You know view blindness ignorance. Second Madonna the potter takes that low view wrong view throws that into form. For some scars. That's what second anatomy is in this this is the involuntary rebirth process. So what the genesis of this entire Bardo business is about, transform the first the Donna ignorance transform the blind grandmother into the perfectly sighted mother of all the Buddha's prajna paramita. Then Then what do you do then you throw that into form the potter the Potter is neutral. It's still the same scars are still throwing that up and now it's throwing voluntarily out of love, kindness and compassion. Instead of involuntarily driven by ignorance, karma habits. Now you're throwing love and compassion voluntarily a deform and that's a toolkit that's a voluntary rebirth or that's the game the game is not to get out. of rebirth in this tradition. The game is to get out of involuntary birth, flipping ignorance to wisdom, and then what happens? You go all the way to the 12th link, which is death. This is when you replace death with enlightenment. And so this is this is kind of using terabyte and this is Tara Baden Haney on a first turning approach Bardo teaching. That's the whole shebang. So ignorance is never bliss. The Buddhist path is about truth. Real News that fake news is embodied in the Buddha's first sermon. First Sermon on the Mount. It really listen, I'm just being silly. The Buddha's first sermon on the Four Noble Truths they're called noble they're like they're like noble metals that are not you know, they're aren't affected by external circumstance. They're nondegradable, non corruptible. They're called noble because it takes a noble character to recognize their uncompromising nature. If you look closely at reality, the Four Noble Truths simply describe it. This is just the way it is. And if you don't think so, test it, study the Four Noble Truths the very first teaching the Buddha gave. See if there is see if they speak to you kick the tires tested against your experience either true. The good news bad news of the Bardot's is also just the way it is. The butter brought this truth to light and showed us how to transform payroll into promise. This truth may still instill some anxiety now but this is healthy, right. Wholesome Feroz Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls in he has an entire book on the topic. It's worth reading, wholesome fear. This is why the four reminders are so important. Remember the four thoughts that turn the mind? They make they make us anxious in a good way. You know, this is like my language and you've probably heard me say this, you know this, this non theistic tradition. Can't put the fear of God in you because using tenets of oxen, rock comes razor and Western philosophy. You can describe all of reality without reference to a creator principle you don't need it. You don't need to create a principle. So there's no God in Buddhism, there is creation. And so they describe creation in these remarkably interesting ways. But the playful thing that way i riff with this is, can't put the fear of God there isn't one in this tradition. There are gods but there's no one monotheistic, omnipotent, omniscient, God, at least in this tradition, but what did you just in can put it was his fear, we can put the fear of karma. What am I saying? That's my hubris. The tradition can put the fear of karma into you, and that's wholesome fear. And this is like this is great. I mean, every every teacher that professes to be a teacher that gets there gets themselves you know, slapped on the wrist by power abuse, sex abuse scandals, they need to remember this is remembrance. Remember this one? My actions are my only true belongings I cannot escape the consequences of my actions, by actions are the ground on which I stand. And so this helps you stand on the proper ground that you can say all the highfalutin fancy, jargon and impressive whatever that comes out of your mouth. But you want to assess the quality of a person teachers alleged teachers realization, it's not what they say it's what they do. It's what they do. It's how they manifest do they live with love, kindness and compassion is every breath a prayer for the benefit of others, then you know that they have some realization and so this is just as kind of as quality of just always remembering the only thing we can stand on. It's like Suzuki Roshi said so beautifully, strictly speaking, there are no enlightened beings. There's only enlightened activity. That's fantastic. There are no enlightened beings. There's no ontology. There's only enlightened activity. So this is the way you want to sell sell to a teacher or community. What do they do? What are they doing in the world? are they acting towards others? How are they helping to Rinpoche rights? Yeah, this is a great sort of I am afraid it is really, it is really terrifying when we come to think of it that it is terrible. We're going to be dropped very abruptly. And you're going to suddenly be without breath, right? This is quite shocking. It is questionable whether you will have enough memories and imprints in your mind. In other words, Bach childfree samskaara This is where you can stuff the ballot box by having these healthy impressions in your mind. So that when the unconscious mind you know remember, that safe to die as long as you have an unconscious mind. Why? Because the unconscious obfuscated mind that's what comes up in the Bardo, just like in a dream. Well, you can stuff the ballot box, you can plant all these really healthy habits in there, which is why one of the most practical and best ways to prepare for death I mentioned this earlier, is just live a good life with good action. That's it. Then you will be taken care of by the force of your goodness. You don't need this insurance. Dharma. You've heard me say this right. Bardo teachings. This is I'm an insurance salesman, man. Part of yoga is insurance, dharma. You don't need it. If you leave if you lead a life of tremendous openness and relaxation, you don't need that stuff. If you lead a life of tremendous honor, integrity and service and goodness, you don't need this stuff. This is insurance dharma. But a lot of people maybe don't live that way. And so you have plan a plan B plan C, you know, this is this is the insurance plan, where some of these things may not come to bear and so the Buddha therefore taught on the Bardot's as plan B plan C as a way to like have a little parachute, just in case. All right, cover all your bases man. It is questionable whether you will have enough memories back to Rinpoche and imprints in your mind the buck the beaches. To return to a new situation where this Buddha's teachings are flourishing. The level of your confusion is so high that you will probably end up being a donkey. I'm sorry, this just cracks me up right or in another maybe it's a human here. He talks about you're gonna you're gonna come back as a mosquito, right? We have we have this like, Oh, I'm just gonna even if you believe in rebirth, I'm just gonna come back. I'll just pick up where I left last time you know, I'll be in a nice human situation. Maybe Oh, I love this stuff, man. Wholesome fear. So part of my job today. I should have done this on Halloween is to put this healthy fear into you. Right? Right. I don't want to freak you out. Yes, you do this. He does. I don't want to freak you up. Particularly but that's the truth. I love this stuff. And this is street dharma. This is great. Okay, and quote trooper and Vijay popularized the phrase first thought best out there is a book of poetry by this title with his fan Allen Ginsberg. This refers to the freshness of whatever arises before the second thought of concept barges am poncha conceptual proliferation to put a spin on reality. In the Bardo world, we emphasize last thought best thought this is this love of transitional karma approximate karma. Super important. This refers to how the last thought on your mind before you die can strongly influence your next life. So if you want he says quote, therefore our state of mind at death is all important. If we die in a positive frame of mind. We can improve our next birth despite our negative karma.
