[134] Meditation Group: Exploring Lucid Dreaming, Mantras, and Spiritual Practices – with Andrew Holecek

3:02PM Nov 9, 2023

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Audience Member

Keywords:

recite

mantra

practice

recitation

lucidity

meditation

realm

buddha

sound

dream

amitabha

called

sleep

syllable

archetypal

subtle

yoga

question

lucid dreams

studying

Ariel because all the previous stuff is next. People coming later won't hear that, but they will hear this. And I want them to hear this. So, Katie, Chelsea Bodie have offered to do what they call the lucidity induction group for the nightclub community, which is I think it's so cool. And this is just so great. And so this is what they write. And this is what I'm going to be announcing for a couple of weeks until everybody realizes this. This new opportunity is available to everybody. So greeting fellow Dreamers We are Bodie, Chelsea and Katie and I think Chelsea is here. Yes, I see her down there. Hi, Chelsea. Katie is often around. Independently lucid dreamers since early on in our lives, we formed a dream circle in 2019, and had been practicing lucid dreaming a dream yoga together ever since. We are offering a monthly lucidity induction group to support greater lucidity and dreams and waking life. Each month we will share lucidity, induction techniques, and invite participants to practice the methods until the group beat together. By practicing together, the three of us have experienced significantly enhanced lucidity. And we hope to inspire this effect within the nightclub community. For those of you who resonate with this offering, we look forward to expanding our lucidity together. So high five, do the three of you that is just so awesome. So the first offering here or what does it say here will take place? Oh yes, the offering will take place on the second Saturday of each month at 11am Mountain Time. So Alyssa will host it is usual. The ever reliable wonderful, Alyssa will host it. And then these three wonderful people will work with it. I've never met Bodhi in person but Chelsea has attended to some of my stuff. Katie as well I met this year in Colorado and they're really amazing people. And so the opportunity to do this with them is just like really, really awesome. So I 100% support this. I think it's so great. So there's that. Okay, so what I wanted to do is, since I don't come on mean all that often, right? Maybe once a month, once a week, I think it's been almost two months at this point because I've been traveling so much is perhaps a reinstate because the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. Remember, which means that the essence of unconscious samsaric practice is forgetfulness. This is actually worth saying something about we are always meditating, whether we know it or not. Always always meditation. Remember in the Tibetan language, G O M. transliterated means what familiarity, habituation or cumbersome translation to become familiar with. Meditation is about becoming familiar with who we are not with who we are with the nature of mind with nature reality. And so the implication here is we're always meditating whether we know it or not. So we're either consciously lucidly engaging in the meditation of mindfulness, remembrance, lucidity, awareness, or, unfortunately, our default literally embodied in the default mode network and the salience network in the brain. These are kind of the ego or correlates should say the neurological correlates of the ego. Our default our unconscious default or unconscious meditation is another acidity. Our unconscious default is mindlessness, distraction, forgetfulness, which are all synonyms for non lucidity. And so this, this cannot be overstated. Which is why I'm stating it again. Because we do forget the essence of spiritual practices remembrance. The essence of samsaric practice is forgetfulness distraction. And so this is just where we go. We're always especially in this dark age, the Kali Yuga. predicted in both Buddhism and Hinduism. Maybe you've noticed, we're in it. Like could it get any effing darker? Really? Well, one of the principal ingredients of this dark age, what makes it so dark is this insidious expression? The fact that we don't even know that we don't know we don't even know that we're always practicing darkness and lucidity. And so this is why we're so bloody good at it so many things like let me just speak let's think specimen a, that'd be me. I am the Vladimir Horowitz of selfishness. Nobody does selfishness as good as me. Because I practice it all the time. I am the Yasha Heifetz, you know the great violinist I'm the Itzhak Perlman of pride, because I unwittingly practice pride all the time. And so I this, this thing is a big deal. When I was doing my three year retreat, I would ask my lamas, my teachers to come in every month, or actually every six months to teach us on the new practices. I made it a point because I really wanted to know, okay, you want me to recite a million mantras? Really no kidding? And engage in this thing for months on end? I want to know why I'm doing this right? Why? Why the heck am I doing this? So I would always ask my teachers, what does it mean to accomplish this practice? When do I know when I'm done? Well, one of the things they said and this is the way I have run with it in my life is the practice starts to do you. It becomes fully incorporated. You're no longer practicing, you're performing. It's like Bob Thurman, my bud. He always says practice, practice, practice. i But I'm tired of hearing about practice. When do we start to perform? Well, the issue here is, Hey, speaking of specimen a, I have accomplished samsara. I have accomplished samsara. Because I practice it all the time. This is literally default, every time I reference experience back to myself, which I do like all the time. Why? Because that creates a very sense of self right? Every time I engage in selfishness are the five root poisons, passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy, pride. i The Jimmy Connors the Yasha Heifetz, the Roger Federer, the Tiger Woods, I've accomplished this stuff. Why? Because I practice it all the time. So this is colossally important when it comes to understanding lucid dreams and their difficulty. Why is it so hard to have these dreams? Well, there's a number of factors, you know, especially using the integral approach to the quadrant, the four quadrant approach. Here we're talking about, for those of you who are familiar with quantum quantum with integral theory, this is the upper left phenomenological is because we're practicing non lucidity all the time. Every time we capitulate to distraction. We're practicing non lucidity every time we capitulate to forgetfulness, virtually the same thing. We're practicing non lucidity. And so hey, what a surprise what is file now was found then as Kabir said, you know, thoughts are to waking consciousness as dreams or to dreaming consciousness. This is a phenomenally important reason why we have so many non lucid dreams. Because that's our default practice. We practice that lucidity all the time. And so part of the charter of these meditation groups sessions that we started some I don't know, two or three years ago at this point, is in fact to emphasize this to emphasize the importance that when you're working with dreams, right, what are you really doing? Alright, I gave a talk this morning to Naropa, a group of graduate students at Naropa University is really, really, really fun. They wanted me to riff on emptiness, and the centrality the importance of understanding emptiness, the dreamlike nature of reality for their psychotherapy. And so one of the things I pounded in with them is that when you're studying things like emptiness,

