Virtual Hangout [#61]

    7:55PM Jul 22, 2021

    Speakers:

    Andrew Holecek

    Keywords:

    question

    experience

    great

    practice

    fact

    called

    naga

    teachings

    thought

    whirlpool

    non human intelligences

    written

    awareness

    beautiful

    buddha

    continues

    literally

    meditation

    point

    protect

    Okay, here we go. There we go. Okay. Hello, everybody. Good Morning Vietnam. Okay, so we do this totally geeky thing. Everybody turns on their camera for just a second so we can all give ourselves a group cyber hug. Nice to see everybody I was off, so to speak for a week or so. I had a death in my family. Some of you may know, my niece, actually grandees overdose. We think at this point toxicology is not bad, but we're suspecting Xanax laced with fentanyl. I mean, total bummer. 22 year old kid, really great kid just made some bad decisions and got in trouble. So that's why I've been offline a little bit. So I'm back. And it's great to be back. Great to be back with my peeps to see all my buds. What we do if you're new to this event, we've been doing this ongoing thing for Wow, what is this now? Any like 60? Something 66? Yeah, we started when COVID came on is just the way to hang out. And we're just continuing to hang out. And it's really fun for me because I, I show up sometimes I give some spontaneous comments. But mostly it's about you, and q&a and discussion. And since I haven't gone for a couple of weeks, there's a lot of really good questions that have been piped in. So I'm going to turn to those rather quickly so that we can address this kind of so called backlog. And always best if you're there to raise your hand and ask your question live. The written ones are fine, of course. But if I can have actually some dialogue with you, then some ambiguities are actually worked with and clarified in that regard. But I do want to mention, we got a couple of really cool programs coming up a couple of cool events, scheduled interview with really a brilliant neuroscientist, a poet artist, this guy's amazing Ruben lacanau, who's in Amsterdam, become very fond of him, he sends me his poetry, which is really good and he is really sharp. So he has he sent me a couple papers on his studies with meditation, really good stuff, really good stuff. So he set up for August 6, which means we'll release that shortly. After that. I got another one coming up with Amanda Morley who we're going to be talking about the power of respiration and breathing, which is so central to the whole spiritual thing. So that's what I'm excited about that also has some cool programs coming up my first live person on a dead topic shamala mon Sandra and and, and he's gonna pick up that stuff. Um, chat is my first live event in 18 months, a week long event hybrid program. So you can do it online or in person at SMC under low karmic Bardo, becoming I'm really excited about this one. It's part of the series, I've started, no pre wax, you don't have to have attended the first one to attend this one. So I'll post the link to that. We also have our annual deep dive event starting this is special, especially for nightclub members, they get like 50% reduction on this one. This is by far my biggest, deepest dive into the actual meditations of the year. I used to do it in Sedona. But this year I'm doing it online is to three date events in October and November with a month in between where we can practice all the stuff and so Andy will send a link to that as well. And then a brand new program actually what used to be this deep dive that is now in Sedona was a new program on post mindfulness practices meditation. And those of you who have been to this retreat center know just how stunning This place is. It's such a cool place. So anyway, that's that's enough of upcoming stuff. So I'm going to start with these questions because they're really good. And there's so many of them. And I'm gonna bypass my usual like spontaneous thing. And pick that up next week or whenever I'm back next. So not in any order of priority, but I'm just going to get through a couple of these. And if if the people who are listening who submitted these questions want any sort of follow up, just raise your hand if you want to write something and you can do it either in the chat column and he will read it to me or like I mentioned, you just go to the reactions thing button at the bottom raise the raised hand thing you get flagged and then we can bring on any question about any topic. Except for politics.

    Happy to talk about it, but maybe not the best venue for that. So here's one from Ron. Hi, Andrew, have you ever come across a grading system for lucid dreams? I've journaled close to 500, lucid dreams, good for you over the years and develop the simple 10 level system based on duration, clarity and agency. It's been helpful way to catalog and track progress. But I've often wondered if I just reinvented the wheel and some better system exists. If anyone knows one, it would be you Well, I don't know what one any thoughts appreciate it. There's probably something out there. I do remember vaguely coming across something. But I'm not aware of any old vert grading system. And, Ron, if you're listening, I'd love to see what you came up with. You're gonna be great. I mean, maybe we can use your system, right? I'm sorry. It's actually there are ways to classify this. And in fact, in addition to the ways you're talking about duration, clarity lucidity agency, absolutely, positively because these things do occur across the spectrum, right. From a really short micro. Dream lets that last really couple of seconds to dreams in primetime dream time, they can last an hour I heard somebody say three hours. Once I said, I just don't believe that. I some people say they have three hour lucid dreams. I you know, my bs meter goes into hyperdrive on I hear that. It's like you're not even in RAM for the entire night for three hours. But anyway, maybe somebody can do that. Most people they can reach the 45 minute mark or an hour mark. Yes, colossal. So you go from short to long, from barely lucid to hyper lucid. And so right there, you got four metrics. And then you have things like you mentioned, agency clarity, and the like, and so on. Ron, if you have something you can share with me, I'd love to see it. There's probably something out there. I'm not aware of it. Certainly in the scientific community. I'm not aware of it. But if something comes up, I will let you know. From Amanda at the end of his interview, Ian Baker. So Ian Baker is this really cool guy. I did an interview with him maybe six weeks ago. He's written really elegantly on what to call the hidden hands the bail. And I'm going to try to bring him back because this is he's such a rock star. And get him to actually do his presentation because the visuals, the slideshow aspect of what he has to present is jaw dropping. So in his interview, he said he's working on research about meditation with an organization something like shallow Baba, whatever. Do you know what the name is? Yeah, he's talking about his relationship with Alan Wallace. That's he's developed a connection with Alan who's who works a lot. Actually, he's writing one of the better books on lucid dreaming, by the way, dreaming yourself awake. And Elon, just this week. In fact, if I can go to my other, I don't have a third computer, I have to pull out of it. But maybe I'll post if I can, somewhere during this chap. He just sent me a good friend. He has, he has so much stuff going on. It's unbelievable. And he just sent me the most sophisticated website in conjunction to the opening of his contemplative Research Center that he did the opening Crestone, which is three and a half hours from where I live, not that far, in our spectacular setting against the against the sun graded Christos, it's a place where I do most of our retreats these days. So Alan is amazing. Ian is working with him. That's that's who's kind of the research that he referred to. And if you're not familiar with Alan's work, it's definitely noteworthy. He's really pretty remarkable individual. And so if I can somehow maybe peel away when some of the live questions come and go to my inbox, cut and paste this and send it to Andy, I can send you the link to his website. But fundamentally, if you just Google Alan Wallace contemplative research you'll find centers I think in Tuscany now and definitely interest only bought that led about a year ago, and he is doing amazing work. He's one of my heroes, this guy. Okay, so here we go. This is from Joe. This is this one's out there in a good way. I love it. What role and again, if I start Joe's listening, my dear friend Joe, if he has any additional comments along any of these lines, Joe, you're always welcome to step down and make the contribution. What role do noggins play in our world? Okay, now we're getting into some stuff, right?