Excuse me, if we are upset and distress, it may have a detrimental effect, even though we may have used our lives well. This means that the last thoughts and emotion that we have before we die is an extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future. Just as the mind of a mad person is usually entirely occupied by one obsession, which returns again and again. So at the moment of death, our minds are totally vulnerable because they're so open. Is the grand opening. That is the grand opening. What is meditation, my favorite definition, habituation to openness. What's the synonym for emptiness? Openness, where are you going to return when you die? To the empty nature of your being to the infinite open expanse of reality as you as you fall into wider, wider rings of bang, opening up from this most constricted contracted constipated self sense this spacetime coordinate that we call ourselves that's gone and obviously disappears. I mean, I have a pop quiz on this puppy every night. But you're going to open it to wider, wider rings. The being until self sense is completely gone. You plunge into the empty nature of reality. The question is, can you handle that much freedom? Can you handle that much space? Can you handle being that open? Well, if you're not habituated to openness, meditation is habituation. Becoming familiar with if you're not familiar with openness, if you're not familiar with infinite space, but you're going to do, you're gonna contract out of fear, because there's no room for personal identity in the infinity of space. Finite self sense cannot relate to infinity. They're mutually exclusive. So die before you die, open, open, open, let go let go let go die die die now. So that when you get to the end of life, as I often say, you can say with a smile on your face a little shit eating grin. Been there? Done that? Right. That's where you want to go with these Bardo teachings. At the end of life. You can smile, and you can say, been here, done that. That's the reunion that's the mother and child reunion. That's when the child luminosity that's your level of recognition of the empty nature of you being recognized the mother luminosity, which is the nature of the empty mind. Those two like water poured into water merge. That's literally enlightenment you can attain awakening. So becomes right again, the greatest obstacle in life arguably the end of it becomes the greatest opportunity once in a lifetime opportunity. But only if you're ready. Oh, am I creeping you out? In my? Yes, good is I want to creep you out. Man. This is a healthy thing to do to get creeped out by the truth. Right? You should wake up every morning. If you don't like doing the four reminders. This is what I do. I've done them for 30 years. Sometimes they get a little bored. I basically just wake up in the morning. I look in the mirror. You should do this. We'll talk about in two weeks do this look wake up in the morning. Before you brush your teeth or whatever. Look in the mirror. Point at the mirror point yourself and say you are effing going to die. Okay, I want you to do this every day. And really with sincerity, look in the mirror you are effing going no you. You're gonna say who me me? No, you ie me. You are going to die. And if you really take this to heart, remember chokyi Nyima Rinpoche you're 50% 50% of the path is done. You're halfway there. Because you're finally giving up hope for samsara. Now you're setting your lens in the right direction, right? Really check it out. This is this is my version of the four reminders right. Every morning. I've given up shaving, by the way, least for a while. Right? I'm not going to shave but it's left to brush my teeth. I look in the mirror I do it every day. You will fill add a little levity to it right you mofo are going to die and say this every day. I mean, what did I bet because from earlier if you don't contemplate death in the morning, the morning is wasted if you don't contemplate death in the afternoon, the afternoon is wasted. If you don't contemplate death in the evening, the evening is wasted. So we're trying to remove the waste. I'm in a kind of punchy mood today. I hope that's okay. I get tickled by this. This this end of life creepy spooky death. stuff. You know, I kind of grew on it. Just like God, this is like golf Buddhism, this is golf dharma. So, so check this out. This is you know, the way my mind works, right. So I was teaching a program in Santa Rosa, maybe seven, eight years. ago. And I often go for a run, especially when I'm teaching long programs to get back into my body and oxygenate. And so it's really important for me, I always I always do a lot of running when I'm on the streets. I was in Costa Rica Costa Rica. I was in Santa Rosa. And I went through this run and if there's a if there's a cemetery I love running through cemeteries. I just think they're so so cool. Especially the European cemeteries. I mean, these things are like amazing. So I'm running through the cemetery, and I'm not kidding you. I came around the corner, and there was a goth wedding taking place in the middle of the ceremony. of the cemetery. It was awesome. I mean, it was like the Addams Family on steroids, right. So these black, everybody's dressed in black and they had these red fruit. I couldn't tell us it's like a funeral. Or it was a wedding. It was so awesome. It was a total goth wedding. In the middle of a cemetery. I had to jump up a couple of times because this was a major dream sign. I was like, what? And then I sat there and I said, Well, this is just so cool. So I'm in this is golf dharma. You know, little bit of humor can take this up so seriously, right? I mean, lighten up, right? I digress. But that's just where I am today. Okay, the last part bacterial j that last thought or emotion we have can be magnified out of all proportion, and flood our whole perception. This is why the Masters stress that the quality of the atmosphere around us when we die is crucial. This is proper setting setting. So this is taking the whole magic you want to have a successful psychedelic trip. Set. Set and setting is everything mindset is the set. Setting is the environment, the holding environment. So this is about creating proper set and setting for the Ultimate Trip. The ultimate journey, the turning of the mind into itself and the ultimate success psychedelic journey, the journey into the center of yourself the ultimate trip back to Him with our friends and relatives we should do all we can to inspire positive emotions and sacred feelings, like love, compassion and devotion and quote Milarepa