and unearthing the dreamlike nature of reality, you're studying the reduction base, you're studying the heart essence, everything can fundamentally reduced to this fundamental pathology reification the lack of understanding of the dreamlike nature of reality, the lack of emptiness. And so the point here is that we can do a type of healthy reductionism. And we can look at things in a much more clearer way with this type of healthy reductionism. And what I'm alluding to here is in the context of dreams and life, dreams, What are dreams made of? They're made of your mind. And you're always working with your mind whether you know whether or not you're either doing it volition volitionally, consciously lucidly, that's the spiritual path, or the forces of the dark side takeover, and your habit patterns your karma takes over. And your default practice comes in distraction, forgetfulness, and the like. So we start to kind of track of meditation, which is our absolute clear, kind of separating quality between classic lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. You will not really find this in lucid dreaming, even though it's starting to infiltrate over a little bit more with the studies of Benjamin Baird and others. He's the one who remember, I think I've typed out to you guys a little survey that he did about and actually he's he's got some preliminary data that absolutely positively meditators have more lose To dreams, and in particular practices like open awareness. These are supercharged practices for bringing about heightened lucidity. So we engage in this track within nightclub is a Dream Yoga track. Because the more you meditate, the more you're going to have lucid dreams. Makes total sense. Look at your mind, see how often you're distracted? See how often you forget, see how often you're mindless? Wow, what a surprise. I have mindless, forgetful dark dreams. Wow, what a surprise, right? Basic causality. causality. So one of the characteristics is working. As I mentioned at the outset, studying, remembering kind of trying to reinstate the centrality of some of these principles is I don't know, you're probably a little bit like me, where I feel like oh, the next meditation is going to do it, the next sacred text is going to do it, the next great teaching is going to do it. I'm not dissing that at all. I think there's tremendous validity in that. But one near enemy of this information age, with all this information is TMI, we confuse information for experience. Let me say that, again, we confuse information for experience. And so one quality that I want to try to reinstate today is is just stabilizing, integrating, fully incorporating, repeating, repeating, repeating the central practices themselves to get them into your system. Because otherwise, if we're always looking for the next thing, the next meditation, the next gadget, the next whatever, you can actually become discursive and the meditations themselves, you're going to become discursive in the teachings themselves. Instead of digging deep, you've heard this parable. A man wants to find water on his property, dig six feet down, doesn't find any water, he gets discouraged. Walks, you know, 20 yards away, digs another 10 feet, well, the water goes another 100 feet away another 1010 feet, no water. Well, you know why? Why is he not hitting water because he's not digging deep enough. And so this is a problem. I see this in my own path. I see it in my own experience. It was one of the near enemies of my really long retreat was being introduced to no exaggeration, 5060 different types of practices. And this, by the way, parenthetically, is why many people who do a three year retreat, do it twice. Because the practice has come so fast and furious, that you may think you're able to spend as much time as necessary to digest this, but you're really not. And so I came out of retreat and elected to dive deeper into these nocturnal meditations. And the fact that I went deeper than 10 feet, six feet, 10 feet, the fact that I went as deep as I possibly could, I've committed to these practices, and I dug deep into them. That's when you start to hit the well, that's when you start to really get the results of these practices. So I tossed this out, hopefully, it'll land with you that with all this information, all the practices, all the meditations, and again, I'm not dissing it in the slightest, the great contributions of Jeffrey and Joe, and everybody else is doing these amazing things. I'm not dissing that at all. It's stuff, it's fantastic. But I want to drive in the times when I come to be with you. I want to keep pounding in gently, firmly, resolutely, um, take the practices that you're already doing. And go deep, stick with them. Go deep. And so with that said, what what I worked with last time is I introduced to you if you remember, the extraordinary old centrality the role of mantra. So this is a just a repeat a couple of things. And I'd be curious to see on either in the chat column if you want to make an offering, like how this worked for you, or if you want to raise your hand and see and share some of how this might work with you. The introduction of this Dream Yoga mantra, excuse me, on New Tada. And the just the power of working with the sacred sounds altogether, they have their like template practices, you know, they work with archetypal qualities of the mind. And in this particular case, the home Antara mantra. I can't. I'm not 100% Sure I mentioned this last time, but even if I did, I'm going to say it again. And then I'm going to give you a new mantra for today. Each one of the syllables of this five syllable mantra is the seed syllable. what's called the Beija mantra the seed syllable of one of the archetypal what are called meditation Buddha's it So these these five books as you may know them, if not, I will introduce you to them and here oh, there's Barry. He's always the best if you do your gallery's shot, you'll see the Red Lotus. And yeah, it's a little hard to see the red syllable. But this these are the syllables on the center. The white syllable on represents the Baduk, the seed syllable, the beach, a mantra of viral Chana. So this is the Buddha of the center of the mandala associated with a central channel in yogic theory. And then in a EES, which is always in front, that's our, the blue syllable that you're seeing there are, this is the seed syllable of Akshobhya. The syllable to the right knew, that's the seed syllable of the Buddha, Ratna sambava. These are all associated with elements by the way. You know, space, water, earth, fire, wind, in order. And so, down below is tar. This is the seed syllable of Amitabha. This is particularly important in the realm that we live in the human realm, the realm of desire, we live in what's called the realm of desire of the three cosmological realms. There's the realm of desire, the form, the realm of form and the formless realm we live in the realm of desire. And therefore Amitabha is really the Buddha of this realm. He's the Buddha that transforms the heat of passion desire, into the warmth of compassion. So he's a big one for us. Slight sidebar, he's the he's the one that's associated with the pureland traditions. So much to say about this guy, Cheng grazie is an emanation of Amitabha. And so I mentioned this because I'm going to introduce you to his mantra today. This is the mantra of love, kindness, compassion, and I'm using it a lot these days because of what's happening in the Middle East. And I'll say a little bit more about that in a second. And then of course, the emanation of the further emanation of Buddha Amitabha. So But Buddha Amitabha. He's what's called the Dharmakaya Buddha. He emanates the some Olga kya. Buddha, that's Chen racy, that's Avalokitesvara. I'm going to introduce you to his mantra today, many of you know it. And then of course, the final what's called nirmanakaya, or fully embody management manifestation is Padma Sun bhava. Also, the Dalai Lama's are emanations that come up as a emanations. This is a this is a highly populated, kind of nirmanakaya manifestation. So I'm going to come back to this in just a second. But to finish the this particular, sleep yoga, I should say, Dream Yoga mantra, then you have RA on the left. That's the seed syllable for ammonia city. And so there's so much to say about each of these five butters well beyond the scope of what we're doing today. But the reason these syllables are recited in the Dream Yoga mantra on our new Tada is that as you're going to sleep, and you recite this mantra, you're actually invoking the external archetypal manifestation of these five awakened principles within you. And you're doing it specifically at the throat center, because in inner yogic theory, that's where the mind consciousness gathers is where training.

