, I don't have to say but I feel compelled to say that these, these types of relative cities while they are of some relative benefit on the Buddhist path are also, there's also warnings about these sorts of things as being sorcerers traps in other words, it's extremely easy to be seduced into these types of talents slash powers. And fundamentally, one can lose one's weight so this is what I call relative cities, completely viable within the trajectory of service and benefit to others and I suspect that's how you're using it and that's beautiful, but they can also do two or one if they're not related to properly from the real important point which is absolute city real power, which, which goes beyond even what you're talking about. So I find that helpful to throw into the mix, that is contextualized. This is part of the shamanic tradition the Oracles and I mean Tibetan Buddhism has all kinds of these sorts of stories, but they're always secondary to the main process of the absolute powers which which go deeper than that and this is one reason why mediums classic mediums on the like in my opinion, maybe unwittingly short shortchanging themselves. Because of that seduction of that type of ability and power, but that's just my, that's just my view, so take it or leave it. Okay,
Thank you very much. Thanks.
I got time for maybe two or three more. From Pamela and we'll go to Canaan Camilla. Many of the mantras and practices Mahamudra implore protection. Could you riff on intentions for protection possibly related to fear. Thank you, no construction here too loud for online. I'm not sure what that's about. Yeah, there is a, it sounds like you're talking about protect your principle.
Well you know I mean there's several things that come to mind here. There is a place for protection, relative and absolute so let's just go right back again this is why I love Tim's question at the outset. His question about emptiness, what Ken was pointing to what the teachings on emptiness points you and this is why emptiness is so important is ultimate protection that you know they say in the book The Dead emptiness cannot harm emptiness in so the ultimate protection is understanding the empty nature of mind and reality. If you really understand that nothing can hurt you because there is no thing out there. And so this is super important. That is the ultimate level of protection. And that's my understanding that supersedes everything though relative levels this is where things like mantras come in literally means mind protection. This is where literally protect your principle, you know, establishing a relationship with these protective energetics deities and the like, they have their place. And so, if you are a student in fact Camilla as you seem to suggest things like Mahamudra, or, you know, practice of that like, then you probably already know that there are reasons why these principles are actually engaged in on the path. So that's, that's what comes to mind around that protection, possibly related to fear. Well, I would say, you know don't protect yourself from fear. Protect yourself from an inappropriate relationship to fear, because you know what is the nature of fear altogether. That to me is the more interesting thing protectors are not designed and this was a big opening for me I used to think, you know, decades ago when I was given all these protective practices, oh they're going to protect my little thing my little path my little comfort plan. No they're not. No, they're not the protectors are not there to give you what you want, they're there to give you what you need. And so therefore when you establish your relationship to these things you got to read the small print, because if you think there's somehow going to keep your life all together and cozy and pay your bills and your taxes and stuff like that, extreme examples, you're in for a bit of surprise, sometimes by engaging in these protectors and protectors a raffle, fierce, em, they're designed to wake you up and so protect your principle there. Sometimes it can be completely opposite of what you think protection is they are not going to protect your ego, they're not going to protect your comfort plan, they're going to protect your spirit, your, your, your, your true nature, and therefore protectors can be completely antithetical to what we think of as protection. So, this is another one of these really fantastic big questions. You know, again, I wouldn't necessarily supplicate down relate to these energies in terms of doing things like transcending fear I wouldn't do that because fear can be if it's engaged properly one of the most powerful factors in in in evolution and growth altogether going into your fear not away from it, don't be protected from it, be protected from not understanding it properly. If you go into your fear properly. I've used this as the maximum for for a large part of my life. This is where real growth takes place. So this you know, understanding protector principle both absolute and relative levels super important beautiful deep question. It's one of the frustrations I get when I get all these just terrific questions and I have to be a little bit terse with my responses so I hope that's okay. Oh yeah so here's a comment from a different Joe this is good from Jungle controller to tie the one who meditates without the view is like a blind man wandering the plains, there's no reference point for where the true path is the one who does not meditate but really holds the view as like a rich man tethered by stinginess. He is enabled to bring appropriate fruition to himself and others joining the view and meditation is the holy tradition Aima Whoa. JK LT, thank you Joseph that's awesome. So maybe one more from Sarah then one in Kenan and then these last two weekends this one and this one I have I need to run in like five minutes so Sarah didn't Toberman Shay say that with that if without study you have stupid meditators and without meditation you have. I don't I don't know that one. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Okay Kenan faraway. This will be our last one for now. Great comments today guys. Far away Kenan came in for some reason we can't hear you, or even though you are unmuted.
