back for my ski vacation. So yeah, the geeky thing everybody turn on the camera for just a second.
Yeah.
Oh hi, everybody.
Nice to see everybody. All my friends from everywhere my European friends Hi Mariana. This is great, terrific. Wunderbar wunderbar, okay. So yeah, I missed you all last week, I was, I had a terrific time of skiing. I used to be a mogul freestyle competitor so I still go out there and torture myself on all the bumps that we had a couple of really great powder days, it was really great fun. So a couple things. We released the interview with Krishna Das last week I had a terrific time with this remarkable individual first one we've done music which is also one of my really big passions and Katie is, he's just a great guy. If you ever get a chance to go to one of his kirtana events I highly recommend it quite magical actually Tantra pure lands next weekend, the second weekend of this kind of two part series I'm doing with Bob Thurman first one is on sutra. We already did that. The second one's on Tantra next week from this Friday. I'm actually quite excited about this, again, I was looking at my notes I hadn't haven't presented on this stuff in eight years. No, what am I saying 14 years 14 years. Last time I talked about this stuff. And as I'm rereading all this stuff going through new material going through original material. I realized that there's a lot in this one. It's really cool. So some of the things we're going to be talking about those of you who are students of Shambala, we talk about at least thing that I've explicitly requested Bob does this Shambala what it is, what kind of a pure land is it, it's a trestle pure land it's also connected to what are called the hidden lands or bejewel BYU L. So we'll be talking about dejo principle. We'll be talking about the Kalachakra Tantra, which is deeply connected to Shambala, and in particular the second five chapters in the kala chakra, which is all about the indivisibility between inner and outer, and that's really that the kind of the tact that I take with these two weekends so the first one was more pure land, how land affects mine. The second was more pure mind. And so, how mind effects MindScape effects landscape so the ultimate fruition of course is pure mind pure land, and how they are fundamentally non dualistic and support each other so I'm moving on this program, we also talk about pilgrimage outer pilgrimage and inner pilgrimage. How on one level. Going to our locations is tremendously impactful, especially for tantric practitioners to work with, kind of outer body correlates to inner body processes, super interesting stuff, pure perception threefold purity, sacred ground, all this kind of stuff. Sacred geography, it's really pretty cool. So I'm excited about that. And so what I wanted to talk just ever so briefly about today before we turn to questions if you're new to what we, we do here on these Thursdays is like, I don't know how many we've done now, probably close to 50. I come in I spontaneously talk about whatever, that's why I like these events. And then we open it up to q&a and there is some really great questions that were actually submitted in writing. So I'm going to turn to those. And then we open it up and we just have a lively, hopefully lively discussion, but but I did want to say something just a little bit more about, you know Ben if you know by now of course what happens, literally 10 minutes from, from where I live, and he just told me before we went on he drove by that site, and which is close to where he is as well. I've been in this grocery store hundreds of times. And so it's, you know boulders leading right now there's, there's a lot of you could just feel it. It's it's very interesting, it affects dreams, you know, collectively and as well as individually. So I've been dreaming about this kind of stuff and thinking about it a lot. And I wanted to just share a couple things I asked Andy to post a link. There's a number of really interesting studies, articles, in fact I think there's even a book I haven't read it yet on empathy, and how important empathy is, you know to put yourself in the, in the place of the victim. Back victim's family members and all that but empathy alone is not enough.
In fact, empathy, alone, is slightly problematic. Believe it or not, and I, the post that the study I posted is, Or it's actually an article that refers to studies by my friend Dan Goleman, really wonderful guy. He's the guy who wrote emotional intelligence. Also co, co authored this really quite fine book couple years ago with Richie Davidson on altered traits, really sharp impactful thinker. This is a kind of a summation of some really interesting studies about the limitations of empathy and how you can get kind of sucked into that kind of quicksand thinking that oh this is all I really need to do is feel somebody else's pain. Well it's a start. But the studies show that if we don't actually act on it. Yes, it's important to feel empathic for sure, but empathy alone isn't enough. You know, enlightened to actions is enough. I shouldn't say good enough, and like, active activism is really what should be inspired from empathy. So, in that little link that's up there there's also a nice guided practice that Daniel includes. I was gonna say we could do it together but, but maybe I can just read it or you can read it, do it on your own but, but what I wanted to share with you just a little bit in relation to all this is how I've been working with this and one of the most important things is, this is my style of working with unwanted experience, is I think first and foremost, is just being with it, you know, just being with that hurt that heap of hurt. And so, for me, you know, when I feel the absolute, I mean it's just this kind of collage of feelings as I'm sure it is for many people, you know, of just tremendous sadness, heartache and then also, anger, I mean just real anger at all the things that we can rightly be angry about, you know that the absolute ineptitude of Congress to enact gun legislation when 90% of the population supports it, I mean, really. So frustration, anger heartbreak sadness, this real kind of painful palette of the human condition and so for me every morning, you know, since this happens. What I do is I just sit with that. And sometimes I'll actually just put my hand over my heart center as a way to invoke or evoke a holding environment that you know I'm not feeling so great right now. But just imagine all these other people who are really not feeling so great. And so for me, one of the most important things, and not only for this experience but for any unwanted experience is not to dilute it. Not to distract it, not to run from it, but also not to indulge it to is I often say to feel it but not feed it. And this is a really, I think a very important thing. It actually dovetails into a lot of really, I think intelligent psychological thought is that the spiritual side is if we don't give ourselves the space the courage, the patience to just be with these unwanted experiences. We don't process them properly, then you know we repress them we project them we do all the things we normally do anything, but be with it is crappy isn't as god awful as it feels. If we don't, it's like Daffy John once said maybe some of you may know this work this really radical iconic classic American sage nut. i He had a big influence on me many years ago. Duffy John Oliver Nanda, does some of it, I mean he changed his name like every week, but he was a really interesting guy, he wrote. He often taught about how did he put it, the fire must have its way. The fire must have its way. And really, that means having the courage of being in the fire. And metabolizing it processing it, allowing it as uncomfortable as it is to flow through you because if we don't, if I don't, it lodges, he creates a kind of undigested psychic abscess, some scars that then get lodged in your body mind matrix and they're they fester. And then they arise symptomatically, and then they add to this 95 to 99% of unconscious processes that colors, all our experience and therefore when the next difficult situation arises, you bring the history of this one to that, this is what brings about things like complicated grief, complicated reactivities where we know we very, very rarely