    I'll go through the question and then I'll riff a little bit about it. That's one thing I love about what We're doing here is just the spectrum of these of these questions. I mean, they're great. They're just all over the place. What role do naugus play in our world? I'll define who they are in a second. In the Naga practice, and so we're just referring to Yes, indeed, there are certain types of liturgies poojas, on the live practices that you can do, where you can appease propitiate these naugus you can use a nurse that as she puts it, in the Naga practice, we nurse them with an offering but in a fire Puja, we repel them. So are they good or bad? Well, they're both. They're liminal. They're malevolent or benevolent, depending on how you engage in them. Also, you can also let me come back to your other question when we finished the thing on the Naga. So Naga zz are basically these kind of serpent beings. That, you know, what role do they play in our world? That's hard to say. Part of it depends on how much you believe in these things and temper mpj my teacher was, somewhat surprisingly, to me, he's actually said the efficacy the power of these noggins is somewhat proportional to your belief in them. So I can't say with any authority, if you don't believe in them, do they have some some effect on you? Well, according to the kind of more mystical, esoteric approaches of tantric Buddhism, which is where these these non human intelligences, these, by the way, are part of what is now being termed excellent studies. And I have on the docket to interview Sean SBR. And Hargens who's an integral thinker, who is written really intelligently about these entities, including things like he's got a paper from him, there's like one of the most out there things I've ever run a read, there really brings tremendous intellectual rigor to the reality of these entities, these non human intelligences, and what he calls the ontology matrix, which is like, what is it really? How do you really constitute what's real, that's what holiday is. So I'm going to try to bring Shawn on because this is a topic that is completely aligned with the stuff he riffs on that also includes, again, we're really getting out there men and black kind of thing. You know, UFOs and the veracity of that. Anyway, is a really cool, interesting topic. So the Naga has really probably depends on how much you believe in them. They may tell you a little bit about these entity. Because maybe when I describe them, you'll go Oh, yeah, I know, I know these these peeps. Let me say something. In a general kind of umbrella set of comments here. My dear friend, Reggie Ray has written quite extensively about the importance of relating to non human intelligences, that the importance of relating to energetics life forms that are non human. And

    why should we think that we are somehow the only life force I mean, just think it's not we're not, we're talking purely from a physical astrophysical point of view. Just think of the numbers here what your mind bending There are over minimum 2 trillion galaxies minimum in the known universe was just gets bigger, the more they look, 2 trillion galaxies, each galaxy contains at least 100 billion to 200 billion stars. So right there, the numbers are just like truly astronomical, they estimate that there are more stars in the galaxy in the universe, than there are grains of sand on the entire Earth. I you know, when I walk on the beach, and I and I look at these things where I fly over the Sahara Desert, it's like, Are you kidding me? And then around these suns, like our solar system, there are planets, multiple planets. So there are trillions upon trillions upon trillions of planets in the known universe. And that's just on this bandwidth. We're not even talking about dimensions that are extra, or trans. Physical. And so the idea is that, you know, as William James and so many sensitive people have been talking about for ages. I mean, there are just oceans of different types of sentient beings. And Reggie writes about this beautifully in his book Secrets of the visual world. And in really the importance of establishing a relationship to these unseen beings. What Joe's referring to here is yes, in fact, we're awash in this type of nonhuman intelligence, sentience, it's all over all over the place. And using liturgies and practices, we can magnetize them or we can repel them. And so, I remember very, very clearly, one major teacher of mine said once really bullet point he said, you know, you guys need to realize you are not alone. There are these agencies. These forces, these non human intelligences, they can help you. And so the Naga is just to show you a little bit about what they are, they tend to inhabit bodies of water. And again, I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you what I read here. And they inhabit the roots of great trees, okay? I love this kind of stuff. They often and you'll see how this ties in the Buddhist listening. They often guard treasures, hidden deep underwater. This is the greatest movie, wouldn't it right. And they have the ability if you believe in the sort of stuff to actually appear and masquerade as human beings. So take it or leave it. They possess a range of magical powers, including the ability to masquerade as human beings. And they actually have real kind of historical attraction in the life of the Buddha. When the Buddha was practicing under the Bodhi tree. If you watched the the Italian director who directed the life of the Buddha, there's a scene where the Naga actually his hood opens and protects the Buddha from a rainstorm, and so noggins have been closely connected to the life of the Buddha. Allegedly, these Naga has appeared sometimes even in the audience when the Buddha himself was teaching. The really important point from a Buddhist perspective is that he entrusted the Buddha allegedly historically and trusted one of the most profound set of teachings, some of the prajnaparamita sutras to the naugus, who then hit them at the bottom of the sea is this stuff, stuff is so out there, I love it. And then guess who came along to discover them Nagarjuna Nagarjuna Naga connected to his name, the greatest single philosopher in the history of Buddhism. And so, the guards, you know, was revealed this text, like a terma text that was hidden, protected by the Naga is written by the Buddha. And then he proceeded to expound on some of the greatest teachings ever written in the history of Buddhist thought altogether. So, yes, the traditions, do these liturgical practices poojas to either appease them or to cultivate them. The traditional says that you can irritate these forces by digging into the earth and appropriately destroying trees, polluting the waters, you know, you're messing with their landscape, so to speak. And so, you know, I, I don't have personal experience with these puppies, I guess they're not puppies, that's a different nonhuman intelligence. I don't have personal experience with these entities. But the tradition does speak about them authoritatively. And do with it what you will.

    Also, can you this is what back to Joe, can you have moments of enlightenment? Yes, these are called neon experiences, not realizations, where everything seems perfect. And there doesn't seem like anything needs to be done without actually being enlightened. Oh, absolutely, totally. And that is, in fact show the difference between on Yom a state versus realization or a trait, full blown, stabilized enlightenment, that's called realization or Western language trait. But you can have glimpses of what you're talking about dreams, glimpses of non duality, glimpses of the awakened state glimpses of enlightenment, where, in fact, everything does seem perfect. It's perfectly complete, it really does feel perfectly pure and perfect. But that glimpse has not transformed or matured into a gaze, it's not stable. And so that's not at all uncommon, and you can absolutely positively do that without actually having become fully enlightened. In other words, your your experience is not stable. Experience, by definition, is something that has a beginning and an end. And we all have spiritual experiences that in themselves, they're, they're actually great. But they can become problematic if you don't know how to relate to them properly, because then you get really sticky you get attached them you become a state junkie, where you think it's just about attaining these particular highs. That's not so let's say on that, but I'll let that go for now. And lastly, do dharmapala is number Apollo's, again or another class of non human intelligence that I work with dharmapala has local policy chatra policies, these are all protected principles. Let me finish the question, I'll refine it. Lastly dharmapala is just protect us on a spiritual level or are they helpful on the physical level? A both the dharmapala and then subsumed under that, or look Apollo's tetrapods all these kind of subsidiary groups are protectors. This is a huge an important topic in budget Ghana tantric Buddhism where you actually take refuge in this kind of principle. It's a slightly different set of refuges than the classic Buddhism word Buddha Dharma Sangha. In Tantra, you include the kidneys and time Apollo's And so again, if you believe in this sort of thing, and I totally do, because I have had experiences with these, for sure, both in my dreams of some of the most powerful experiences of my life of protectors, actually entering my dreamscape mind blowingly, powerful hyper lucid dreams. So these in my experience, these puppies began, they're not puppies. These entities are totally real they are. Here's another way to say it. They are just as real or unreal as we are. In fact, on one level, they're more real because now these are awakened. These these are not like naugus. The Nagas are still there liminal beings that are still within the realm of samsara. dharmapala are not Dharma Palos or Tran, samsaric beings, these are enlightened beings. They're Buddha Buddha's basically in the form of protectors, super powerful. I do protect a practice every single night, the barn on even if I'm lying in bed, and I forget, I actually have all this liturgy memorized, I actually do it when I'm lying down in bed. So I have a very powerful connection to these entities. I've had direct experience with them. And how do they work? Well, this is a colossally beautiful, important, massive topic, but they do protect us both spiritually and physically. And I'll share a story with you. But really what the important point here is, Joe, is