And this is a magnificent way to invoke these archetypal energies within us, and also to invite these external agencies from seemingly external destinations. And so it's like we're sandwiching ourselves by reciting this mantra between the external invocation of these Buddhas, which have as much agency and reality as we are, they are just as real or unreal as we are. So we're inviting them. And then just as importantly, we're invoking those principles within us. So I like to think of it as this kind of sandwich of sanity that were sandwiched between these archetypal presidencies appearing from the seeming external destinations, you know, the five Buddhists. And then just as important they were invoking these frequencies, these energetics within us until of course, we get to the realization that there's no difference between the inner and outer. Right, it's all an illusion. We do it provisionally. It's almost like you can use it in a devotional capacity to call out to the these five voters to wake you up. You can stimulate, invoke, activate these energetic centers within by reciting these bija mantras DC syllables. And then I'm super interested to see if if fewer guys did this. And if you had any results because I started introducing this last year in Spain, Ibiza in particular. And I was encouraged because a lot of people said, whoa, whoa, this, this really worked for me. You won't find this in most classic Dream Yoga texts, by the way, I only first heard about it when Dr. Anita taught it to me at a Dream Yoga training I did with him about five years ago. And then I discovered that Tsongkhapa also uses this. He's the founder of the gay Luke tradition. He also has uses Omana Tata as his dream yoga mantra. So this is what we're going to do, we're going to take a little pause. Since this is about meditation. It's not just me flapping my lips. And we're going to recite this mantra together for a few minutes, because I want to encourage you to get this into your system. There's probably I, in fact, I'm pretty sure I saw it, maybe Alyssa, you can find it, I'm pretty sure you can find it online. Don't miss this mantra brought to melody, I'm pretty sure. Don't worry about it. Unless if you can't find it, I'm blind to finding you on that. I didn't ask you to do it in advance. But I'm pretty sure I found a soundtrack for this online if you want to put it to melody. Lots of times these monitors have done that done that way. But what we're going to do is we're going to close our eyes, let's go ahead and do that together.