relate to experiences as they truly are, because we have so much baggage. And a large part of this baggage is brought about by our inability to be with these wretched experiences when they arise when we're children, that's a different matter and it's so much more difficult you know as kids we can't we don't have the brain structure, the psycho spiritual apparatus to actually digest experience and so it's like birds who have to, you know who chew the food and then feed it to their kids. You know we look at our caretakers our environments. Our parents that digest the metabolizer experience for us. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. But as we grow up. The psychospiritual imperative, or invitation is to work with digesting metabolizing the experience by first of all just being with it. And I remember very clearly Reggie Ray. Many years ago, he says something that really struck me when we're talking about the 12 Madonna's. And he said, he said you know feeling like total crap. Feeling like total shit does not create karma. It's the fruition of karma, but it doesn't create karma. And so if you're feeling really bad, and you just had the ability to be in that fire. It's like Suzuki Roshi said you know we need to be good bonfires, don't be a smoky fire smoky fire would be diluted. Oh, I'll take a drink. I'll go to a movie, I'll get engaged in active laziness, I'll do anything but to stay with this crappy experience. Now, your spiritual warrior, you stay on those fires. And then as painful as they are they purify they self liberate you live very cleanly as painful as that is. So that's what I do every morning, and what I did for the first couple of days after that, it was on to Wednesday, or Tuesday I can remember when the Denver Post put up articles, little clips and articles, pictures of all 10 people, and I read it I went through it and I looked at all these pictures and I actually clipped it out and kept it next to my puja table, it was part of my morning practice for Tom land. And so what I'm going to recommend we do with your indulgence for a second is is handy to pull up these pictures, so that these people are a little bit more real because these people were lives and families and, you know, just all the pain so well we can do let's do 10 breaths of tongue in one breath for each one of these people as a way to connect open to ourselves and to them, and therefore bring some sanity and benefit to this otherwise insane situation so whatever kind of pace, so to speak, works for you 10 breaths, Tong Lin session one breath for each one of these amazing people whose lives are so prematurely taken.
So one of the things you can do that. I do with situations like this is actually specifically dedicate the merits of Tom land any practice any virtuous activity, You can you can direct is very specifically to these people. And as I mentioned the other day in one of my programs. This is where it's really helpful to understand reality in the teachings on emptiness. Because, in so many ways what these great wisdom traditions do is they empower these are all empowering teachings because they strip away this ridiculous worldview, you know that the world is made of matter, that what we do with our minds, really has a really inconsequential impact through prayers through dedications of marriage aspirations and the light that when you really understand the nature of mind and reality and realize the inextricable connectivity between that and all, all of us then we actually have so much more power than we think, to bring bring benefit and so for these people that are probably most certainly still in the Bardo, you know, some of them quite bewildered, confused, some of them may not even know that they're dead, some of them will have recognitions that they're dead, they come back, they come around the situation, moments of lucidity then habits come in, they forget. And so, with our sensitivity and awareness we can actually invite them into our practice arena. We can even speak to them we can guide them, we can dedicate our merit to them and so if that speaks to something that could be of some benefit, especially within the first couple of weeks. According to Bardo principles. The first three weeks mostly they're still hanging around. And, you know, we have the capacity actually to be of some benefit more than more than you can imagine, actually, so. Okay. With that said, there were some really great written questions that came in, I'm going to turn to those first I have to get my other computer open. And then we can talk about anything. This event. What we do here is any topic, almost any topic, I'm not going to take conspiracy theories. I'm not going to talk about that sort of thing but I think you get what I'm saying. So let me pull up questions there's some great questions. So we alternate between. Yeah, well actually, let me start the one off really for sure there's one more victim for sure. Yeah, exactly, situating the victim, the villain so to speak, and his mother just imagine what his mother feels like, yeah, there's, there's more than one victim for sure. So this is what she said he was young Muslim had ran relentlessly bullied all through his school years. Oh, he also needs our tongue lane for sure, as those his family. May they find these cars he may be driven out of Boulder. Yeah, well they live in Arvada, but yeah, you're right. Completely agree. And actually I've neglected to say that that's actually what I do in my practice so I start, I start with the victims, then I start with the victim's mother, just because that to me it's just, I can't imagine what she's going through his family, his brother, and then him, you know, we can't act out towards others. What we don't count towards ourselves so this incredible rage, anger, confusion, pain that he lashed out can only be expressed, because that's what he's expressing towards himself. So, from Sarah Hi Andrew My question is about dream guidance, are all non lucid dream samsaric dreams, this is long questions so I'm going to parse this up, are all non lucid dream samsaric dreams, no they're not. You can have tons of longer MPJ calls about it, he talks about his dreams of clarity that are non lucid but also non samsaric. You can also get guidance from non lucid dreams that aren't that are not samsaric. So not all non lucid dreams are samsaric back to her for years I have looked to my dreams and followed some of the guidance within them yet. Recently I have been wondering if this is just another way of my lower mind taking charge of my life. Yeah.