    they don't protect your comfort plan. Right? So when I first started working with this practice decades ago, it was like almost like I was praying and all these little dharmapala is just like angels and whatever, they're gonna come and they're gonna make my life all cozy, right? No, the dharmapala are there to protect the Dharma. They're not there to protect your version of the Dharma or your comfort plan, or your little egoic thing. And so I actually asked this question, it's a stronger image Jay wants, because before the Chinese invaded Tibet, you watch the videos and read in read the history. All the monasteries throughout Tibet really started ramping up their liturgies to protect our practices. They were doing it non stop. And still the Chinese came in and ravaged the country. And I said Rubin che Well, it didn't really look like the protectors worked. And he said, Well, yes, actually, it did work. Because the teachings, most of them were saved. And in fact, the diaspora, the spreading of the teachings are propagated after the invasion of the Chinese turned out to be of tremendous benefit to the world. So the Donald pile is do not work to protect your version of protection, your version of your comfort plan, they're there to protect the Dharma, which means this is where you have to be careful when you sign on to these practices. They will give you what you need, and not necessarily what you want. And you have to be ready for that. They will give you what you need, not necessarily what you want. Sometimes the normal policy could come in and throw your life into total chaos. You know, program vj already say chaos should be regarded as extremely good news. So when your life actually falls apart, that could be protected principle at work, throwing out their ridiculous conventional ways of your life and really challenging us to expand into new dimensions of reality. Do they work on a physical level? Yes. And I'll share just one story here. Because again, this is a really big topic. But here's a story that zygor controversy shared with us. I can't remember where I heard it from him. But he does these things. You know, it's part of his standard practice as well. And he shared this story where he was walking along the mesa trail, which is a hill, hike 20 minutes from where I live. And he was walking there. And he had to, he had to pee. And so he was like, about to pee on this little bush. And all of a sudden, he just had this thought, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this. And so he backed away. And he threw like a little rock into the bush and he heard you like my rattlesnake imitation? That's a Naga Hey, this is tied into the NACA question, right? So he hears this rattlesnake that's in the bush. And so just before he could have triggered the snake that could have bitten him, something popped into his mind that said, Hey, wait a second. Maybe I shouldn't do this. And he said clearly, because he's so sensitized. He said, that was definitely the protectors. And they generally work again in anonymous ways. You know, they don't find their art they can manage First, with serendipity with synchronicity with a sudden arising of a thought, yeah, maybe I shouldn't take that turn. Maybe I should go there where instead of there, we never know. And this is part of the really the breathtaking, ineffable magic of the way these entities work. So really great question, Joe. I'll let it go from there. I hope that helps. I find this stuff really cool. Oh, from Barbara, what protect protect your practice, do you do? Okay, I'll tell you what I do. My principal protectors are eka jati. She's the great xo Chen's. She protects the 17 tantrums, absorption. So every single day, in fact, I Oh, where do I have it? Oh, she's outside. I have little, little roupas statues of all of them. But they're in my other room. I can show you if you have a second I can pause and show the fact let me get it. She's pretty cool. So hold tight.

    Okay, I mean, this is great. I mean, like a show and tell mode. I love this sort of stuff. So Oh, here we go. Are you ready? Alright, if there are any children in the room, you want it you want to dismiss the children, right? You don't want to freak them out. So here Here are two of mine. So I'll name the ones I do. I do aka Jackie. She's my main gal. I'm protective of the 17 structure and tantras the main protectress dakini of Trump rumba, Jake. So this is what she looks like. She is a rock star. So check this out. Can you see her? She is awesome. She is so killer. Cool. She's got one eye. One thing. One bras. eka means one. eka, like Akka Yana Akka Jackie one. And so everything about her represents non duality unity. And so I had the most powerful dreams with her. Maybe someday it I don't share these online because I don't want them to be recorded. But in person, sometimes I will share these super powerful dreams. These are the greatest dreams of my life really were, you know, like I could God enters my mind space. It's like unbelievable. So I do here every night. Then the second one I do is mahakala he's way upstairs so I can't get you that one. You'll also find him at the stupa of dharmakaya like at SMC when we do the program we go up and say hi to him. He's eco jati and Maha color the two main protectors of my teachers from from a che and what am I what it is for foremost teachers, the Georgia law upon once teaching on this topic, he said, you know, Trump he gave us when when when Trump or j left Tibet, the only Rupa that he took the only little statue that he took was in fact a statue of mahakala so I he's he's a four armed I have him both in a statue and also in a Tonka form. I do him every single day. I also do this gal. She, I mean, again, make sure the kids are at our house right? So check this one out, right? Is that awesome or what? So Joe, I'm sure Joe recognizes this as somehow buka she's a lion headed one. She is one of the manifestations apartments and Baba, I did in my retreat as the Joe I did months of practice with her reciting her mantra, that's your email address. So I have I have the inside email address to these peeps. And so I do her echo Jackie some mamuka Bonjour sa do moggill poem RA, gay star. And then every once in a while I'll kind of bring out a couple others but these are my main ones and I do them every single day. So okay, let me get a couple more and then I'll get some of the raised hands. I love this stuff. I love the show and tell part. I've got I could have a like a little Tibetan top tchotchke shop here. I've got dozens of this stuff and maybe someday in a total show and tell mood. I'll bring all the stuff out and show it to you. I get some pretty cool things in my house. I'm not materialistic. You know, I'm just like spiritual materialistic, right? I got 1000s of tankers and roupas and all kinds of, I've transcended possessions. I don't think so. Okay, so Stephanie, and then I'll get the live ones. I enjoyed the conversation you had with Karen, that must have been last time. Oh, yes, using the water Whirlpool metaphor. Where this is a sword. But where's the sort of metaphor? But where in the sort of metaphor? Is there room for any kind of indestructible drop? Okay, so what Stephanie is referring to, I believe is a couple of weeks ago. I was sharing. Oh, here it is. In fact, I got it right here. This is one of the best books I've read in the last six months. Check it out. It's not an easy read. But it is really bloody insightful. Why materialism is baloney.