is one of the most revered meditators in Buddhism. He is my guy he is here he is I have him. I never leave home without him. Here he is. This is my favorite. My probably my favorite robot. I picked us up in Katmandu, probably 15 years ago. This is probably maybe one another, that's close, but this is the most exquisite of all my little roupas and so this is the LA mula Rekha because my teacher Khenpo Rinpoche There you go, Barry, thank you, my dear friend. My teacher temple Rinpoche was considered an emanation or reincarnation of Milarepa. And he often saying adverse and so he's my guy. Totally. He's He's my numero uno and so Milla rape is one of the most revered meditators in all of Buddhism, not just Tibetan Buddhism, because he is famous for having attained enlightenment in one life and in the most incredible way because when he was young, you know, the story is actually a little movie about it. His mom who was kind of a twisted character, was jealous and basically asked Milarepa to become a master of the black arts. He did, and he then killed 3037 people, you know, just like using his magic cards, he killed them. And then he realized at a certain point this isn't looking so good.
He realized, Whoa, baby. I got some serious Buck Chuck. I've got some serious negative karma and if I don't do something about this, I'm seriously effed. And so basically, what happened to the recognition of the force of karma he he put the fear of karma into himself. And that basically inspired him to go through these Herculean tests with his teacher mapa. He finally got the teachings from our PA just before he was about to commit suicide. He was just like, you know, Martha was just beating him up. It's a nun, drill, preliminary practice cleaning him up, cleaning him up, building these towers, tearing the towers down, building the towers, tearing him down. So that whenever Milarepa finally got the teachings, the nectar of the gold he went into retreat for 12 years, and in Deer endured superhuman hardship, to basically pure off purify clean up his act and became legendary for attaining complete unadulterated Buddhahood in one life. And so he's, he's revered and all the traditions but especially in the Tibetan tradition, he's my guy. He's, he's my peak. Really, I connected this guy all the time. He's always has you can always tell who he is because it's his mudra he's his heroes come here because he's singing but I think an Inner Inner reading of this, he sang all his teachings were in verse 100,000 songs in Milarepa. But I think the inner rendering of this is he was just an exquisitely good listener. He was a mahasiddha, Rishi, and he was able to tune in, like I talked about earlier where mantras come from he was he was so quiet. He was able to listen and tune into the vibratory nature of reality. And so I think this, this Mudra also represents his extraordinary ability to listen. Listen to the nature of the mind, but don't just look for it, listen to it. Really listen to reality and it will reveal itself to you. He is renowned for his perseverance for having attained enlightenment in one life. How did he do it? What drove him so fiercely to enlighten enlightenment? It was his fear of death and his understanding of the laws of karma. When Milarepa was young, he killed 35 people I think it's 37 Give her take one or two doesn't matter, right, you're still in a heap of trouble. That's a serious comic low that would guarantee a difficult time in the Bardo. Yeah. And almost certain rebirth into a lower realm. When he realized the karmic implications of his actions he practice as if there was no tomorrow, you know, as if his hair was on fire. After 12 years of legendary hardship Milarepa purified his karma, his habits and attain liberation we not be may not be murderers, but we have our own karma to purify and we will do well to heat his word. And so here's one of his songs and horror of death I took to the mountains. Again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death, capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind. Now all fear of death is over and done. And so this is healthy, wholesome fear. This is the kind of fear again, pulpit pounding, right, can't put the fear of God into you. You put the fear of Heaven, karma. It was Milarepa his fear of death and led him to conquer death. We should instill a similar level of wholesome anxiety. This distress eventually and paradoxically, allowed him to relax at the moment of death. They transformed and otherwise horrific Bardo experience into awakening with Milarepa as our inspiration and guide, the uncompromising in guy, the uncompromising Jews of Buddhism, can speak for themselves. Let's not dilute them for Western consumption. Most of us like to hear about death or the jagged truths that accompany but like any final exam, a little stress now can spur us to prepare and help us relax at the time of the big test. Oh, that's not too bad. Unless we take control over our own destiny, karma takes control. So this is a big deal. This is huge. Right? What take what takes control of your dream and what is death? Just a dream at the end of time. What takes control of your nighttime dream if you don't, your habits, your karma, right? At the app dream at the end of time, what takes control of your journey through the Bardot's at the end of life if you don't become lucid This is Ultimate lucidity. If you don't become lucid and the borrower takes control your habits. That's why Trungpa Rinpoche right, you've heard this when he was asked, what is it that reincarnates remember, what did he say? Your bad habits. And the biggest habit we have is called Baba samskaara. The biggest habit is the habit for habitation itself, which is the habit for housing. The habit for a body we take on existence after we die because we believe in existence. Let me say this again. We take on existence after we die because we believe in existence. We take on the body after we die because we believe we're somebody that's ego. Egos first and foremost the body ego Freud. Eckhart Tolle egos exclusive identification with form. So if you only identify with form body, and that body that ultimate rug is pulled out from under your feet at the moment of death and you're sent flying into infinite open space, you're gonna freak out. Because there's no room for personal identity in that space. You do not exist in that space. And then there's going to be used as whiplash this whiplash effect the contraction from that infinity into space is going to slap you back into form a slap this recapitulated when the surgeon delivers you from