Take a few breaths to settle and to gather.

Perhaps pay a little bit of extra attention, slight emphasis on the out breath, to unwind to unwind, which is what happens when we fall asleep. We're on winning.

And then let's just take a few moments. This is one small limitation of not being in the same room in the space, same space together. There's really something quite beautiful about kind of the symphony when we can all recite the mantras together. And we all resonate in this wonderful Chamber of sound in a setting but we do the best we can. And so for the next few minutes, let's just recite this mantra. I'm going to do it in an audible fashion with you will recite it out loud. And then you'll notice that my voice will slowly after a couple of minutes we'll start to decrescendo, we'll get a little bit more and more quiet. Until we recite what's called a semi audible recitation, which is what it sounds like you're basically whispering the mantra doesn't diminish its efficacy in any way. And then we'll I'll tell you when then we'll release even that. And recite the mantra mentally that's called a vadra. Recitation where virtual here means Adam and teen are indestructible. So you're simply reciting it just with your mind. And then perhaps you can start to engage in this dream yoga. Practice every night when you go to sleep to actually invite the transition from our usual again samsaric recitation. Whether we know it or not, we're always reciting samsaric mantras based on the three principal bija mantras, seed syllable mantras of samsara. Remember, three fundamental variations of what?

Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Me, me, me.

Or, mine, mine, mine,

mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,

mine, right like a petulant two year old, or III, everything is centered around me. So from these three Dejah seed syllable, samsaric mantras fourth, what are called Dharan E's or longer mantras or like, what does this have to do? With me? How can I profit from this? Where do I fit into this? So much or recitation is another iteration of the fact that we're always meditating. In this case, we're always reciting samsaric self referential mantras. That's what makes them samsaric. So I find myself doing mantra recitation more. And more and more is a form of mind protection, literally what the word mantra means to protect the mind from distraction from non lucidity. So let's recite this for a few minutes, and then I invite you as you're doing it, to notice and to receptively. What do you feel without judgment and where do you feel it? Follow the thread of your experience and just simply notice what you feel in your body. And perhaps the activation of the subtle body because this is where mantras work they work physiologically on the subtle body. Because the subtle body is made of sound and light, sound in light of the mind let's do it together and notice what you feel. Eyes closed.

Oh, my new tide. Who my new tide. Home on new tide on on new tide on new tide. New tide on new tires are new to all new tires. New tires. New. New. New. NEW NEW AT ALL. New tire on new tires. On new tires. On new tires. On new tires. New tires on new tires. On new tires. Or New Tida or new or new.

All new tag. New tag on new time. NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW. New. New. New. NEW NEW NEW. New new. New. New. New. New. New. New. New. New all new. All new Tada. All new. New. New. New. New. All new Tada on new or new. All new all new. New. New New. NEW NEW NEW Tada. New Tab. New Tab or new time. New all new time. New time. New time. New time. New time. NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW tired

day crescendo to a whispered recitation.

This de crescendo invites the quality of interiority inviting you in lucidly?

Instead of having samsaric discursive mantras running through your mind as you lie down to sleep now you replace it with a conscious recitation of awakening lucid sleep onset

would be lovely to get to the point with your practice that if you toss and turn and wake up in the night to go to the restroom that this mantra is perfuming your sleep and dream

then dissolve it into a silent mental recitation.

Then release even that mantra and rest in the absolute mantra of silence and remember what Rumi said so beautifully silence is the language of God all else is poor translation but mantras are the best translation so rest and silence.