    How to skeptics, no, there is no death and fathom answers to life, the universe and everything. Bernardo kastrup, really sharp cookie, big time scientists worked at CERN, double PhD. And he comes to insights through pure reasoning and logic that are breathtaking. The fact that he comes to these insights without meditation to me is like, Are you kidding me? So I'm a rabid fan of this guy. And he argues brilliantly about idealistic description of reality that the world is not made of matter. materialism is baloney. So I now call him the Bologna man, I'm going to try to get him on in for an interview as well. If I can, he's turning into a rock star. And so he writes in a handful of really powerful books, how the world really is made of mind, mentation, idealism, it's really clever stuff. And so in this book, you can see it actually on the cover is what do you see a whirlpool. So he uses a series of very sophisticated metaphors, realizing all the while that when you talk about things like non duality, and the nature of mind as being nature, reality is being mined, conventional language falls way short. In fact, language is one of the principal ingredients for the creation of duality. And so he writes, he kind of transitions out of languaging into metaphor, image. And so one of his best images is this Whirlpool image that the sense of self can actually be seen as this Whirlpool. And then it gets really complicated because then then the Whirlpool becomes made of this kind of metal that reflects and so But at a certain point, the Whirlpool is like more complicated. In other reality, it's depicting it. And he also talks about that, because he just keeps adding I on and on to the, to the, to the metaphor to the image. But here's an easy way to answer your question yourself. So let me finish reading yet this one is relatively simple to clear up the Whirlpool image where in the sort of metaphor, is there any room for the indestructible drop, and I'll define what that is, I have trouble reconciling this drop idea once the Whirlpool has dissolved into the full body of water, or using a different image when the child light has turned to face and dissolve into the mother light. So that's yet another image, we can set that one aside. So Stephanie, the answer here is that the indestructible drop in Tibetan The term is macik. The TIG lay, TIG lay is the word that translates drop for Bindu. This is a slight unfortunate usage, and rendering of TIG lay even though it's it's translationally. accurate. It's it's logistically confusing. And by this what I mean, and Bob Thurman helped me with this. When he said the indestructible drop really means the indestructible continuum. So when you think of drop, when they talk about indestructible drop, this is in our yoga contract language for talking about what it is that continues and the minute everybody hears is they go, Oh, there it is. There's the soul. I knew Buddhists had souls. I knew this is what they were referring to. Well, they don't because the indestructible drop doesn't refer to any kind of particle. It's really indestructible continuum. And so therefore, then, this image that Maloney man has I hope he listens to some AI stuff and gets a chuckle out of this. I love you, Bernardo. Man, you're a great guy. Then what happens really, if it's an indestructible continuum, not a drop then the Whirlpool is totally appropriate because then when you die, and again, this is why so beautiful, what happens is the the Whirlpool just dissipates really relaxes back into the continuum and back into the string. So there you go, that one's easy. Just get rid of the notion of drop, replace it with a notion of continuum. Okay, so let me get one or two live ones. And then again, there's so many really great questions that came in, but I want to honor the people People who have raised their hands and who are waiting. So Myra if you're there, fire away so much you have said today my I am so interesting, but for two weeks, right, it's all my energy.

    Oh my gosh, I'm actually what is coming to mind first. It's kind of funny that they began with the Nagas because I had a dream with the Naga maybe 10 years ago before I had any read about a Naga and it was an albinos Naga would Ruby eyes. Oh, that was wrapped in a tree and I came into my backyard. And it was almost like the Babylonian guidance, something that was so beautiful. And I felt that the Naga told me imagine if you only cultivate the soil. So this is so beautiful, and it could be even more beautiful if you cultivate the soil. Oh, that's beautiful, anyway. And I couldn't figure out because he was kind of strange just to dream with such a big, huge, I never heard about it, and it had Ruby eyes. But what I was going to ask you is that many, many islands in web class, you mentioned an encounter with a T shirt, that when you look through his eyes, and you went for a question, and you look in his eyes, you almost saw like going through space, and he remind me an experience that I once had it was not a Buddhist t shirt or anything like that. It can you tell us that story? Again? It's

    so I can't share this one. Yeah, this was a big deal for me. So what Maya is referring to is a number of years ago, I've been studying with a I consider him one of my main teachers, even though he's retired now because he had some strokes. Many of you know him Kimball from the observer. mpj. May Allah really Buddha, amazing individual. And I studied with him for a while. And I had the opportunity. This is like 20 years ago now. plus 20 plus years ago, to have a private audience with him a private meeting with him. And so it was a couple of things were super interesting. One was I had arranged, you know, handful of questions. So I was like, I was sitting outside the waiting area. And I was kind of like rehearsing my questions a little bit nervous. And so when I was kind of then invited into this, his immediate chambers, it was most amazing thing. He was like a mindi racer, like, like, all my questions just disappeared. It's like, oh, what was I going to ask him? They're like, Oh, my questions were gone. And so I sat down at his feet. He was I love this guy, cuz he's sitting in a chair. I'm like two feet in front of me. And like in the guys drinking a beer. I mean, it's just so so that's my kind of teacher, right? That's my kind of T shirt. somebody sitting there slogging down this big mall. And I said, I love this guy, right? So I, I kept my head down in deference, and also was a little bit nervous. And I looked up in this matter, I share the story. When I looked up, and I looked into his face, I mean, he's like, four feet in front of me. It was like, I'd never seen eyes like that. I looked into his eyes, and there was nobody there. I mean, I can't I don't know how to describe it. I looked directly into his eyes, and there was nobody on that. His side of his face, it was empty. I mean, there it was, like, literally like looking into the universe. And it totally stopped my mind. And it sent this chill up. My back is like, Oh, my gosh, who are what am I looking at here? It was he To this day, it remains like this. These are not the eyes of a normal human being there was nobody on the other side of those eyes. And so then what happened? This is very interesting is I only learned this later. The personal power meter literature, again, protected by the boggers. So these things are somewhat connected. This tradition talks about the different types of what are called divine eyes. And these are the eyes literally of the awakened ones. And one of them is the ability to to penetrate literally almost like x ray eyes. It's really beautiful teaching about these kind of five types of eyes. And so I experienced the power of those eyes in yet a second way because as I finally collected myself after like being blown away, I actually was able to ask him a question. And I didn't speak enough Tibetan at the time. And so the translator was translating yet. And as I was waiting for his answer, Rinpoche, Chu just did the most amazing thing. He actually looked at me with this and with all the love and respect with this kind of shit eating grin, like you know, just this like an indescribable appearance on his face, and he was like, scanning me almost like, like an X ray machine. He was like looking up and down. at me. I never felt so exposed or naked, but I also never felt so loved and I just had this inoperable feeling that he was reading my karmic DNA. He was saying right through me saying right through my question. And actually his answer didn't have much to do with my question his he was actually answering your question I didn't even know I had. And because of the impact of that experience, it was I asked him to become my teacher, because I, there's something really going on with this guy. So anyway, I just throw that into the mix, because it was one of these really powerful encounters with these really amazing awakened beings that, to me continues to inspire such devotion to people that are just so awake, that has such insight, literally, that they can just penetrate through all appearances. In his eyes, actually, were something I will never forget. So anyway, Mario, thanks for the opportunity to share that story. And thanks for anyone. That's cool.

    Yeah, I mean, I couldn't believe that he was asking because I was working a couple days ago. And I thought about the dream again. And he came to say, Okay, I have to share. But so the next question is that those are moments that there's a confluence of events that you were ripe to see this precedence, right. But maybe you interacted with him many other times. And although you still have that memory, the other conversations probably were, or teachings or experiences were not as effective or effective or dramatic as that time is that because the confluence of the moment and the causes and conditions where a person I'm looking at tying it up to one of your experience, that it could be that any of these manifestations or protections all the sudden manifest, and they're like manifested in front of you in so many different ways. And if you're right to see them, then you have the experience, and then that same person may be another experience later.