her mom, your mom and slaps your butt, right? That Whiplash is going to contract you back into form. And then your body literally becomes embodied the contraction born of ignorance. So right now your body is embodied ignorance. Sorry, embodied contraction. And that's why it's so hard to die. That's why it's so hard. To open to this degree. Because we're so familiar. We're so habituated to contraction, that's who we are. If the most superficial levels relatively Yeah, that's an automatic high level. That's who we are, but that's not who you really are. That's still fake news. So how open can you be how much space can you accommodate? You've heard me say this when you die, there's going to be a thought bubble. So imagine yourself falling through, you're going to fall into this infinite open space. And parenthetically, would it Trungpa Rinpoche space say I love this about space. Space is the Buddhist version of God. I mean, what a brilliant this guy was a master of the one minor. We're afraid of this God, because we don't exist in that infinite space. So we're gonna fall into this infinity of space emptiness, luminous Bardo Dharma ta phase one. But because we're not familiar with habituated to the infinite nature of our being, little thought bubbles going to appear to us that's going to say, that's not me. I'm not nobody. I'm somebody. That's not me. I'm not nothing. I'm something we saw. We don't recognize it. What does it say it in the in the Tibetan Book of the Dead over and over? Recognition and liberation. are simultaneous, but how can you expect to recognize something you've never met?
So that's exactly why we do these teachings. This is like a description. And then we do the meditations that leads you to actually have a direct experience so that you can have the experience while you're still alive. It's a glimpse, it's not steady yet, but that's okay. Called the path of saying, you want to have a glimpse of your true nature. That's the birth of the child luminosity. That gives birth to the child so that then when you die, the child will recognize the mother release and run into into its lap and then that's enlightenment and one life Born of recognition and liberation are simultaneous, but for us, we all experience it, but we won't recognize it. And the scientists, philosophers can help us here this is a difference between phenomenal and Access Consciousness. We're all going to have the experience that's the phenomenal part. But without preparation, there will be no access to it. We won't recall it, we won't recognize it. And so what's going to happen then is we're going to contract that's not me. And then we can track what do we do? We fall we can track contract contract. This is the primordial distraction, this primordial contraction is also the primordial distraction, which it means etymologically to pull apart to distract means to pull apart. So the primordial distraction takes place right here. You pull away from the infinite infinity of space because it's too much, it's too much because it's too little. There's nothing there. And for the fully reified, ontological self sense. I mean, that's, that's dead. It's literally death, no place so it contracts. The very contraction itself creates the illusion that there is a self let me say that again. The very contract itself generates the illusion that the is there is a self self equals contraction. Self equals grasping. That's what the self is there itself, other than the grasping there is no self other than the contraction. That's what the self is embodied distraction, contraction, grasping. That's what we are. And that's what we end up doing our entire lives grasping, grasping, distracting and contracting. And so then what happens in those spectacular ways we have this bidirectional bootstrap mechanism. Where like a beer said, what is found that was fun then we contract on the Bardot's because we can track them distract during life. We can track and distract in life. Why? Because we can track them distracted in the Bardo, they lift each other up. And so you can either wait to the grand opening and wish yourself luck that you'll recognize that grand opening or chances are like zip that that's going to happen, or you can start to open and relax and die. Now, the logic here so back to the death thing we fall. That's not me, I'm not nothing. I'm something so we contract. That contraction pulls us away from that space. Then we enter the evolutionary trajectory using perennial terms efflux reflex and Archimede Archimedean platonic I'm sorry, Neoplatonic terms Plotinus in particular, and so then begins the fall that descent we fall past the intermediate dimension, some will go kya. That's where all the Deities occur. And if we haven't done things like deity yoga, same thing is going to happen. I'm not a deity. I'm a piece of crap, right? I'm not the Buddha. I'm not Chen razie. I'm not Manjushri I'm not Milarepa. I'm Joe Schmo, schmuck Ville, right? I'm just revealing what's going to happen to me when I die. Why? Because this is my default mode network. This is my default meditation. I'm always meditating on me. I need mine. That's the mantra right? Me, me, me. Me. Me. Me. Me, me. Me. i i My Mind Mind my mind. Is everything. circumambulate nothing. And that's the problem. I'm so over familiar with me. I think that's all I am always meditating on me. Fake News. So when reality comes pulls the rug out from underneath you real news you don't exist mofo you don't exist. The rug is pulled out. Well, well, what well, what what's this? Well, this is the infinity the thermonuclear nature of your being. Well, how do I relate to that? Well, you don't. This is great. This is so great. This is this is fire and brimstone stuff. You don't relate to it. Why? Because you're not familiar with it. You haven't done the practices. I'm not a deity. I'm a schmuck. So you contract contract to what a dimension you are familiar with. Form body. Why? Because you meditate on that all the time. That's your default meditation. And then you're gonna fall into that dimension nomadic high dimension, the end of the evolutionary descent and you're gonna say, Yes, that's me. Body form. Bang. You're in a womb. Welcome to your next life. So what we want to do is say, Yeah, been there done that child recognizes this mother, you can relax in the into the infinity of open space. You're not going to be there. You're dead egos gone. But there is a part of the deepest nature of your spectrum that does not die because it was never born. That's the formless dimension of your being that you want to become familiar with