Well, it could be, um, what comes to mind here is that, you know, as I frequently mentioned we we exist along a spectrum from really selfish to really selfless from beast to Buddha. From psychotic to mystic and so the lower mind, the lower bandwidths of that spectrum. They can still be beneficial to certain degrees, you know, this is why there's such a tremendous spectrum of therapeutic methods and modalities working at all these different bandwidths. So even though it's lower mind influencing not every aspect of lower mind is deleterious or damaging, I mean for instance, at a very basic level, you know, fundamental biological instincts that you could say are part of the lower mind are absolutely instrumental for survival and fears just one application of that. But, you know, to me, what came to mind when I read this question earlier was that the larger issue is lower mind, quote unquote, his unconscious mind and how that lower mind unconscious mind takes charge of life. That is for sure. And so, again, like I've been saying a lot these days since I read, Bruce Lipton's book Biology of Belief which I recommend, because he puts numbers to these things, you know at least 95% is dictated by these, these so called lower mind, or unconscious mind influences the forces of the dark side. And so the lower mind is in fact where most of our stored habits still reside. Some of them, biologically are absolutely necessary for our survival but a lot of them psychologically are not, they're outdated modes of operating it's really an old operating system. That just doesn't really needs to be vastly updated, or in some cases just jettisoned. And so, these lower level influences still exert massive influences over our lives and in fact, a large part of the path is in fact, identifying those bring them, bringing them into the Light of Consciousness, purifying them releasing them until there's no such thing as the unconscious mind until there's no such thing as the lower mind so the lower mind really only becomes problematic when his influences remain unconscious or when we identify with those lower bandwidth, that's the only time they become problematic. You can use access to that those lower dimension, so to speak. In fact, once you wake up, as skillful means to relate to others who are still at the so called lower levels, that's really what skillful means means is not meeting people where you're at, meaning them with where they're at, so little sidebar there back to her I recently had a series of six streams strongly suggesting that I move courses at college. Yet why I'm learning yet when I'm learning on my current course. I am enjoying it. I haven't moved courses but remain open as to future change could you speak a little bit about this. Yeah, you know, I mean if you talk a little bit about dream interpretation and the like, that's a little bit more than, than what I'm able to do. You know, this kind of dream interpretation thing is a little bit outside of my paygrade. And it's also, I'm really, really careful about interpreting these sorts of things for people. Damage reputation is incredibly powerful super valuable, but it's it's really difficult, especially in a somewhat public setting and without being able to talk to you. To really unpack. You know what's actually happening with these six dreams and what they're really influencing, or perhaps suggesting of you so I'm gonna pass on that one. It's just a little bit more than I feel is appropriate to discuss in this format, but maybe some of the other stuff I said can be of some benefit. Barry, my dear friend Barry. During a book club session this week you said, this always freaks me out. Whenever Whenever people start to say that. Well you say on page 295 was like oh geez, You know what did I really say. Or, oh you said last week, it's like, I, this is why honestly I wish, I wish I I want level tongue in cheek, I wish I didn't have to say anything. It's like, really, what did Rumi say, um, silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation, and that's fantastic, is really great silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation so anyway Barry, you always, you always, I always get worried when somebody said last week you said, I might have had a mind fart at the time who knows. Okay, so apparently this is what I said.
According to Barry. Okay, so I just so this is this is allegedly me. We'll see how it will see a bear is accurate here. Oh yeah so I just this is allegedly me reincarnating what what I said through berries. But this is the other transcripts. Oh that's even worse. Oh, that can't even I can't even accuse berries, like I'm totally buried. Sorry, I'm totally buried to get it. Okay so this is from otter This is makes it even worse because now I can't say it was Barry's fault. Oh yeah so I just mentioned this footnote 14 western view of the minds. I would say the dreams are solid sistex Well that's fantastic. So this is the way otter trans transcribes solipsistic, that's great, solid s i s t e x solid sistex Fantastic, uh, uh, let's see, I would say the dreams are solipsistic yes okay so basically what he's saying, I'm agnostic about love I'm paraphrasing there so basically what I said was I'm not I'm agnostic about this view. Originally I maintain this view that all dreams are salep system. In other words, mind it's just mind and there's just my mind. So I've changed yes I'm more open to this view that not all of that is true correct some of my most intense and transformative dreams have occurred when forces seemingly outside of my domain mind influence and my dreams. I'm okay with open questions. Now I'm more than just agnostic now I have room for this, can you give us examples of such outside influences how to work with these if at all. Yeah, I can give you some. Well yeah so first of all my view on this has changed just like I allegedly said, now I'm busted. Buried buried ba ba RR ie D buried by the truth. It's hard to assess sometimes where, where this stuff comes from in your dreams. And maybe you've already had dream experiences like this you know is it coming from me. Sometimes it's difficult to say. But sometimes, in my experience if you want some specific examples from my experience, I've absolutely positively had experiences and I continue to have them that hey, the man that didn't come and for me, and parenthetically philosophically, the whole idea of me versus not me self versus other comes into play here, because who was this knee that's allegedly coming from or not in any way. So that's a sidebar issue but not an unimportant one. But let me share a couple things where I can tell you without equivocation that I've had the sorts of dreams I've had dreams in the past. And, you know, every now and again, for instance of protectors, entering my dream so in Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, there are these protectors principles. I don't have any photos in my room but right around in my other study I have some really awesome tacos are these protectors, and there's a bunch of them and I do practices, every single night. Every single night, I do these, it'd be really cool to have a whole talk on protected principle, because these puppies can literally save your life. Let me just share one example jigger controverted MPJ who is a dear teacher I know him a little bit. He was talking about this and he said, you know, somebody asked him something about protectors and
he said one example from his life he was walking on a boulder trail. Some of you may know this, and he had the urge to pee in his Bush. And as he was kind of walking towards the bush to relieve himself he had this slot that said don't do that. And he actually saw me I had the intuition that said that that thought is not coming from me. And so he threw a pebble into the bush and there was a rattlesnake in there. Protect His work that way. And, you know, I mean, who knows because we don't live in parallel universes. But the way protectors work and again this is all hypothetical I'm just speaking really is is a representative of the tradition here, you know, maybe the protective principal on Monday said, Oh, I'm not going to go shopping at table Mesa today, I'm going to go shopping at King Soopers and Lewisville today. It could be like that. I'm just, just saying. So I have, I have a very powerful connection to protect your principle. And I do these protective practices every day of my life. And if you want some day if you want we can do a whole class on this I can give you some of these liturgies. These are no small thing. There's a reason the stuff is in the tradition, it's not just for social purposes it's not anthropological mumbo jumbo, these protectors. Excuse me. They're as real as we are in fact they're more real because they're more awake. And so I have a real deep allegiance to protectors and so I had one dream maybe someday I'll share the whole thing with you as one of the greatest dreams of my life. Were aware eka jati, One of my and I have a I should have brought her I have a Rupa statue of her she's my baby. Sorry. I love you. She, she not only entered my dream she entered my mind in a dream. And it was like one of the greatest experiences of my life and at that point I knew I said, Man, this is definitely, I do not see the world this way. This is not me. This is the way the world appears through the eyes of like a jockey, it was one of the most shattering dreams of my life. And so I I've had good fortunes to have these types of experiences, those are the ones that are no brainers you wake up from those and it was like, holy moly Batman. That was amazing. The more kind of colloquial ones they also happen a lot. And those are a little bit harder to suss out the really impactful ones, you can usually glean just because of the impact, you know, you wake up from one of those are, are, in fact, even more importantly you have won during the daytime experience, you know, that didn't come from me. And so, oh gosh, so many things to say here, you know, you can even start to notice this now so the other thing that I do again speaking very personally. The other practice I do, literally every day is my Jushi, and I have him. Can you see him up there. He's way up on top, right there, see him. I also have, I mean he's such a big deal I have him everywhere so here he is, I have him on my study here's a picture of him. Right below a really cool gift I got from His Holiness 17 Come up, so I've got I've got all these little props with me, so I do my gesture practice every every single day.