    Absolutely. 100% spot on. Yeah, that's the way it works. So there has to be this kind of synchronicity tendril, auspicious coincidence, where all these factors causes and conditions come into play. And sometimes, you know, it's very interesting, there's so much to say about this. Sometimes when those things happen, they're called golden gates. And they, they don't stay open for very long. And so if you don't actually recognize them for what they are, and you don't step into that moment, or that gate, the gate closes. And so that's also what makes them even more impactful, because you realize, this is just a particular synchronicity, auspicious coincidence, where all these factors come together, and then these things open, but they don't always stay open like that. Right? And so therefore, you want to take advantage of it, you want to recognize it for what it is you want to really treasure it. But in short, what you're saying, in terms of my understanding is spot on. Thank you. Okay, as usual, great question. Okay. So let me get one more written one, and then we'll go to Lisa, who has her hand raised, which is great. I always love hearing from her. So Kimberly, Ah, okay. Being relative and relatively new to the teachings of Buddhism. What should I start learning first? Okay. Ah, what should I start learning first? Well, several ways to answer this, Kimberly, one is start perhaps being curious and learning about yourself. because fundamentally, this whole thing is about learning who you really are, is learning about I'm gonna say this kind of generally. And then I'll be a little bit specific about maybe referring you to some books and that sort of thing. But there's a beautiful line from Jon Kabat Zinn, where he says something like this, I just when I first heard it, I just loved it. He says something like, when you come to know the mind, you discover, let's see, let's see, how's it go? Oh, yes. when when when you know the mind, you you, you come to discover all things wonder is beautiful arts, poetry, music and the like. When you don't know the mind. You get Auschwitz. And so that's a really powerful statement that fundamentally what you want to start learning first learn about who you are. Learn about the nature of your own mind and heart because everything in the entire path is really directing you inwards directing you towards that type of investigation. So start learning about who you are. Who am I I mean, Ramana Maharshi, the great advisor of Atlantic sage. Really, arguably This is the essence of his entire spiritual path. You answering the question, Who am I? That's what the Buddha answered the night of his awakening. So start learning about who you are. Meditation is an exquisite tool for doing that. But with that said, practically speaking, then the Buddhist tradition is one reason I am such a fan of this path is incredibly sophisticated, with its kind of conveyor belt approach to truth into reality that you start first with what's called the narrow vehicle. Narrow, it's called tera, vaada hinayana. It's not narrow, any kind of negative pejorative sense, it's narrow in exactly the sense I'm talking about, you start with yourself. So you start learning about hinayana, tera, vaada, and teachings. And again, I'll give you some literature you can refer to, and then from there, the conveyor belt takes you into the Mahayana and into the vaudrey. Ana. And so there's so much literature out there now, but because he's such a good friend, and and I like the book so much. In this stackable truth, by Reggie Ray, I mentioned him earlier, he's a dear friend of mine. It's a really fine, fine introduction, to give you a kind of overarching overview of the whole thing. And then really, for me, without here, the works of Joe give Trump out right? Cutting through spiritual materialism is breathtaking in the scope myth of freedom. So I mean, I could literally recommend hundreds but those would be the ones I'd recommend from a practitioner or Master, who's been one of the greatest influences in my life choke, young shrink power, cutting through spiritual materialism. NET the freedom written decades ago, absolute masterpieces from a slightly more kind of academic but not in a negative sense, because Reggie is also a very deep practitioner into stackable truth gives you a wonderful survey and kind of segue entryway into the whole path. Okay. All right. So, Lisa, is that okay? If I call you that, Lisa? Hi.

    Hi. So this time not about absolute truth.

    Love your questions, you can ask me anything you want.

    I have so many questions, but now about the practice of awareness of awareness. And you told me to buy the book about the jhanas. And I did that.

    Oh, right. concentration. Yeah. What did you think of it? Well,

    I find it a bit boring, but okay. But it's quite a nice map so to speak, but it's not like it excited me a lot. Okay. Okay. This is a map so to speak. I'm I'm not sure it's if it's it was about the first Chan or what I asked you tried to practice I practiced again, okay. And what I found out about awareness of awareness, is that when I do it, when I'm walking mostly Okay. Um, it started like to merge, like the, the one that awareness of the awareness started to to be one in, so to speak. And it It turned out to be practically self aware awareness.

    So are you talking about reflexively aware awareness, like, wrongly? Good? Ha, when you say self aware awareness that that has, that's a loaded term. Can you say more about what that means to you?

    It means from from experience, just like a new dimension adds to awareness.

    Okay.

    Yeah. It's like a lot an additional dimension. I can't explain it. Like when you have some Hello signal gain chains, and you come down there is such a depth in the experience and additional depth. Yeah, nice. Yeah. Right. So it's not about awareness is perceiving awareness, but it's like one, right,

    exactly, exactly. So let me just say something right there. That's a really beautiful statement and very good for you, because when we talk about awareness of awareness, this again is one of these terms that can be interpreted in several different ways and so on one level, awareness of awareness refers to the practice of open awareness, non referential Shemitah which is beautiful as that is It's still subtly dualistic, right? And so perhaps what you're talking about is true awareness of awareness. So this is Rhonda Ada Shea, which is where awareness does in fact become reflexively aware of itself. So it's not a metacognition in the traditional sense. It's, it's, you can't even use the word meta, because that that seems to denote something outside. It's where the awareness just kind of the literal, the literal term in Tibetan is called the wrong bop, where awareness kind of falls into itself. And then all the experiences this self reflexive cognition, luminous emptiness, so if that's what's going on for you, that's fantastic. And that, definitely, I can see if that's your perspective, why the book on the Janata is might jhanas might be a little bit boring. Because as beautiful as those those ah down as are, they're still absolutely within the realm of samsara. There's still some they're not rigpa. And so even though it's on is subtle as that is. It's not It's not the whole shebang, there's, there's still a subtle witness at that point, there's still consciousness at play. And so if, in fact, you're experiencing what I seem to hear you're experiencing, I could see why that book would be a little bit like, Okay, interesting. But so what? So anyway, cool.

    What, what just just a little addition? It's like, it's extremely alive. This experience, right? Yeah. Like, like, and, yes, an additional dimension that opens up. The space opens up and yeah,

    yeah. So so and so to connect that to what we're talking about a couple weeks ago? How foundation roll, if that term even speaks to you? Does that appear to you? When you look back on it? Or when you're in that space? Does it seem kind of irrevocably true? Or does it feel like there's something even beyond that? Or is that an open question for you?

    Well, I don't know. It's where I'm at at the moment. So yeah, I think, who knows what's going on? Right? Some time with some humans. But for me, it feels very complete. Yeah, it's

    beautiful. I love it. Thank you for sharing it. I always love to hear from you. You're such a sharp person. And I can see again, like, why that the absorption stage could be somewhat limiting to you. So

    yeah, but it's really for me, it's it takes some, you know, some leap to go into that. It's like, it's like exercising, you know, right. And I'm sometimes too lazy. Do you have any? though, it's so beautiful. It's it's, you know, take something Do you have any, any record? Yeah, this is?