Hello. Hello.
Yep, there you go.
Oh, sorry about that. So Hi Andrew, just wanted to quickly check something with you. Yeah,
certainly we're talking about imagination, and something I've been thinking about is a creation as a creative act.
To think about creative creation as a creative process. So I've been seeing that the perhaps one could look at the spiritual journey as maximizing creativity.
And I was wondering, kind of what your thoughts are on that and I do understand that this process of becoming creative is not independent of the identity we hold dearly to, and perhaps enrolls dismantling of it as well, but I was wondering if you had thought of the spiritual unfoldment as a creative process.
Oh absolutely, positively. Yeah, I mean, remember Jake talked about it is in the deepest sense is art and everyday life, you know, actually. Your, your life becomes your painting, your life becomes your poetry, your life becomes your music, your life becomes your art, your book. And so much to say here my friend, you know, even on a, on a really scientific level, you know Hoffman and all these other really smart, cognitive neuroscientist run around saying, completely agree that you know we are each creative geniuses, you know, right now we whether we know it or not we're creating worlds. So we're actually involved in levels of creativity and powers of mind that we're hardly aware of that every, every time we move every time we speak every time we open our eyes we enact we bring for the world. No kidding, literally, and so on that level creativity is already taking place and so when you're talking about maximizing creativity I completely agree with you, but with an interesting little flip, because then what you're doing is instead of creating samsara, you're creating nirvana. Right, right. That's the flip and actually Nirvana itself is not a creation, again, that would imply they do something different, samsara is the creation, that's a really crappy piece of art. Nirvana is actually just radiants anonymous unsigned on autographed radiant expression of the creative power of minds, and so you know you while you can say that samsara is a creation. You have to be very careful when you say nirvana is a creation because mostly it's a negation of samsara creation, right. And so then what do you left with, you're left with this natural radiant shine play of the mind that we could then talk about his art in the deepest sense that your life, then becomes a true expression of that which is, but you are no longer the Creator. In that kind of traditional sense you become, you know simultaneously expression of that creation. So yes, I mean, on one level, I completely agree with you, and we can therefore use even provisional instances of creativity and flow states when creation usually comes out when you step outside of yourself and real art comes in, you can use those as intimations for this type of ultimate creativity that real art real creativity takes place when you're gone. In any real artists will tell you that I didn't compose that even you know, great athletes when they perform in the zone. They'll go I didn't, I didn't. You know I didn't play that tennis match somebody else did. I didn't play that golf round somebody else did. That's the type of creativity that you can tune into by entering into flow states and stuff like that and that's really quite beautiful because then it gives you a sense of what it's like to have this ultimate creativity, then it doesn't have to be just a golf game or tennis game or music, you realize that that kind of flow state becomes just a natural expression, regardless of its expression. So something like that amigo that's what comes to mind, but this is one of the artists life is so beautiful, you know, until, again, you know, the most genuine artists are the most humble. You know just marvelous creators, but unfortunately, and again I'm trained as a musician, I want you one of the best music schools in the country and in a lot of my buds are, you know like international conductors and concert pianists and the like, and I hope they're not listening, but they're among the most egoic people I know, because they you know they don't there are, you know, and this is why some people rustle so much because that genius flows through them and then they try to label it, they try to assign it, they try to make it their own. And therefore, instead of transcending the art they in the art inflates them. And so that's the very powerful near enemy of that type of creativity and the creative genius and that pejorative sense that then looks down upon the unwashed masses who can't understand the genius of the Creator, I mean like, Give me a break. But you know, hey, I've been around it. So I think on one level what you're saying is really quite beautiful. Yes, you can absolutely look at it as art and everyday life is ultimate radiance of the expressive nature of reality for sure. And so if you look at it along those lines, that's a fantastic way we read Trump arbitrary stuff on this he was really brilliant on this stuff. Really great stuff. Terrific everybody these three questions that came in, we'll put them at the top for next week. I kind of need to run. We're almost at the halfway mark, mark anyway, which is usually when I need to go. So thank you everybody for joining us, love these little sessions. See you next week for further adventures and thanks for a really great round of questions and comments today I love it. Bye everybody.