And if you if you do these sort of things you know yourself you know I'll be riffing along sometimes, and even doing a presentation to teaching and all of a sudden, some insight will pop up and and I just know I said that didn't come from me. That didn't come from me. That came from Manjushri, well then the question is, well, who is Manjushri, who is eka Dotty, are they completely separate. You know energetics independent from me or are the archetypal energies of my own being expressing themselves in this way. They're both, there's no reason you can't have them as both. They are both that they are, they are independent of us as these deities and energetics that we supplicate and establish relationships to, and they are equally just as much archetypes of our own being. And so by engaging in these practices we can we can invite them we can evoke them. I'm sure many of you had these experiences, and then they start to help you. It's like napalm he once said, you know, one of the most every once in a while you get these teachings that are delivered at the right time. And for me it's like the Europa slapping or Tilopa slapping Europa, you know he wakes up. No one teacher wants said you know you're you are not alone. You are not alone. Just because you can't see these energetics deities archetypes Vietnams. This is the way the pureland stuff is so cool because you know you blast open your horizons, to the 27 other states of samsaric frequency existence and then all the other trans samsaric dimensions, you start to believe this stuff, it starts to work with you. Prayer comes into play here, aspiration magic comes into play here. So this is a great question, Barry. That, that leads to so many interesting things you know just for the purposes of time I'm going to let it go for now. But the idea is that as we become more porous and transparent to ourselves, we become more porous and transparent to others and also to these energetics. That's the magic of tantric practice the magic of these even the shamanistic traditions. We're not alone, we can gather help. And like if you dreaming, you know part of the Pure Land thing. Part of the puroland job description is, is you can get you know they can send you dreams from the pure lands. So you know, gosh, you know, because of course there's there's so cool, that's probably as far as I can wrong with that for now Barry if you're on and want to ask something more specific, more than welcome to do so. So I'm going to take two more and then we'll open it up and then I'll come back to some of these other ones because these questions are so great. Okay, so this one's from Kristoff and then we'll take a live one. Are you aware of any impact on avoidant personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, on the ability to achieve lucidity. You know I'm not, I'm Christoph, if I don't think I'm pretty up on these sort of things. Not 100%, but pretty up on it. I don't know any of any studies, Especially about borderlines I, by the way, I've had a lot of experience with people in my life with Borderline my sister was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, I actually had a dear, dear friend who suffered severely from borderline really tough stuff borderlines are really tricky, really tricky. And so, I don't know of any studies about the ability to treat lucidity, but I do know any particular kind of
psychological state or diagnosis, that is it all dissociative and borderlines have that can have their predisposition, particularly though however I'm thinking more like the personalization the realization disorders dissociated by identity disorders that's extreme used to be called NPD multiple personalities, those types of people should not engage in things like lucid dreaming, without the sanction the clearance, and the blessings of a healthcare provider, because while these practices and my friend Ryan Hurd really writes beautifully about this you know lucid dreaming is really powerful. But anything that has the power to cure also has if it's not engaged properly correlative adverse capacities, and so you know one example that comes to mind from things like virtual reality there's a really interesting syndrome there which I had a temporary experience of when I spent hours in virtual reality it's called alternative world syndrome, where you spend so much time in VR, that you come out and you don't know what's real. This you know it's like Am I still on an app Am I still want to program or is this the waking state. And so, until you have the psychospiritual capacity to fly in that type of space where it doesn't matter what arises that that type of liquidity can be problematic for a psychological structure there is still based on hitching posts, still based on reference still based on contraction. So if the if the grip on contraction is released too prematurely that can be problematic. It's like, Who was it, Jack Engler that really sensitive, psychiatrists, Buddhist practitioner said you know you have to be somebody before you can be nobody. Because if you're nobody before you become somebody you don't become enlightened you become psychotic rd Lang the other psychiatrists famously said you've heard this you know the mystic swims in the same ocean, where the psychotic drowns. So we have to be careful with these sorts of things. They have a lot of power, but they're not for everybody, and there has to be a certain infrastructure in place usually in my experience itself selects. In other words, people that are interested in this already have that kind of baseline stability, stability, but not always. I mean we get, we get. When I do my deeper dive program, sometimes we get people who who asked if they should comment, and I, you know I'm not a psychologist but I do know a little bit about mental health issues, so on, there are times when we just say, we don't think this is the best program for you at this time. So I can't answer your, your questions specifically I do not know of avoidant personality disorders, the ability to achieve lucidity if they're out there I don't know them, but this is what comes to mind about kind of correlative topics corollary topics. Okay, so we can take one or two live ones and then I'll come back to some more really good written ones but I want to get some live ones first. Okay. And we have Patricia and Glen
there Hey.
Hi, Andrew. Hi, um, I was wondering if you would be willing to play the piano, of the most beautiful piece of music that exalt you. And we send love to the 10 people died on a Tuesday evening.