now gone become familiar with that die now. And so if you do this, that death is a non issue. Death doesn't exist at this point. Death only exists in the world of form. Death only exists for the ego death only exists for fake news. So this is real Noble Truth. This is the archetypal noble truth. And for for a fake news infected ego. This real news is too bright is to dazzling so you can track I mean, this doesn't let's just make the most amazing sense. This is just This is so logical to me. Anyway, I get super psyched about this so Geez Louise. Okay, but just a part of my journey is to just relax this professorial urge that I have to just race through this 400 page book. I think at this point, you realize that just ain't happening. And I'm trying to just enjoy the ride and like whatever. So I have to always remind myself chill out, man. open, relaxed and just enjoy the ride. So what if I get through two paragraphs? Okay, where was I here? Yes, unless we take control over our own destiny karma takes control for that one needs to be in bold print but last thing almost forgot. You think you're living a conscious life right now? You think you have freewill yet guys didn't realize they spoke Russian right yet? No way. You have no free will. First of all, there's no you if there's no you can you will be free. There's no you even relativistically the scientists will tell you this 95% of what you do. 95 minimum is dictated by unconscious processes. That same level of unconscious processes this released in the Bardo. So you think you're living a free life now? No. You're you're basically a wisp of potential agency. Everything else is just the machinations in the expressions of this unconscious mind. And this is where the massive contributions in western psychoanalytic thought all the great contributions of the unconscious mind is articulated. The appease the obfuscated mind and Western thought can really help us here. And so the scientific community the neuroscientific community community is this is it man 95% of what you do backstage runs on stage. Your habits are running your life now. You think you're living with free choice it's an illusion. It is an illusion. As a fundamental force of nature. Karma is non negotiable. We may like gravity or electromagnetism, but our likes and dislikes do not affect these forces. We can jump out of a window with every good intention to fly but gravity is not influenced by our fantasies. In the same way we can enter the Bardot's without preparation and hope for the best. But the force of karma is not swayed by blind expectation. Really again, so. There are those who look on death and the naive thoughtless cheerfulness thinking that for some unknown reason will work out all right for them. And that is nothing to worry about. There isn't nothing to worry about. When I think of them, I am reminded of what one Tibetan Master says quote, people often make the mistake of being frivolous about death and thanks, another quote, oh, well, death happens to everybody. It's not a big deal. It's natural I'll be fine and quote that's a nice theory until one is dying. Oh, I love this is just so creepy. Right? This stuff is just so creepy. This is the this is creepy dharma. This is the best golf Dharma creepy dharma. Cutting to the quick. Buddhism is an elegant but raw description of reality. It's our job as practitioners of the truth to align ourselves with that reality with that truth not our versions of it.
Be ALAN WALLACE writes quote it is improbable that you will be able to marshal all of your future lifetimes like ducks in a row where each one provides all of the circumstances necessary to continue on the path. That's extremely difficult. Considering the hodgepodge of karma mental afflictions and habitual propensities accumulated in the past. If the texture of our lives up to now has been such a mishmash, it is difficult to imagine having uniformity in the future and quote, by the way, this is why it takes on average 49 solar days for rebirth. Because unless you have really heavy karma, you become what Rinpoche talks about his Bardo VIP. If you have really, really heavy, heavy, heavy that's the first of the Four Laws of transitional karma. Really heavy good karma that Bartles don't exist for you. You go right to a pure land. Right to the heaven realms or whatever. Conversely, if you're a really bad boy, a really bad girl, you have a really heavy negative karma bar. Those also don't exist for you there. There is no gap. You're slammed immediately into the lower realms. Nobody's there sending you Oh, you go to heaven, you go to hell. No, you send yourself you're FedExing your own consciousness to these realms, what based on your habits. So you want to know where you're going to be reborn. Look at the states of mind that you reincarnate into now. If you're like, you know, Persia and irritable and angry like me. You're paving the way into the hell realms, man because you're living in your version of hell. If you're, you know, kind of grasping and desirous it that's going to be either a hungry ghost realm or human realm. What is found now is found them you want to know where you're going to be reborn. Look at your mind now. Okay, Kimbo Carter, maybe I can get at least the one section Whoo. It is quite wrong to assume that after death, a human being will be reborn as a human being again. We're in beings with consciousness karmic patterns of bound, multiplying and increasing the variety of possible reverse we experienced the existence of these karmic patterns throughout our life. As time passes, we are not always agitated, bored or aggressive. Nor are we continually joyful and stable. We are continually colored by these changing karmic patterns. In the same way our different births are determined by whichever karmic patterns wholesome or unwholesome predominate at the time of rebirth, and quote. In other words, what is found then is found now, there's a reason for both peaceful wrathful deities and Buddhism when the peaceful deities are unable to arouse us from our slumber. The raffle ones are there to shock us into the truth. The fact that there are more wrathful 52 than peaceful 48 deities in the Bardo Dharma ta should tell us something waking after truth is not always pleasant, but it is real in reality is the essence of Buddhism. So when countless masters tell us that the Bardot's are dangerous, we should use the anxiety delivered by such statements, as Milarepa did and as our practice of the four reminders attempts to do to transform danger and opportunity. Okay, last quote that we're known for today, Trump