Wonderful, fantastic form of both Eastern sleep hygiene cleaning up your usually stained and soiled discursive mind with a more purified mind through the recitation of the sacred purified sounds

and so the next module I want to introduce today talk just briefly about so that we can then do again a little bit is the sound of compassion the mantra of Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit, Chandra, AZ, and Tibetan, the bodhisattva of compassion, and I bring this one up now, because this is my principal go to mantra when I'm encountering just horrific news, like what It's happening and kaza what happened in Israel, it's just it's a horrific, it's so painful. And so instead of capitulating to my just knee jerk aversion revulsion, which closes me down, shuts me off. I find myself just defaulting because I practice it for so long. I know. I see the fruits of my router recitation when I encounter difficult situations. I read in the paper, the team people have been shot. In Maine, I recite a Chang Chen racy mantras. I see a dead animal on the road, I recite this mantra, I read about illness death, hear about it on the news. Instead of just wailing and complaining about how the world is falling apart. I recite these, this particular mantra is an antidote to this contraction. And so you know, many of us many of you know this most probably most famous of all mantras, ohm, Ma, Ni, Padme, home, O M, M, a, and I, PA, D and E are pa D Ma, depending on who you're talking to. Home a to M or some traditions Hu ng home. This is the mantra the sound of compassion. Each of the six syllables are actually associated with the six realms. The hell realm, the Hungry Ghosts realm, the animal realm, the human or human realm. The demigod are jealous god realms and the god realms, which by the way, not are not only physical dimensions just as real as this human dimension, but they're also states of mind. The God Realm is a state of mind, the hell realm is a state of mind. And so by reciting this unbelievably beautiful, powerful mantra, we're actually preventing rebirth into these realms. And in particular, the immediacy of rebirth into the psychological states. of passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy, pride. realms are associated with these principal emotional upheavals called Croatia. And if you take a close look where reincarnating taking birth in the states of mind and heart, all the time. This is involuntary unconscious rebirth practice. This is another thing we're practicing all the time, whether we know it or not. We're practicing samsaric rebirth. Every time we capitulate to these poisonous energies. You so the six syllables of this mantra, this is a powerful death mantra to recite when you are dying to powerful mantra to prevent rebirth at the end of life into physical dimensions of the six realms that are just as real as this human realm. But more immediately for us now, these are ways to prevent rebirth, into the psychological or if you like fancy words, epistemological states of mind and heart. Now whenever you're pissed off, you're in the hell realm. recite the mantra. Whenever you really grasp, be in greedy, right? Hungry Ghost Realm can't get enough can't get no satisfaction. habituated, kind of locked in to routinization solid solidified states of mind. animal realm, human realm, passion, jealous God Realm, right the demigods jealousy. The God realms pride. And so whether we know it or not, we're practicing for rebirth in these eventual dimensions based on the states that we inhabit now. So, I recite this mantra all the time. It's one of my three or four absolute go to mantras. And I recite this, like I mentioned in particular, when it's just so bloody painful to try to keep your heart open to what's happening in this dark age. It's it's just so painful. And so what do we do? Do we just ignore it? Do we shut down? That's not particularly skillful. How are you going to be a bodhisattva if you can't keep your heart open in these extremely intense, painful situations. And so this mantra remember mantra is mind protection, mind and heart are the same word in Pali and Sanskrit. This mantra also protects the heart. It protects the heart from contracting and from closing now, the heart protection mantra keeps the heart open. And so I'm Mani Padme. Home. This is just I've done this so long. It's like, Gesundheit. Bless you. You know, when somebody sneezes, I've been trained by my parents, to say, Gesundheit. Just happens. The type of practice that I now perform well, I've done this mantra so long, like I mentioned, I see a dead animal. recite the mantra. I hear about death in the news, I recite the mantra. So as you might suspect, I'm reciting this mantra a lot keeps my mind and in particular mind heart, in this case, the affection the effective component heart. It protects my heart from closing down. So we'll recite this for a few minutes. I'd love to get both of these monitors into your system and then see how they work for you. So we'll do this one together. It doesn't matter if you recite it fast or slow. You can recite it at any pace that works for you. Once again, when we do this together notice what you feel I always like to do this at first with eyes closed and just pay exquisite attention to what you're noticing with him. So we'll recite this together for a few minutes in exactly the same way we did the Dream Yoga mantra and then we can have a little discussion Okay.

On my knee pad may on on my knee pad may on on my knee pad may from money from money pardon me from mani padme hum on money Panay from money pod may from bomb money pod may on on money pod may from Mo Money pod may home Mo Money pod may from vo money pod may from Oh Mani Padme home mom mani padme hum Mo Money pod may on bone money pardon me home this

is also the mantra I most commonly recite the side of someone who is

dying. Oh Mani Padme home Oh Mani Padme home so

I can keep my heart open to them.

Oh my knee pardon me home no money pie may come on Monday pod may home. A pod bay on money pardon me on my name Hi may money pod bay home but they may come back the base. Money pardon me on money pardon may come Monday pardon may come on Monday. May Monday, May on money pan may home on Monday. Pardon a column on Monday. Pardon me from the day on Monday Birmingham. I'm only going to be home on Monday Monday.