When do you want me to do that, dear, I'm sorry, US evening does David Okay, oh what a sweet thing Note to self, I will do that, two things immediately come to mind. Do want me to tell you what they are or should I just, yeah, so the second movement of the Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto,
yes,
yes, you know what, yes, I mean it's like it's like the most beautiful I read it I read it, I listened to it and it's like, this is what I want.
It blesses you.
Yeah, this is what I want to be played at my at my eulogy it's just beyond beautiful. Yeah, or, or here's a couple others if you know a second movement of the Greek Piano Concerto and the second movement of Chopin first piano concerto, and it's just it's just beauty beyond words. Right, yeah. It may be some curtain so Note to self, I will do that I will I will ping up the second movements of the Beethoven 15 and that will be great. That will do it. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna write that down, note to self, thank you, Patricia come back on Tuesday I'll play it for you. Okay. Oh great, if I could bring my piano upstairs I play it on my piano, but I don't I don't have an orchestra to back me up, so I just have to play the piano solo so
an app would be a VR.
There you go. Okay, come back in on Tuesday I'll do that for you. Okay,
great.
All right, another live one from Glen.
Ah Hi, Andrew.
Oh, so maybe you can comment or give me some advice on the following, it's coming from an experience started on Tuesday, and then there's a redo of it today. And so I'm, I've taken the terbaru joy of living three or four times and I'm in the middle of doing a current one in, partly because friends of mine are doing it. And so I'm getting reintroduced to this sort of whole, you know system. So, I was in the middle of asleep on Tuesday, and I realized that I was actually in open awareness during the dream. So then I woke up and I said, Okay, it's dark. I'm just going to sit and do open awareness meditation on the bedside. And so usually I can't sustain it for more than five minutes. But this night was amazing it was like for 15 minutes and then go back into it so the whole thing went on for about a half an hour. I also record my sleep so I know when I'm snoring. And then I went back to sleep, and for the next two and a half hours I stayed in that more or less and so I want to ask you about is there's two phenomenon. One is, I said okay so if there's about three hours of sleep here and I've only slept. Technically, three hours but I didn't feel sleepy. I felt like I had a full night's rest. Second part of the question is I was aware of being awake, and then going into hypnagogic. And so, the, the lucid parts of hypnagogia and then there were lucid parts of dreams were very much like the dreams that we're talking about there's some Sark dreams they were semi lucid I would call them they're not like the lucid dreams I've had which actually don't have relationships to people that I know. And these were all about people I know and my problems with them, and then the dreaming, was partly about using a computer application to try it because I was saying to myself, I'm not confronting someone here that I should doubt I'm having a semi lucid dream with it's a cousin of mine. Maybe I should do that. And then I got back into this computer thing about the way that apps can help you deal with people and then I woke up. So, um, so those are the kind of the two parts it's kind of
the lucidity, in the dreaming was relatively mild and it was very samsaric it's
also I felt very rested. The same thing happened this morning but I couldn't sustain the city for very long, was off and on through the whole night. Okay, well let me see.
Let me see if I understand what you're asking. So in relationship to the first question. It seems to be what I was hearing out of that Glenn is that is in fact resting in these meditative spaces, the same as is getting the rest I would normally get with my sleep. In other words, you didn't feel tired even though you didn't get your normal sleep. Yeah, you know, I mean the TM people will talk about this decades ago, that. And there's different, there's different data that doesn't always support this but my experience supports your experience is that when you're, when you're in these really deep restorative open spaces, kind of, unconsciously, it's as restorative as being in delta sleep, and so this is also substantiated by the fact that the awakened ones literally don't need to sleep. Right, because, you know, they hang out in this open space. That in itself is fundamentally restorative so if I'm understanding the first part of what you're asking. My experience does bear out yours that when you're resting in these deeper spaces. They are as restorative as deep, dreamless sleep. Some researchers and scientists. Be interesting to ask Ed, what his understanding of this data is. Don't substantiate that from a scientific point of view, but he would know more about that than me so is that in fact what you were asking with the first part of the question. Yeah. Okay, so the second part wasn't an just summarize if you can. The second part that was that that didn't completely gel with me. I think the question of it was that over a period of a couple of hours, I would go in and out from being awake, on my bed into, into hypnagogia, and then into two dreams, and, and to dream, and I would categorize the hypnagogia into two dreams as being semi lucid, not really lucid. And so it struck me that doing this kind of wake initiated three dreaming was producing kind of dreams that were probably some sort in the nature as opposed to the some a couple of really lucid ones I've had which are about moving through walls and lying and, and there isn't just
family related, Yeah.
Yeah, so you know just because you're lucid and go into it with the quality of open awareness again most of our dreams are some sorry dreams, because, you know, most of our dreams are brought about by the kind of what is found that was found then that samsaric residue of our lives embodied in your brain and in your body. But that doesn't again dismiss the validity of bringing lucidity to those samsaric states, you know, just because they're based on these samsara trajectories doesn't mean they can't be engaged and they can't be fruitful. So, you know, You're infusing that dreamscape with your quality of open awareness, you're kind of perfuming with it but that doesn't by default, mean that those dreams will somehow be more elevated. Yeah, sometimes they can be. But again, you simply can just be bringing more awareness to the Samsara content of your experience. There's nothing wrong with that. But does that make sense what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you know, eventually what you will find. That's why you know, dreams are the measure of the path is that the samsaric dreams will eventually start to diminish. Eventually they will be replaced with dreams of clarity. Eventually those will be replaced with dreams of clear like, and eventually you're going to stop dreaming. That may not happen for a while. Or another way to look at that is everything becomes a dream, it's actually saying the same thing. But until then, you know you're you're actually infusing your nighttime hypnagogic and dream space mind with this quality of open awareness, but that doesn't necessarily purify every dream that arises just because you know it's just like a meditation just because you're bringing an open relationship to the contents of your mind doesn't mean that the contents that are arising in your mind and meditation are all going to be nirvanic, there's still going to be these kind of samsara backcheck latent tendencies expressing themselves but the fact really that you're bringing awareness lucidity to that space that in itself is actually really cool. And eventually that in itself becomes fundamentally curative. One of the things that, that you just touched on is in the lectures that Minear has given me the room shake, on, on, actually. Dream Yoga, which he gives very little emphasis within Bardo courses, he says,
fall, fall into sleep in awareness. And if we do it, you will wake up in awareness, and you will not have three. And I always thought that to be. That's very challenging but it's pretty difficult.