    This is a very interesting question. That has to do with the role of effort and actualizing this type of state because on one level, you can't actualize it through efforts. On level, you actualize it through relaxation. That's what enters into that space. And so where the role of effort comes into play is actually creating a holding environment, a space that is conducive to that opening. So that's the that's where effort comes into play, because at a certain point, if you're trying to achieve it, if you're striving, like Trump, LBJ said, you know, striving is the only obstacle it backfires. Because this is a subtle form of grasping. And so the role of effort is to create an environment through your practice, where you can kind of enter that space and relax. So yeah, it's just really the fine art of proper relaxation. That's really the fundamental, almost paradox of the path that it's really the process of non doing. It's literally at the highest levels. It's called non distracted, non meditation. And so therefore, again, there's so much to say here, Lisa, but you know, for now, I would just simply say Bravo for you. Excellent. It's still unexperienced, which means it's great. Now the trick is to just simply reinstate the conditions to bring about the experience. In other words, don't grasp after it. Don't try overtly to attain it aspire to do so. Because it's a little bit like trying to, you know, put your thumb on a beat or Mercury, the more you try to get it, the more it'll squirt away from you.

    And that's why I call the college jumping into it. Not

    exactly it's sometimes called the holy jumping off point. Yeah, you simply just have to take the leap, so to speak, but then there are ways that the leap can be kind of supported generated and that sort of thing but in short, good for you makes me makes me smile. Yeah, welcome. Okay. So let me get there's a couple of written ones and they will come back more has a live one. We'll get to that. So rich session today from Rhonda The teachings say that the last thought before the moment did out is so important. That is correct. It may dictate or influenced the continuation of thought that arises when our consciousness is restored from a lapse. Correct. The last thought is also important before going to sleep, and can affect the entire dream experience correct? What is the connection? Or stays connected through the lapse or unconsciousness? Yeah, this is a good question. Thank you Rhonda. So for sure, so the teaching is the last thought best thought my languaging the last thought before a moment of transition, whether it's death, Dream thought, is actually quite powerful. It's used in the practice of power in the Pure Land traditions, and apparel and teachings altogether. And it has to do with the engagement of the second to Four Laws of transactional commerce. So it gets a little technical here around aware. At any moment of transition, there are four laws of karma continuity taking place, heavy karma, proximate karma, habitual karma, random karma, you're talking about the second of the four, which is called proximate karma, which is also based on the principles of what's called immediately preceding condition. And so this phenomena has import, as you say, across reiterative levels is like a fractal, from life to life, from thought to thought, from day to dream, any moment there's a gap, a seeming discontinuity, there's there is some thing, but again, it's not a thing, this connects to the earlier question. And there is some thing, no thing that continues. And so in order to really understand what that is, we literally have to change the way we think. Because it's not a thing that continues it's a it's a, it's a push, it's a momentum, it's on a relative level, this would be what's called the eighth consciousness that continues on an absolute level, this would be Ric PA, or sometimes called the ninth consciousness, which is a slight misnomer. So something does something, in fact, does continue. It's related to Stephanie's question about the indestructible continuum. So if you're really interested in exploring this, and it's a really wonderful deep pocket topic, the teachings on the yoga, Chara are perhaps the most compelling here. So luminous heart by Carl burns. Also, there's a vast literature here. That's probably the most compelling book I've come across in the number of years that talks about this sort of thing. So really, to get this type of thing, when you get so subtle, when some when something actually continues in the space where there doesn't seem to be anything. It's because it's not a thing. And that's why it's hard to wrap your mind around it. Well, what do you mean, it's not a thing? Well, you don't have to fall into Aristotle's laws of thought, which is we think in these Aristotelian ways, and that type of thinking does not have traction in this world. It falls apart here. It doesn't work, you can't think about non things. It's there they're completely contradictory. So therefore changing the way we think refining our thinking and then eventually to actually the art or practice deep meditation, you will start to experience for yourself what it is that continues again, it's not an IT. There's this karma this habit. I wouldn't say habit. This momentum does kind of push that continues to one one image you could you could use because again, like like Bernardo images come into play. They're more important than language here is, you know, when you're when you're like running to leap across a chasm, a cliff or something. When you're jumping on one level. Yeah, you can say, Well, I'm jumping, but there's this there's this momentum that's carrying you across, right. And so that that momentum is in fact, eight consciousness. So technically, that's what it is, on a relative level, on that level on an absolute level is this indestructible continuum. And there's so much to say about both of those, but for the purposes of time, maybe that will get you running and jumping.

    Okay, so let me get another one here. From my friend Barry, always nice to hear from Barry recently, you're talking about anger and working with it. I remember the can Papa wrote that one act of anger Kenny raisons of merit. I asked my wife about this and she said that's why we dedicate merit when we finish our activity. In her tradition, she calls it finishing prayers. So the more we do meritorious things the Sony we should dedicate our merit to make sure it benefits others before we get angry. Yeah, very. In short, yes. You know, who am I to contest the veracity of these proclamations by the traditions, but let me tell you, my read on this. My read on this is we take these teachings seriously, but we don't take them literally. Because on one level, if you take it literally, it just does not make sense to me. You know, how can one moment of anger, erase eons of merit? It makes no sense. So these are, in my estimation, these are hyperbolic teachings. these are these are teachings that are designed to be read. In fact, as metaphors, that doesn't mean we don't take them seriously. But don't take them literally. Because if you take this literally like, well, I'm just going to drink a beer and shoot myself. I don't have a chance, right? I just don't have a chance. If one moment of anger is gonna erase it moments of eons of merit, why bother accumulating merit? I'm screwed. Maybe you're not, but I am. So again, I'm revealing my limitations. So to me, you know, I literally this just doesn't make sense to me. Metaphorically. parabolically is a parable and an allegory. Yes, take it seriously. But don't take it literally. Because otherwise, really, this doesn't inspire me at all. it depresses me. It's like I don't stand a chance, right? But you get the idea. For me, the idea is dedicate the merit as much as you can, as often as you can. And guess what you may notice you will find yourself actually accumulating more merit, you'll be doing more meritorious deeds. But what you say what gampopa says obviously, the literature does say that, but it does just doesn't make sense to me. And it's a little bit like they say, and I got busted on this years ago, when I first started studying this stuff, you know, or what is greater? The tears that I have shared throughout my previous lives? Are all the all the water in the oceans greater by four are the tears that I have shed? I don't think so. I mean, I know a little bit about science, right? I mean, you're talking about like, how many trillions of tears? No. And so I used to think that was literal. And then I asked my teachers, and they said, No, these are parables. You don't have to take them literally. take them seriously. But don't take them literally. Okay. from Tim, hi, Andrew. If everything comes out of the pure light mind, yes. Not only does everything come out of the pure light minds, Tim, everything is the pure light, mind, clear, light mind. So very subtle, nuanced point. But important one, just at the very outset. If we think that everything comes out of the pure light mind, that's a subtle cosmological dualism that therefore intimates that we have to return to that pure light mind that is somehow somehow transcendent to the actual experience. So I understand when you're saying some, it comes out of the pure light. Now mind, on one level, you can say that's provisionally true on a relative level. But on an absolute level, no, it comes out as the pure light mind the pure, clear, light mind. So back to you, if everything comes out of this mind, which is the essence and the source of all. It's more of the essence than the source. How is it that we such see such an amount of evil and suffering on our planet today? If your understanding, and your understanding what is the Tibetan Buddhist teaching on this issue? Well, it has to do with the lack of recognition of this fundamental purity. Tim, that yes, indeed, if you really look at the two nature, whatever arises, it's always sacred is always perfectly pure. This is prop proclaimed by all the non dual wisdom traditions. Technically speaking, the way to explore this, again, I tried to send out some references because I can't unpack these beautiful deep questions with I mean, we could give an entire talk on this one, again, is to explore the difference between what's called nirvikalpa and sabi culpa, with thought construction and without thought construction. So whenever something arises, the first moment, the first expression is perfectly pure near the Kaaba, without thought construct, it's pure.