You recited mentally or I should say semi audibly. This is usually when I just my personal thing. This is where I tend to just recite it more quickly, but that's just me.

No money pumping more money

no matter

what you feel in your heart center

Hello everybody I don't want money

and then mental recitation

and then release that and then just simply drop into silence

once again perhaps notice how these sacred sounds sounds of the awakened mind heart perfume the quality of your being

Okay, thank you very much any questions or comments or contributions offerings if somebody was playing with the Dream Yoga mantra and had some experiences to share it, I'd love to hear about it. But otherwise any I'll check the chat column which on this computer I can read it my other one for some reason wasn't doing it. So any questions comments are most welcome in the meantime I will scan the image here Yes, there is the tar it's just read from Laura it's just buried as read on read so you just can't see it. It's there. Yeah, there it is from America. Yep. That's the same car he just doesn't show up

Oh, Barry, that's interesting. Where did you get that information? Here you go. Here's where you got it well, that's interesting. I was not aware of that. I mean, I've done the narrow children I've done the six years to bury what what lineage of transmission because I've done that and we did not receive that monitor. So if what lineage of transmission was the narrow children that you're talking about? It's probably in the Lacey said sense so I'll look at that later. Oh, that's really great. I don't have my camera to take a picture of it. Alyssa if you could send me that that would be really great. Okay, here we go. Warren vibrational energy. Yeah, for sure. Isn't that? Totally. The world is made of sound the world is made of vibration. So these mantras are designed to evoke invoke these vibrational qualities by using sacred sounds to invoke sacred archetypes within us. From Kimberly, you said sound and light creates a subtle body is sound words and light. Meaning. Kimberly, if you can say a little bit more about what you mean by this meaning? It's not quite clear to me. I think you have something interesting to ask her about it. I'm not quite sure what it is. Yeah, sound like this. Here's the deal when we're talking about sound and light at this level, and we're not talking about the sound and light of the mind and the sound Light, were kinda like the fabric of the subtle body, they're not the same as what we know, so called physical sound and might, but they're also not different. These are basically sound and light are kind of metaphors for this extraordinarily subtle matrix that creates the subtle body itself, which has never been, like formally detected by instrumentation. Yet. In my conversation with Tenzin Wangyal, two weeks ago, we had this conversation with some scientists to see if in fact, they could ever actually measure it. We'll see. So, oh, yeah, there you are. Kimberly, unmute yourself, and maybe help me understand what your question is.

Yeah, I think you. Um, so yeah, just exactly going on metaphor, kind of like, so when you say sound, you know, in a metaphor, that would be meaning. And so it would be words, because or writing, that's what we translate to be as sound.

But not all sounds have. Not all sounds have meaning. I mean, if, you know, I mean, that all sounds good. Meaning, when sounds are shaped into into language. And of course, they have meaning but sound in itself doesn't have meaning. Right. So it just I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. So

one, no, no, you're right. Yeah. No, I mean, but even with that, like, there's an emotion, there's something behind the sound. And so I'm thinking like, what is that behind the sound? Is it? The meaning? Like your words? Yeah, like, Yeah, points back to purpose. And I mean, it's kind of like a translation of vibration, because that's what sound is. So, you know, going down to trying to translate, you know, what vibration is?

Well, it depends on how you define the term translation. So like, one one level? Yes, a lot of monitors can in fact, be translated. And they do have meanings. But actual power of the mantra comes from the sound itself. It doesn't come from the the imputed meaning. And so when you're talking about translation, in that regard, there's one thing to say, if you're talking about translation and a deeper meaning, then perhaps what you're intimating is that the sound which is associated with some Bolkiah translates the archetypal manifestation of Dharmakaya. So it depends on how you you're using this multi Vaillant term called sound. But the important thing in terms of, of, perhaps, for me, around the relationship of auditory sound, like my voice and music, by the way, and this is one reason, when we feel music, and we're touched and affected Emotionally, I asked Sonia Rinpoche this question. It's the subtle body that's being touched by music. And so therefore, we could say, metaphorically and logically, that the subtle body is made of something like sound and light, which is why when you're engaging in mantra recitation, one of the ways it works physiologically, not merely phenomenologically. But the one of the ways it works to change you is it changes the structure of your subtle body. Let me say that again. When you're reciting mantras, you're changing the structure of your subtle body. And so therefore, when we're reciting samsaric, mantras, we're tying our subtle body into knots all the time, whether we know it or not. So when you're reciting these sacred sounds, you're opening meditation is habituation to openness. This openness is not just mental mind and body or a spectrum mind is really subtle body body is gross mind. So when you're working with opening, the narrative of meditations, not just your mind this opening, your body is opening. And the channels are opening, the chakras are opening, but energy is being released, which is why I invited you when you are reciting this to see what are you feeling? What do you notice? Because you will notice an opening within your subtle body. Physiologically, this is what's happening, which is for some people helpful to know, because it helps us understand okay, you want me to recite a million mantras well, how do mantras work? This is one way they work. They work to open untie expand your subtle body system. And you can feel it you recite a lot of mantras and you'll feel lighter, you'll feel freer you will feel more open. And so this is one way so I'm not that someone satisfactory. Say yes, we are perfect, beautiful.