Yeah, that's kind of graduate school. Yeah, if you can do that. That's fantastic. I mean he's pointing out probably the way he dreams, which is great and we can use that as his aspiration and potential, but I wouldn't tie yourself too much into knots about that just really wow that's really cool I have that potentiality but yeah I mean, good, good for him that he's actually doing that sort of thing and good for you, for being connected to that organization. They're They're awesome. So cool. Thank you. Thanks, man. Okay, so I'm gonna take a couple one or two more written ones and then back to the live one so this is from Candida, Canada, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing your name properly, I got really interested in your essays on the three Bardot's but it brings up a question for me many questions really, but the main one is realizing that I rely on finding the center of my being in my body. In the central channel. That's awesome. That's really cool. Good for you. I have located the center many times and I practice being in it often. Yeah, I think this is an inner way to talk about what it means to come to your center right, we talked about, oh, I'm going to go to my meditation center right, no. Well, a meditation center may be a geographic location but fundamentally, in terms of body, it's your central channel, so that's awesome. The center of the mandala, I feel it is both full and empty. Excellent. And in my best meditations, it feels like in the void. Cool. Maybe at some point, you will discover actually that you're not in the void, but you actually are the void. So that might be something to to do I'm just going to send as a running commentary on it first it does feel like you're in the void eventually you will actually feel like you are the void. So there's still a very subtle duel if you still like if you feel like you're in the void there's still still a little bit of Sam at work. Back to you but it then becomes obvious that once one has died there is no body to center on correct center less space. So what practices might help me and all of us prepare for the Bardo and the lack of a body. That's a big question. Um. Well, in general, meditation on the path altogether is all about this D centralizing moving, removing the hitching post removing the reference points altogether, but specifically in relation especially what what Glenn was just talking about one of the most important things you can do here. If you're not doing the formulas full formulas meditations have what's called Mahamudra and Xhosa, what Glen was referring to the practice of open awareness, this is mean your MPJ his terminology for non referential Samata shamoto Without a sign awareness of awareness. I like his term open awareness. And actually in our Monday night trajectory of meditations, we're going to spend a ton of time on open awareness, this is the colossally important practice. Because what the practice of open awareness does is, in fact, it fundamentally allows you to come back to awareness itself, so that when you, When you buy exactly when you buy when you die, it's exactly like you said, you do become no body, no thing, empty, but that emptiness is not nothing, it's just like you said, it's full and empty that fullness is the acidity of awareness itself and so the practice of open awareness is colossally helpful here, where the training is, is, yeah, you no longer come back to body and breath because you don't have one, but you come back to awareness itself, because that doesn't die, it's formless it's deathless, it's unborn and Undying, and the practice of open awareness even though it's not fully non dual is really close. And until you do the full non dual practices which open awareness actually is a platform into open awareness itself is super powerful super important practice. And again, so much so that I think I told you, I'm writing these two books. The second book is actually half of the book is on this practice of open awareness, it's that important.
Yes. So, in terms of studying, that's also super helpful. One of the most important things to study here is the, the teachings on the Trakia T ri K ya the three bodies, because what you're alluding to here is exactly right, you know, we don't just have the physical body as you know within us, we have the subtle body that's where the central channel is. But there's actually even something more subtle than the central channel central channel still connected to subtle body, even within below with underneath that is the very subtle body Macik particularly indestructable Bindu indestructable continuum. And that that's you know Dharmakaya I mean sunbug Sorry, nirmanakaya outer body Soboba Kaiya inner body Dharmakaya innermost body exactly the bodies that are revealed through the Bardot's after death, so you're going to be the reason you want to do this now is because you're going to be forced to do this when you die. This is the amazing thing. This is exactly where you're going to go when you die. So your question is brilliant. do it now, die to this outer form transition into the subtle form, that's the central channel thing that's still a transitional object that's still a transitional form, it's not still fully formless. It's a really powerful transitional step, but that's just the death of the body. Now we want to go with even the depth of the confused mind so then you want to transition from that kind of symbol GokaiOh level into the Dharmakaya level. So what I'm doing is I'm juxtaposing different maps in the kind of doctrine doctrines here so I would study the learn about the Trakia, and then I would also learn about subtle body teachings. And then of course, all the while, emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, okay. Oh, follow up, I'm practicing the headless way right now. Seems like it's open awareness. Yeah, it totally is. And so again, you know, if you're in the dreams of life book study group right. This is precisely what we did in that one chapter which in many ways is the central center of the whole book, which in fact goes into the headless way. So, literally meditations on headless awareness. So something like that that's, that's cool. Good for you. Okay, one more and then we'll open it up to a couple live ones from Johnny, what is your view about the role of prayer wheels. Oh yeah, I love them in gaining there I'll read the whole thing and then I'll do my riff. What is your view about the role of prayer wheels and gaining merit and maybe helping achieve enlightenment. Here are two quotes I found when researching the subject, quote, Amitabha Buddha said, quote, anyone who recites the six syllables or money by the home while turning the Dharma Wheel at the same time is equal and fortunate to the 1000 Buddhas. I love these kinds of statements. His Holiness jig della duction Sekiya I don't know him. That's cool. He also pointed out that Padma Sun bhava said, even those lacking perseverance in their practice who pass the time passively will be able to attain mystic powers. Those with perseverance for reciting the mantra and turning the wheel will undoubtedly attain the 10th level it's at the 10th Bhumi, and quote. Yeah, well, a couple things, you know, first of all, who am I to contest these statements are they literal are they hyperbolic, this is a really interesting one, I, I'm a little bit, I'm open on this one and let me tell you what I mean by this is sometimes. It's tricky to centrifuge out how literal these things are in fact how metaphoric parabolic allegorical they are and let me give you one example I remember studying in the Bardo literature, you know, teachings from the tradition, oh what is taller. The Mount Everest I've been, I've been to Mount Everest, by the way, it's really tall.