    And so the issue is really one of recognition. If you can recognize that fundamental purity, you will forever remain at the level of nirvikalpa. And you will attain what's called nirvikalpa Samadhi. You know, the the perfect purity of the awakened ones. But due to the Power of Habit, lack of recognition and lucidity, whatever term, you want to use ignorance, we don't recognize it. And therefore nirvikalpa then progresses into what's up called savvy copper with thought construction. And then from that comes from poncha in proliferation, and the whole what you're saying, the evil and the suffering and everything that's on the planet that comes from adventitious defilements sankalpa accrued on top of this fundamental purity, all of which irreducibly is born from a lack of recognition that fundamentally at every moment, it is like you say, fundamentally perfectly pure. Again, it may not be your version of purity. It may not be your version of Nirvana. But it is in fact, in this essence, yes, that So for the purposes of time, my friend unless you want to follow up with that, that's where that one takes me. Okay, so Maura is live, right? And then Kara. So more if you're there and want to ask a question, yeah.

    This is a question that I've never really known how to talk to people about. But Lisa kind of helped me coming to this. So I did shamatha project with Alan Wallace. And my choice meditation object was awareness, awareness. And my experience with that was that at the very beginning, I would feel like I was about to fall into some sort of precipice. And if I relaxed, I would fall into the precipice. But after I'd been in it, I can't say that I was conscious, but yet I was very conscious. There was a sigh come out of it, that I realized where I had been, if that makes any sense.

    It, it does make sense. So you're suggesting that when you actually in that space, there really wasn't any level of

    there was no subject object there was that there was no subject object, but I never really quite knew how to describe it, how to talk about it. That still happens now in meditation, but I'm not as afraid of it. And it did give me a lot of yums. Ball and you say a little less. Oh, once. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In very painful ones. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, and at this point, years after the show, I'm with a project. You know, I've even done nature of mind practices within your infrastructure, and other things. I'm not exactly sure even now, how to relate to it. Are to relate to these experiences as they come? Every day, the thing is to just relax and not

    let him go anything with it. Exactly. Let him go. Because that's the only way experience matures into realization. That's the only way in yarm matures and to talk about is you have to, again, that's what he mentioned, I think, in this session, we have to reinstate the conditions are brought about the experience to begin with. So the best way to relate to them, this is not to say that it's not helpful to understand them to ask questions, because very often what happens, and this is why we have the tradition has this kind of tripartite approach, understanding, experience, realization. So even more fundamental, I wouldn't say more fundamental, more basic than experience is understanding. And so the reason this is important is exactly the the reason that you're asking is you can actually have an experience without proper understanding. not inherently problematic. But sometimes it can be confusing,

    but I am a scientist by training close, very disappointed that we couldn't have this open discussion about what this might mean. Yeah, yeah. Other words, you if my paradigm is that, and that's why I did the Shemitah project. And when you say, the science, okay, then not being allowed to discuss it was

    frustrating. That's actually very painful. that's frustrating. I'm a little surprised. So this was just I mean, I was up there actually part of that Alan's a dear friend, I think he's amazing. I think you by the way, totally. He's a rock star. But But you weren't you weren't actually able to discuss these with him?

    No, it was almost like we shouldn't be talking about our experiences. Then you grandstanding? No, I'm just trying to understand. I know, I

    understand. And I have to say, I don't agree with that. Because on one level, yes. I, I suspect there are a traditional. Exactly, exactly. And so the idea there, especially in any kind of public thing you don't share. But you know, there's a different way to look at that, that if if one shares from a gesture of offering in what is coming from one's really checking one's motivation when really wants to know when really wants to bring benefit to self and other than asking, sharing, and even challenging and questioning i think is critically important. So again, who am I to criticize Elon? I love the guy. I think he's a genius. I have infinite respect for him. Yeah, I agree. But I would actually, I would roll a little bit different with that. Because like you and I, I had these types of experiences very early on, where I had no understanding, no conceptual doctrinal, and it became a very serious problem for me, because I actually thought what was originally an enlightenment experience turned out really to grow into an experience of insanity. Cuz I did in my case,

    is send me to look for things like almost a spiritual emergency situation exactly, exactly, totally

    unnecessary eggs I could not agree more with you and what you're saying I believe is so important. And so yeah, I'm in your camp, so to speak on this one, I I strongly believe that when you have these types of experiences, that's what the teacher is the hair for.

    But we've Westerners, we're not Tibetans well, but still that

    irrespective of that to me, and again, you can see this the untoward sequela of not having that Right, exactly. So I again, I don't agree with that approach. That's just my style. And so to say a couple things, it sounds to me, you know, we'd really have to unpack with some q&a, you could have fallen actually into rig by you could have fallen into a consciousness But either way, you know, they're not all experiences of non duality, or unity are actually experiences of a full non dual state non duality comes in, in, you know, gradations. But what you're saying it makes total perfect sense that when you're in it, there's no subject object recognition, there's no sense of self and other and so everything is that is actually so to speak, downloaded comes host meditatively. In other words, you retrofit the experience when you're out of it. And so the retrofitting then becomes important, because that helps you, in fact, understand, like, wtf was that these experiences are all explainable. And when you when you understand through dialogue, dialectic, whatever, what what's actually happening, then several things happen, you can separate the wheat from the chaff, you can find your way back to that space, you can actually then better assess the authenticity of it or lack thereof. And so therefore proper understanding to me is super important. And like me, when I did my three year retreat, we we had to have guidance, we had to have our Drupada retreat master. Because you're you know, like, what, there's not much of practice but you know, imagine doing this for years, all kinds of stuff is going to come up, all these jobs are going to come up. And so you really kind of have to have this support. Otherwise you can really get seriously lost or you can really get in trouble. And so I'm not sure where you want to take this in short there are ways to gain access to people that can help you it really understand like really what the heck was that? How do I work with it? But fundamentally as an overarching recommendation. You just let it go on one level Yes, you work to understand it you try you ask for sure. Absolutely. But on another level, you don't want to just let it go. And I think they're not irreconcilable you can do both to in order to progress on your practice you actually do both but if you get too attached to it you keep trying to repeat it you tried to unreliable to understand it too hard that can backfire. So to me it's it's a hybrid approach. You continue to work with it ask questions challenge, inquire What was that? And then on another level, you just let the whole bloody thing go and you just keep going. And so Barry was talking earlier about on Popa. You know, when gampopa would come to milarepa. In his biography, like one day, he would come to Milla rape and say oh my god yesterday, the Mondello, chakras envira open before me. And it was the most unbelievable thing mlra puts out there and say, you know, neither good nor bad, just continue. The next week, mill gampopa would come back and say, Oh, I'm about to commit suicide. I've never been so depressed. It's just it's just a total crap show. What am I doing here? Miller riper would say it's neither good nor bad. Continue. And so that's the approach. The one tastes neither good nor bad, because they're in iams. They're all experiences. And you have the bliss, clarity, non thought thing, unbelievably important. But that's like licking honey from a razor edge. Be careful. You have the crap show. That's like I can't get rid of it. Now you relate to that in the same way you relate to the bliss, until you come to the great equanimity where you see the economist nature of both. So yeah, I'm in short, that's what comes to mind. These things are definitely explainable. That's why you have teachers to sit there. And if they don't understand they'll refer you to people who do. They can share from their own experience, like yeah, this is I think what happened and usually it resonates, people will say, you know what, that really helps me understand what was going on. So I'm not sure where else you want to take that. But

    no, this is good. I this is very helpful that you have these kinds of forums where people ask the question, yeah, I appreciate it. And if necessary, be I'll reach out to you in some other way early. That'd be great.