or MPJ said, quote, It seems quite surprisingly, that for many people, particularly in the West, reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead for the first time is very exciting. Hovering this fact I have come to the conclusion that the excitement comes from the fact that tremendous promises are being made. fascination with the promises made in the Book of the Dead almost undermines death itself. We have been looking for some for a way to undermine our irritations including death. Death is so irritating right? It's so it's so convenient. As I said, convenient, sorry. It's so inconvenient. It's like saying I don't have I don't have time to die. Right. I don't really have time. It's so irritating. It's so inconvenient. I just I just get such a chuckle out of it right. I don't have time to die. Oh, I cracked myself up. Rich people spend a lot of money on coffins on makeup for the corpse on good clothes to dress it up him. They pay for expensive funeral systems. They will try any way at all to undermine the embarrassment connected with death. That is why the Tibetan Book of the Dead is so popular and is considered to be so fantastic. A few decades ago when the idea of reincarnation became current for the first time everybody was excited. about it. That's another way of undermining death quotes. You're going to continue. You have your karmic debts towards and your friends to come back to. Maybe you will come back as my child and cold. Nobody stopped to consider that they might come back as a mosquito or a pet dog or a cat oh my gosh from from che is just such a genius right? I mean, I this is just I love this stuff. Sorry. Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times Charles Dickens a tale of two experiences. That is off to us off Awesome. Okay, at least I thought it was awesome. So we found finish here and number seven. At this point, maybe we'll get through this before I die. But there's no guarantee. So any questions or comments myRA? If you have something to offer or to ask, please do fire away.
Well, it's been a lot of fun to listen to you this week. I have to say. Yes, you are is extraordinary. But I ask a lot of questions but it's difficult for me to share but about two weeks ago, I am in the train to Chicago from Detroit. And I didn't want to go on my husband didn't want to go. But I was in a bad mood to go to be honest and I packed differently. And we're new in new Wafula. which you are familiar with. Are you buffalo the train ran over a truck almost derail it was everything that I was listening to you after listening to questions and answering I was listening to the BARDA teachings. I was doing my mantra. Wow. And it went sideways a couple of times but it somehow somehow it never tip. Therefore the the injuries were mostly just to the engineers. And I'm not the same but it's almost like everything that I've been listening to you for 10 years, came all in fresh. It was fast, and it was slow. It was sameness like I had never experienced before. I experienced the most beautiful thing humans the only thing that I remember reading aloud with other people caring for others I do okay, can I help you? And all this sudden I did and if I experienced contraction in sameness at the same time. So I will think about my husband's medicine and who is helping him and at the same time everybody was calm. It was like in slow motion and all the eyes we looked at each other like were the same. Nobody was running every over anybody else. And I mean it is slow changing. I mean I did think about a deity in the front of the train. Immediately. I input I could feel the expansion of the contraction. I could feel like complete sense of space like the space and the space. And at the same time everybody was moving like he was moving in a different kind of level. And I said oh my god, these 218 people are sharing the same event and this moment, there was no fear but there was concern. There was the most the contradictions were so and then right now I don't share it because it's it's a dream. I mean, it was a dream. Then it was a dream now it has the same weight. I was not I was concerned but I was never fearful after the main event but the falling when the event happened. And then I look and lock eyes with my my husband said this is no good. Like like this is it. But at the same time it was almost like pure space. I cannot explain it. But it brings my attention to because you I also say oh no, this could not be happened to me. And then he flipped and I said yes it could be happened to you What are you going to do? So there was something that I have been learning during all this time to where there was no panic. But I it brings me that we keep talking like today you know when you are maybe with a disease or something but it could happen in that flash. That's right, like a switch. And if you don't have some background and we were all very lucky there was I mean, the help was there. It was just the most beautiful expression I have so much hope for humanity for what I witness. But anyway, it is real and these things if you do the work and they do do they have it you don't have it all but it comes to you something and me reacted in the way that it did because I've been listening to this but that does. You have an experience that you show like when you were going to fall in ice. Yeah, remember that experience? That that same sensation also is felt because it's like you have no body. It's just a sense of you begin to react without thinking.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Maura. Wow, what an amazing story and how cool this is a fantastic thing to do. When whenever the rug of your reality is pulled out from under your feet in a situation like that is like where does your mind go? That's a metric for where you are with these things. And the fact that you could somehow bring a quality of Darmok recollection to the whole thing and relate to it in that way is really pretty awesome. So thank you so much for sharing it and so glad you came out okay. The fact that you said this happened in around or near New buffalo it was it was
yeah, it was near Buffalo two weeks ago. Less than two weeks is Thursday about 1036
I mean, that's my hometown. Yeah, yes,
I know. But it was the things that flashed through your mind. I mean, we're walking in mud and we're pushing my police is pushing my husband in a walk at the same time. I said Oh, my cheeks are getting dirty. And then all of a sudden, I mean, do contract between worry about what you are and not worried at all. It's just Yeah, and it's fast. It's really, really fast.