I've been above base camp and I'm still looking up I was at 20,000 feet, and there's still a lot of, like, eight, you know, 7000 feet ago. This is a big mofo mountain. So when I was actually there I was about base camp on pilgrimage. That's a baby oh by the way, those of you who have been there, solo Khumbu, which is wherever it is, that's it, that's a bale that's a hidden land. So this is this this is the stuff I'm going to talk about with Bob Thurman sidebar. So I was sitting there at Above base camp looking at the top of this peak and contemplating the statement that comes from traditions, what is taller, the tallest mountain in the world hearing I'm looking at it, really big, or the pile of bones that comprise your previous lives, tall are by far are the bones that can pre comprise your previous lives. And I said well that's a heap of bones right. So, the other one was, what is what is what is more vast, the tears you have shed through all your previous lives where all the oceans on the earth by far greater are the tears you have shed in all your previous lives. And so I, I, you know, I said, Well, okay, that sounds good to me. But you know, then I asked my teachers and, and they said, these are not literal. They're hyperbolic they're metaphoric or allegorical there are ways to just denote the massive kind of qualities are trying to be espoused here. So are these are these they are they being literal are they being inspirational are they being hyperbolic. I don't know who's to say. But, with that in mind, here's my riff on this. I totally groove on on all this stuff so right here I have to show you this is literally on my desk, you got to check this out. So not only is this, this is, this is a see why a move right I'm doing everything I can. And so this is not just, you know, I have another prayer wheel. If I could take my camera. Maybe you can see it up there in the corner. See if I can get this back in order here. But right here on my desk, I have. This is a battery operated prayer Well, right. This is like the coolest thing. And so, I'm sitting here, I'm not even doing it. I just have to buy the batteries to put it in here. And this prayer wheel just keep spinning, and I'm sitting here, you know, I suppose I'm getting married because I had to earn a few dollars to pay for these batteries. But here it is this beautiful little prayer wheel on autopilot, spinning out all this thing, is it really helping me. I don't know, maybe. But I can tell you what it does, whenever I look at it, it makes me smile. Or, you know, over here, again, if I can show you're on my study and I would but it's so sloppy I can't. So here's one of my main guys, I've got all this kind of stuff everywhere. This is one of my favorite roupas Milarepa MLRA But underneath it, you know, this is taken out and it's filled with all these sacred scrolls, and all the sacred stuff. And so I've got Tonkin's everywhere I've got all these props everywhere. It's like a nickel and dime store in the Dharma. You know why not, I look at this stuff. It makes me smile, it lifts me up. Is it going to take me to enlightenment, maybe. But I can tell you what it does is it transports me into an A lightened space of mind right now. So I think this stuff is great the prayer wheels are cool the prayer beads are cool, offering incense all this stuff is really great. You have to decide for yourself. Joanie, you know, are these literal or the allegorical, that's up to you. So anyway, somewhere in there is probably the truth, but that's the way I relate to it. Okay, oh but yeah prayer wheels, prayer flags. I've got prayer flags everywhere as well. If you were to drive by my house. You would think it was a Tibetan shop in the middle of Katmandu. I've got everything around here. So I believe in these props, I think they're awesome. And I've got them all over. So anyway, a couple of live questions now. Yeah, we have shantala.
Perfect. Hi Sandy Hi Andrew so nice to be here. Oh my goodness, I just absolutely this is my first time actually joining live for you. Awesome. Welcome, and I do want to do more of them so I have a comment and a question, no. The comment is in just before Christmas, of like obviously just this past year, I came across this neuroscientist by the name of Andrew Huberman, and he was talking about why it's so important to do sungazing because it basically like sunrise and sunset because it basically activates through the electrical impulse in our eyes, because our eyes are an extension of her brain, and it basically like restarts and re energizes our organs so it basically makes everything work properly, the way it's supposed to, sort of like the circadian rhythm right so anyways, I was going and I was like doing the sun gazing and everything, and it's so crazy, but like, it led me to you. And, yeah, it totally left me to you in a way that I kept like, It's almost like these intuitions would come about, kind of like the elements and the importance of like, I don't know the elements Sony with a certain research you've had it kind of like brought me towards this whole Buddhism path and how some of these practices talk about the elements, and it's really wild but I actually bought your dream yoga book last year because Christopher Wallace, one of my other teachers, he's great. Yeah, he's great and he recommended you. Oh, I had bought your book, but didn't pick it up until I started doing the sun gazing practice. So between January and now I finished both of your dream yoga, And your dreams of light, totally shifted my focus my perspective, and I became very conscious of my contraction. So, my question to you is because I can't wait for your next book, regarding contractions and when I heard first heard you talking about that you'd be writing it I felt like oh my god like this is speaking to me. And so I just want to ask you, is there anything in your research for this book that you're writing that is so just makes you just so excited and that you would want to share with people, because I want like a teaser see like what I'm going to be looking forward.