    Thanks for the great question. Okay. So a couple more. I've got about 10 minutes and then I have to run my next little thing up. So Barbara, last question. We'll go to Kara. And a couple questions about the Sedona retreat, scheduling, mostly about what time it starts and ends. Oh, you mean day to day or to determine When I would need to get there and when I would expect to get a flight out, write to me at Andrew Hall check comm Barbara and I can I can fill you in on all this. Okay? Because I don't know without looking at my calendar, this doesn't roll off the top of my head, but we obviously have all this data. So you can contact me. And I will answer this question very specifically. Thanks for your interest. Okay, so Kara if you're there, fire away.

    Yeah, I'm here. Hi. I hope this is a short one. I'm conflicted about this. I was looking at something at Menlo. I think in the beginning of September, Robert Thurman is doing a retreat and the prerequisite was the college chakra. Tantra transmission and control ramp is Shay. Online, right? Yeah. But I feel like I mean, I feel conflicted, because I feel like I should really, I should make, am I being a dilettante just wanting to sort of hop from program to program and take what I want. And I feel like I really do want to go deeper. But I feel like, like, how many of these transmissions can you get? And if I get this one? Like, I feel weird about it.

    So I'm hearing several different questions. So is the question about attending his program or the

    question is, if I do this, this transmission online, they call it, apartment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what are the implications of that? Not spiritually, but just, am I then committed to going in this one direction? Or can I get another one

    later? You can get another one later. So yeah, these empowerments. So he's doing the whole it's a four day event. He's doing the whole thing online?

    Yes, but you can watch the recordings, he only wants you to be live when he does the transmission, but he wants you to watch and read beforehand.

    Yeah, that's cool. That's a big one to do it, you know, usually, this is this is one of the biggest empowerments, you know, take Oh, four full days. So here's the deal with these guys. There's several different ways to receive an empowerment a Wong or an ABI shakeout. On one level, you can receive it as a blessing transmission. That's not that's not problematic at all. And in that case, you can go to as many as you want to kind of just soak in the reign of blessings. You're not being a dilettante. If you do that. If you're taking the transmission, the abbey Shaikha at a deeper level, that's a different story, because then you get into what are called somaiya, which are the kind of tantric vows that are connected to, you know, I make a commitment to really engage in this practice to recite 100 million mantras or whatever, and engage in the poojas. And the practices. That's a different beast. That's a whole different level of commitment. And so, on one level, no, you're not being a delatite. And especially if you ask that question, it reveals that you're already sensitive to that problem. One can, in fact, become a shopper and dilettante and you just spend all your time gathering all this stuff. Eventually, that can become problematic, because you you're not going to digest anything, you're just you know, consuming, I didn't consume it, you're just nibbling on all this stuff, and nothing's gonna really change. So we have to be a little careful. We can just become discursive in the practices and the transmissions and all that sort of thing. But if you're, if you're going from one obvious ticket to the next, just to read not just but to receive the blessing transmission, that's totally fine. If you're going into it to become a full blown kalachakra practitioner, that's a different story, a whole different set of criteria around that. And we could talk about that perhaps in a different format. Okay, great. Okay. All right. So these these questions are so good. Here's one from Jenny, I know this is from from three weeks ago. This is an easy quick one, Jenny's writing in from Europe. And basically, she wants to know she has a lot of stuff here about the vaccine and all that sort of thing. I'm not going to get into a debate about my view on this. I'm just going to she's basically asking me what I think about the vaccine, I guess is what I say when you can ask me anything, right? I'm not gonna defend it. I'm just gonna say as a medical person, more or less, and all my doctor scientists, friends, bar, none. Just do it. Just do it. I think in my estimation, it's silly not to I'm not going to engage in debate. We all have our views. But there's so much misinformation on this. 53% of people now get their data on social media. And there's so much colossal misinformation if you don't take it. You run the risk of dying. Just do it. I'm not gonna go any further than that. I don't want to get political. Just do it. That's just me. You know, I agree. That's okay. Okay, from Garuda Oh wow, a question from a Garuda. That's awesome. Yes. Is Quantico? Is that how you pronounce it? I'm Naga. I don't know. A protector? I don't know. The right the Mexican entity I just don't know. Do all sentient beings have dreams? Know It depends on how far you go down and how you define sentience. sentience in in wisdom traditional languaging is basically that which experiences pleasure and pain. And so you have to have a nervous system. And in short, no, not all thinking beings have dreams. Since appearance is a dream on one level true. At what point in species complexity do dreams start happening? Ah, this is where you need to talk to a dream scientist. Since samsara is the dream, all beings residing Yeah, we're using dream in several different ways here. So this is this stuff gets a little bit slippery when we use these multilin terms. Just because it's the same signifier doesn't mean it's the same signified. So at what point is in species complexity to during start happening? Nobody knows for sure. I mean, who has been able to put an eg? Or put a porpoise into an fMRI or an octopus? Who knows? No one that I know of, has been able to like track how far down this goes. If there's some data and it's out there. I don't know about it. So the question is about the Naga protector? I can't answer that I just don't know.

    Since samsara is the dream, all sentient beings reside and well, they're not residing in samsara. Because samsara is not a state samsara is an illusion. So samsara is not a state and reality is the state in mind. So when we talk about all beings residing in samsara, no, they're they're residing fundamentally in Nirvana. That's the only thing that really exists. samsara is just a parcel or non recognition of Nirvana. So I would contest the last statement, samsara is the dream in which all beings reside, I wouldn't agree with that service, the state of mind, not a state and reality. And so there's another really good question from way back here about micro dosing. Because I'm running out of time, I'm gonna have to come back to that one. It's a really interesting question about LSD micro dosing and stuff like that. I mean, let's, we're gonna talk about everything here, but I'm gonna have to let that one go, my friend, if you're listening, we'll come back to that next time. It's a really interesting question. And we can talk about kind of there's very interesting models of how this works with mind in terms of actually reducing the activity of the brain. It's very interesting. I mentioned this several weeks ago, that in many of these altered so called spiritual states, they're actually defined by reduction in brain activity, not enhancement reduction, especially reduction in what's called the doors default mode network in the salience network. aspects of the brain that are correlative to ego, those puppies aspects of the brain are really damped. And when those experienced when those aspects of the brain are damped, the filtering system, there usually breaks out spiritual experiences is removed and you start to see things in a new way. So I'll return to that one. Next time. My friend talked about the Rebus model psychedelics, etc. But for now, I got a run. So thank you, everybody. It's been a long time. A little bit of catch up today. Oh, Alex, I'm gonna have to get you next week, my friend. I gotta run. So Alex is first for next time. And wake is second for next time. We'll get back to you all. Thank you, everybody. We can put on our little goofy goodbye. We can take off on micro take off our microphones for a sec. You. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

    Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks again any good job boy This helper wasn't there.

    Oh, and he was there. Oh Honestly, I read

    so long