Thank you. Always

nice to hear from you. Okay, should the Dream Yoga mantra be recited as quickly as you did it today? No, don't shut on yourself. I often say this right Eileen. We're always shitting on ourselves, right? I'm being goofy. I should be doing this, I should be doing that stop shooting on yourself and stop shooting another. So anyway, with that said, Sorry, anything goofy, you say it at a pace that that pardon the pun resonates with you. I've been reciting these for decades. And so I just tend to recite them very quickly. That's just my, you know, decades of doing it. So if you want to do it, and get in tune with it and resonate with it at a slower recitation level antastic. You don't want to get to the point where you're slurring them, and it's going so fast that they're all just kind of running into each other. But you can you can recite these things rather quickly. So basically, do be your own guide. See what feels right for you. Trust the thread of your experience. And if slower is better than recite a slower, okay? Okay, oh, this is from otter. Oh, yeah, Boy, these images barrier, you're kind of amazing. You're like, you're pretty cool. Helpful. Help will help help. So, okay, anything else any contributions and the offerings around? Playing with mantra doesn't always have to be a question. It can also be like, how this is working for you or not. Give me a second to see if that happens. from March until okay, what is curious, confusing to me, is that these Montreux sounds are culturally and linguistically specific. Ah, am I right about that? Well, I'm not so sure. This is a good question, Mark. Question, Mark. Well, that's interesting. Have you ever said that to you before? Mark? That's a good question mark. Oh, definitely should have had that nitrous oxide for dinner tonight. You know, this is an interesting question. It's actually said and again, who says it? And is it true? That Sanskrit is the language of reality? Latin sometimes has been equated in western circles to have that kind of power. So are they culturally and linguistically specific? Are these what are called surface structures? Or are these deep structures? Well, this is a really interesting one. I mean, ah, like, these are, they're almost like vowel sounds, right? I mean, they're associated with almost any language. So this is a good question. I would argue, but I don't have a lot of doctrinal backing behind this, that that they're actually these are called deep structures that they transcend cultural and linguistic specificities. But can I say that with complete authority, I'm afraid I can't. With someone reciting. And you know, this actually would be very interesting study, really, if you could somehow do it would be to take one of these mantras, and have someone in the jungles of the Amazon, recite it and see if you could collect some data in terms of how they might change. I would suspect that that these are archetypal enough. This is my guess. These are archetypal frequencies. These are archetypal energetics, that are deep structures that transcend cultural and linguistic specificities. But can I say that with total authority, I'm not sure. But I'm okay. Being agnostic about that. It's a good question, Mark. I love this is a good question mark. Right. Thank you for that contribution. And I'll see I'm gonna order Lama Zopa Rinpoche I think I think I saw him I just saw this wrote a book on the power of mantra. I haven't read it yet. I like to read everything I can I Montra I haven't read it. So I'm going to order it read it. And if I learned something there about this, I'll share it with you. But it's a great question. My friend is usual. Okay, from Barry works for me when I play the song while I go to sleep. I've sometimes had lucid dreams. Very cool. I love it. St. Andrew, the study of doing the mind up monitor for 15 minutes a day by children increase the cognitive abilities. No kidding. Very seriously. Wow, dude, send me the study for sure. This is I didn't I didn't I'm not aware of that. That's awesome. I've been reciting the Manjushri mantra every day. And I do the puja the practice associate with him. I've been doing it everyday for over 30 years. And why I tell you I think it's had some better bad. Okay, Queen song. Oh, yeah. From queen. We Yeah, we will. We Will Rock You. I love queen. I just love him. I'm Freddie Mercury. I mean, literally, literally what a rockstar, right? I mean, this guy was a genius. Too bad. He was so weird. There's so much we Don't know about sound, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, read read. Colby chattery and listen to the interview I did with her originally for nightclub and then I think we put it out on the edge of mind. The, our Vedic physician in the northwestern neurologist, she wrote a lovely book, double entendre intended sound medicine, with a subtitle I can't remember. But listen to my interview with her read her book. She's got some super interesting things to say about sound. So those of you who are interested in the deeper renderings of Montra, where you go as you read that book, and you also read what's called the spunda, traditional sponder Karakas, which is one of the subsets of Kashmir Shaivism the doctrine of vibration. This is the most profound entire school tradition of Kashmir Shaivism based on pulsation vibration, a book literally called the doctrine of vibration by Mark Tchaikovsky is a really great read. So for people who want to do deeper dives, there you go. Okay, Jerry, one last question for you, my friend buzzer shot, and then we'll be good for today. All right away, my friend. This

is very short. And you've said it before many times but I just keep forgetting that. What are the five symbols stand for?