Everything happens so quickly. Yeah. And it's so interesting. I mean, there's just so much to say but I also don't want to say much because I'd rather just have the impact of what you share with us. Stay with us. But you know, one reason that the time seems to slow down is because time is a construct. And when you get smacked like that the sensory impact is such that it temporarily deconstructs both the self sense and time and that's why time seems to dilate when that happens, but I don't want to get too heavy. I just want to bow to the Miss beauty, the right word, just the power of what you share. And so thank you for that and I'm so glad you're here. Okay, so nice to hear from you. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna go Hold on a second from Dallas. I'm just gonna go through the column here, Patrick. I have noticed over the years of meditating that memories I had completely forgot about from decades ago. Come back to mind yes, that's common. Does meditation help work to help work the mind to remember the past? Absolutely. Is it possible with enough meditation to one day remember every day of our lives? Yes, not just this life, but all your previous lives. That's what the Buddha did underneath the Bodhi tree. And every memory we ever had, yes. Is the match at least the statistic is dementia statistically less common in Buddhist monks are the same. I don't know. That last question, Patrick, I don't know. But meditation for sure enhances memory 100% okay
it's okay.
Sharing here Yeah, Tim. Tim has this question about duck retreat. I'll see if I can send to you my dear friend Tim. On Tuesday for the preparing to die alumni group. We meet once a month. I basically spent two hours talking about my dark retreat. And that's why I shirk the question when you asked it last time and I'm going to shoot it again. Because it's such a big question my friend, but let me see if you can send Alyssa, your email address. I'll see if I can get you a link. Because I don't think you're in PDP preparing to that program. Maybe we can. I can copy you a link to just listen to my two hour riff on Wi Fi. It's just such a really big topic that I like I mentioned before, I'm going to skirt around it now again, because it's just too big. So it's a great question, my dear friend, but it's it's beyond the scope of what we're doing here. Prime Minister With your permission, I'm going to give a Nora first and then I'm going to get you so you get to practice the power meter. of patients okay. The Nora faraway here, unplug yourself. I'll take these two and then maybe we'll be done for today. I have to get ready to pack and leave for my Mexico trip to find my pesos.
Okay, I wanted to ask about I've been with a lot of people are actively dying because I think for hospice patients and I've been a hospice volunteer. And you know, I often wonder sometimes when I'm just with them, or even when I'm singing to them, like is it a good idea to do Tang Lin or just mostly I just concentrate on the music because it's musics like like a line with the I live my life and a river of of love. I trust this river to carry me home. So that might be the words to a song, but I'm not sure exactly. You know what to focus on. In those moments, and I've had people die while I'm singing to them or while I'm with them. Yeah, it's like it's a it's a moment I'm trying to be very aware of but sure.
Yeah. So are you music kind of tautologies that are you're part of the I can't remember. I think Chelsea also does this. This is kind of the choir end of it. I can't remember what the term is there
show choir. Yeah,
that's it. Yeah. So you know, I would I would trust your intuition and power yourself. And it's again, like Milarepa you know, if you're really open, and you're really listening, the dying person will tell you what to do. Anybody who works with some regularity in the hospice community, you know, that if you just shut up and open your heart and open your mind, the dying person will tell you what to do. And sometimes it will be just happened atmospherically. Obviously they're not going to say you know, whatever, but you just the atmosphere will will guide you and so, if that doesn't happen, then one of the very best things you can do is just be either one of those practices, tongue land, I mean, beautiful, incredibly power practice, powerful practice and then taking and then also just resting as best you can in the open space of that, whatever that is, because then you're very ability you're very ability, not variability. But you're very ability to rest in open space like that will actually allow you to mix your mind with the dying person. And you can actually start to practice for them because you will start to represent that which they are losing a level of stability, a level of calmness and quiet and they they will actually be guided into magnetized towards your mind space. This is the inner reason for reading a book like The Tibetan Book of the Dead in addition to it being a sacred guidebook for those who believe in it. It actually serves as a sacred tax that actually serves to pacify stabilize the mind of the reader. So that's the secret reason so you're reading it the mind of the reader becomes mad you know, kind of lit up by the by the power of the text itself. And then the dying person will actually come into that atmosphere and take refuge in your mind space. But I would just trust your own heart, trust your intuition and in trust your experience, you know, the phenomenal world Milarepa phenomena is all the book when needs, the book of reality will guide you in terms of what you need to do. But if that isn't still there, if that isn't quite there, Tomlin fantastic shamatha open awareness. Fantastic. Okay,
that's great. Yeah, we had recently my friend saying same blue bluegrass song to somebody because that seemed like the right thing to do. And if I don't know if you know that song Angel band, anyway, I kept thinking I was hallucinating because the whole room turned white. I thought I saw a wing. And then the person was singing with me turn to me and she's doing wings. So I feel like if angels are going to come it's going to come then but it's such an open space. You know, it's pretty amazing. Sometimes.
That's one of the fantastic things about being in Bardo spaces, all kinds of magical things happen. And by the way, we're always hallucinating. This is just a consensual, consensual hallucination. You know that. You're when you're around that the dying person because they're ripping the fabric of space and time. All kinds of magical anomalous, weird bizarre crap happens. And like Jeffrey Campbell says the stranger it is the truer It is fantastic. And so trust it. You see something trusted don't just that couldn't have happened. No. magic dust happens everywhere. And especially around the dyeing process is filled with magic wonder of mystery, miracles. And if you work in this business, so to speak, you know, and if you open to it, you see more of it. It's just breathtaking. Yeah. The more you make yourself available to it, the more you pick up on this stuff, so good for you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work. It's really beautiful. Okay, we'll stop at these two prime dots with my dear friend Jerry and then heartstopper I have to go. But go ahead.
Sir. I had a question about the body from the scanner. perspective, if the body is a constellation of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions. Then all those four get suspended in dreamless sleep wreck. And so I don't have any perception of my body or sensations or the body doesn't, you know, vanish from the bed. It's still there. In dreamless sleep well,
yes or no? I mean, basically what happens in dreamless sleep is you're basically retreating again into wider, wider rings of being you're pulling away from nirmanakaya through the intermediate bandwidth of some Bulguksa dream dimension, into the formless form, form formless body of the Dharmakaya. So you are still enveloped within this, this outer body, but your experience is relegated to the Dharmakaya. And so you still have a body there. It's just super subtle, right? So I'm not sure that answers the questions that you're asking but you know, you've dropped through the scar is at this point that you if you're resting with lucidity, if you're not resting with lucidity, then you're you're basically just doped out in the eighth consciousness. So that's the subtle difference there. And most people that's where they're going to go, they're not going to recognize the Dharmakaya slash rate bud because why they're not familiar with it. So they just basically go black in the eighth consciousness. That's, that's not quite the same thing. But irrespective of that there's still a body is just super subtle, and that's why we don't recognize it. See?
But there's a physical body still in in the bed in the bedroom.
I hope so.
I mean, why doesn't that become super subtle?
Well, it really depends on the perspective right. so from one perspective, it does I mean, the phenomenologically from your side, it does, yes, from they call, they talk about the self appearance and other appearance. self appearance is phenomenological first person what's happening from your side, not necessarily the same from what's happening from other appearance. So from other appearance, there's a camera videotaping and you're there and there's your body, from from self appearance that none of that is there. See? So you have to you have to play with ease. You have to play with these two different perspectives of self appearance versus other appearance, but from your side phenomenologically there is no other body. It's just the formless body itself. And that's why it's so hard by the way to send a signal like you know, with asleep studies, how do you prove deep dreamless sleep? When it's really hard to send a signal from that dimension? You can do it with sniff signals by holding your breath. But it's rather difficult to communicate from the formless dimension into the form. It's easier from the dream state. You can do diaphragmatic stuff, you can move your eyes you can move your fingers a little bit, but in the dream and the deep dreamless state. That's a lot harder to do. That's why it's harder to substantiate deep dreamless sleep but that's a sidebar. So you have to self appearance another appearance. Okay, thank you. Classy guys. Hey, Jerry. Last one. Dr. J. This is my like my Shari. Putra and my mug, Dolly Jana between YouTube guys. It's like you know, The Tibetan Book of the Dead I'd say probably maybe 40 years ago or more. And then maybe 20 years later, I've read I found this book that no one else has ever mentioned. It's called the American Book of the Dead. Yeah, go I have an interesting quirky book. I have it. Yeah. Well, I mean, what's your opinion? I mean, they are no they're not saying the same thing. I you know, Jerry, I read that thing probably 30 years ago. I'd have to look at it again. I actually found it kind of entertaining. I found clever. I thought there were some cool things in it. But I read it so long ago that I have to review it to run the commentary on it. But it's in my little bio bar to the library in my other shelves. Yeah, I think it was his name Goldman or something like that. On my bookshelf, I haven't looked at it and 20 years probably. Yeah, yeah. You know, maybe I'll take a look and see. It's been so long. I can't even remember, but I actually thought there were some pretty clever parts in it. Also the classic Timothy Leary book, The psychedelic experience, where psychedelics, he correlates them with the Bardot's. That's actually pretty clever as well. So anyway, it's been I can't run commentary has been way too long. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, nice to see everybody. I'm off next week doing this this thing in Mexico, which I'm super psyched to do. And so I'll be back. Same time, same place in two weeks. And I'm doing a temporary suspension on Thursday Q and A's. I'll say a little bit more about why later. I've got so much stuff going on. I was talking this morning to virile scientists from Harvard. We're considering drafting a study together and working with Richie Davidson on a possible study. I've got two books going yet blah, blah, blah. It's a really rich time. And so I've got to start to cut back on some of my stuff to focus on these other projects. So the Thursday q&a is is it's got take it has gone to the elephant graveyard for at least six months. And then hopefully we'll see if a resurrection and I don't know. But hey, you guys are PD people, PDP people or I should say that clovers will still get together in this venue and whatever we do in our usual back home curriculum. So as usual, always remember that we're doing this for the benefit of others. If we're not doing it for others. What we're doing here is completely irrelevant is meaningless. So always situate your practice within that dedicate the merit in whatever way speaks to you for the poor people in Gaza. Palestinians, the Israelis, the Russians, the Ukrainians, they're all sentient beings, all share the same data of mine, they just forgot. And it's just so true. It's so painful. It's so tragic. So always keep them in your mind and heart. that'll inspire you if you want to. The only thing you can do to so called accelerate your spiritual practice is do it for the benefit of others. Or as Ramana Maharshi right famously said, how do you win acid question how do you help others? You know, remember what he said? What others? What others? There aren't any others? That's an illusion. That's a construct. So always do what you're doing. I love compassion and kindness for the benefit of all sentient beings. Ciao. Ciao, everybody. Have a pleasant evening. Bye bye. recording stopped