Well, they the five seed syllables stand for they represent the five archetypal energies of the Buddha. So they're, they're typified somewhat anthropomorphic ly or you could say deity polymorphically. If there's such a term in these five deities, so via Chana Akshobhya, Ratan Assam, Baba Amitabha. I'm Olga city. So they represent those five deities, those five deities represent the five Buddha families. The five Buddha's those five Buddha's represent the five Buddha families. And everything in manifest reality is a member of one of these families. So in a very real way, these are the seeds syllables for all manifest reality. That's, that's how charged they are. And so when you go to sleep with them, I like to think of it as you're being tucked into sleep, by the wisdom mind of the Buddha's the ultimate lucid dreamers. And so it's, it's just a wonderful way. I mean, usually, if I'm not doing that, what am I doing? I'm reciting my samsaric mantras. I'm ruminating and worrying and whatever. So I mean, what I do every night just to share with you, I do part of my sleep hygiene practice. I do gratitude practice, I look over the day. I try to find this as by means your energy and studies have actually shown studies have shown the Power of Gratitude means your MHA says try to go to sleep every night and be grateful for three things during the day. I do this every night. I look back and I go wow, I'm so glad I have XY and Z. And so this this gratitude practices is is really beautiful. And then instead of capitulating to my previously normal default of rumination and worry by samsaric mantras. I recite this until I fall asleep. This is like a wisdom low Obi right? This is a lullaby from the Buddhas to rock you into lucid sleep so hey, we will we will rock you Here we go queen. We will really we will we we will we will we will rock you like like baby cares. We will rocky went to sleep there we go. Hi Fi how's that? That's pretty good. Manjushri just sent that to me.

But just one last comment today you know I often go to LA Fitness you know workout and somebody turn on their radio real loud. Which aren't supposed to do. And you Asana they were playing

queen? We Will Rock You. Synchronicity isn't that fantastic? And

isn't there an English translation? I think you were talking about like water air fire for the

soldier also connected to the so again, yeah. In terms of the elements you have space, water, earth, fire, wind, in order, sometimes when space and water are mixed, but those are the elements so the lowest five syllables they're there That's why they're called beach beaches or seed syllables. They're they're the sea syllables for everything that manifest in reality and that's why the call the families every season every element every state of mind every whatever can be classified in this mandala principle this organizing templates so this is part of again, we don't want to go too far into that direction but Mondelez are organizing templates of reality and mantras are associated with them. Okay

even just one mark that with the five elements are gun Earth water, fire,

wind and space but in order it from the center, it's it's you go from in the center of fire China that space. In the east blue, that's water that's like Sobia in the south is rotten to somebody that's Earth. In the West is fire that's Amitabha in the north is Green and wind mega city. Okay, well that's the colors I mean everything this stuff these are these are when you're working with this stuff. These are our ancestors. These are these are our archetypal ancestors. So you want to talk about a fundamental ontological genealogy. This is it, you know, again, if you want to go into deep philosophical waters, when you're working with these five syllables, you're working with your ancestors, the fundamental matrix that gives birth to all manifest reality. So these puppies are profound. And that's where, you know, another reason you know, substantiate the power of the recitation of mantra is a reason why this is such a fundamental practice in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. This is core stuff. And if we understand it through riffs like this, maybe we'll be inspired to do it. So to whatever extent it works for you engage this when you fall asleep at night, we will we will rock you into sleep. I love that. Let O'Meara Tara mantra low you went to sleep the Amitabha I'm sorry the chin racing mantra when you are feeling yourself closing down to stay open to do that. And then remember if what we're doing here is not a benefit to the world it's irrelevant everything we do here is for the benefit of others so don't forget it please essence the spiritual practices remembrance don't forget otherwise. This is all just New Age mumbo jumbo comfort plan. No, we do this for the benefit of others. So remember dedication of merit if that means anything to you, whatever you can just wave your hands together and send it all out we dedicate the merit to all sentient beings especially all these unbelievably suffering people in Gaza and Israel I mean, can you believe this stuff man? Keep your heart open. Don't close down. Beam I love on every monitor you recite and see you guys on Thursday night we do the q&a, you know we usually do here at night club. I'll see you around. Nice to be with everybody again. Ciao. Ciao.