Oh my gosh, well you first of all, that's very sweet thanks for sharing all that actually means a lot to me. Yeah, I mean so much to say. Auggie. Yeah, so the, the book on contraction is is also there are two main practices that are dovetailed they're actually, they're actually three in this book that I'm really gonna unfold. And so, the, the first one is, like I alluded to earlier with Glenn's question, the practice of open awareness, And that's really super important. Because open awareness is both diagnostic and prescriptive, and this is this is really one I think one of the highlights of the book, in that we don't really know how contracted we are until we have contrast mediums that actually reveal these unconscious processes you know they're they're so constant they're so insidious they're so omnipresent, like looking at the inside of the eyelid, we don't see that we don't see. And so when we're invited to do something so like before we talk about contraction. I set the groundless ground in this book with open awareness because what it does is it in fact creates this contrast medium that therefore heightens our ability to detect how absolutely and ubiquitously we are contracting I mean we're contracting all the time the very sense of self is a contraction every time we grasp attach that's contraction. So, so contraction, the principle is literally about unearthing something that's so omnipresent, that, that it's, it's a bit painful revelatory and then eventually liberating to actually reveal it so that's the diagnostic part you know you engage in open awareness, and you realize oh my gosh, I had no idea I was so contracted, I'm contracting all the time. But that's really important because you know you can't bring about a prescription, if you don't make a diagnosis. So, the sections on open awareness then lay the groundwork for revealing what I call the Super contractors and the super contractors are twofold. One, are the overt super contractors like anger, rage, fear, all the things that we can feel like whenever you feel those emotions you, nothing makes you feel more real, solid than anger, fear, and that actually in itself is really very interesting it will help you understand why people default into anger when things are falling apart, or why why fear is so easily marketed, because it's a fundamental biological, psychological survival mechanism. So those are the overt super contractors, but even more important to me are these subversive super contractors, the omnipresent ones, the ones that are underlying they're so subtle, they're super in that sense, these are the subtle super contractors that I identify in the book, you know, dreams of light, you may remember, I think I point out in that book, you know what it what I talked about the primordial contraction, what does it, what does that primordial contraction feel like, me, me. So whenever you say I, me, mine. That's just axiomatic that's expressing that super contracted that's that's actually what ego is and that's maybe the highlight of that part of the book that you know when we contract onto something, we contract onto the sense of self. Well there's no self to contract onto, it's actually contraction itself that creates the sense of self, that's super important that you know every time this is why we do it because if we don't, you know, This is the kind of heartbeat that keeps the ego alive and so by again bringing these unconscious processes into light of consciousness that diagnosis is a little bit painful, but it's also highly prescriptive because then it tells us what we need to do, we need to open, we need to open. And you know the narrative my favorite definition of meditation, I've said this countless times over the last number of years is what habituation to openness. So we're not habituated to openness we're habituated to contraction. So this is, this is I think a colossally important archetype metaphor, and that metaphor template for reality at all these vastly different levels and so maybe I'll let it go for there, but obviously, you know there's a lot to say it's why I'm writing a whole bloody book on it,
sir. Thank you.
Yeah, something along those lines and maybe you can be one of my readers so you know in a year or so when it's good to go. I'll see if you want to be a reader and I'll send you my manuscript, you can let me know. Okay, so you have to tell me, tell me your name again those because otherwise I'll forget,
Sean. Sean tell Sherry's my last name end we'll write that down. Oh that's awesome.
Welcome aboard. Nice to see you, Thanks for joining you.
You too.
Okay, another live one so to speak, and then there's a couple written ones and then I've got a few more minutes. Yeah we can bring in, Rana.
Hello. Hi. I'm interested in the last sentence you said about that, that we do not exist unless we make us solid with our thoughts. And I just think that I want to check with you, that when Shogun Trump or Emperor Shah he talks about. Broken Heart of sadness. I think if we cannot get it solid. That's how we feel. We feel broken hearted. Sadness.
Oh,
yeah, I mean, so, I mean, who am I to say that that's not the way it shouldn't be. Is that what you feel. I mean,
Yes, because it's, it's a process but when it's not that is the usual rock is poor. It's like your ego become humiliated. And when the ego is humiliated. It's so hard to get it back together. Glue them together, it's just you've seen something you were not supposed to see but you saw it already. So, so, and I wonder what this, you know, it makes your heart melt for everyone, because you see something you saw something.
Yeah, well you know what other term Yeah, it was one of the most beautiful phrases that Trump amateur uses, it's actually the genuine heart of sadness and really this really beautiful phrase because, You know, remember he was a master of language really interested in word origins and how words could be used and he and he used words in really profoundly original ways like goodness I mean, you know, basic goodness elevated to, you know, a description of the nature of reality and so when he talked about the genuine heart of sadness. It also connects to the root of the word sadness, which is connected to the word satisfy satisfaction and fullness so he once said that in conjunction with that the ideal emotion is sad joy. Sad joy, which is this kind of empty full quality, it absolutely connects to emptiness and fullness. So the genuine heart of sadness is is also connected, you know, it's one of these beautifully evocative poetic right hemispheric right brain phrases where it talks about is pointing to that feeling when you hear the most beautiful possible music like for instance for me second movement of the Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, where you just cry. It's sad joy. It's that kind of genuine heart of sadness genuine heart of satisfaction in the completeness and the perfect perfection of the present moment, you know he's pointing to this thing that he also talked about later, there's no such thing as an underdeveloped moment. If you relate to every moment properly. It has this ineffable, seemingly contradictory, say a joy quality where it's full and empty at the same time, and so it's kind of like what you were talking about you know empty of self is full of other and that simultaneously heartbreakingly sad, and also heartbreakingly beautiful and rich and so somewhere in there I don't want to kind of analyze it, you know, to death I think it's more important to keep it in some realm of mystery, and even political imagination. But that's what comes to mind around that connected also to love, unconditional love connected to devotion and connected fundamentally to ineffability and maybe with that said, I'll leave it in the ineffable quarters and let it go. Okay. Yeah, welcome, welcome. Okay, so a couple quick ones here and then the longer one and then we'll go back to a live one so Myra, my dear friend, my rep, how does the protector principle relate to the principles that emptiness protects itself. Yeah. Well, yeah, emptiness is the ultimate protection emptiness cannot harm emptiness, so emptiness at that level, that is, as they say in the absolute bodhichitta, or in the slogans and also on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. That's absolute level protection. Emptiness cannot harm emptiness. So that's the ultimate protector principle, but again they're, you know these things are multi valent they have different layers and so relative protective principle, is in fact protector deities, working with this principle in a more, I guess you could say literal way where you, you invoke these energetics whatever you want to call them in in more overt ways to actually bring about protection so they're both what you're talking about absolute emptiness is absolute protection protected principle is more relative protection, but they both protect In fact, as those mantra right mantra literally means mind protection from Maryland who why Manjushri, why not.
Who else. I mean, it's part of the joking, why not, I mean for me Manjushri is, he's my guy you know he's, he's considered the father of all the Buddhas. He is one of the three actually Bodie SOPHAS. He's one of the three archetypal Bodhi SOPHAS manjushree wisdom. Chen razie, I will locate the Shara compassion, bajo pani power. And so, there they are all basically, you know three aspects of the same diamonds, but my judiciary cultivates the quality of incisive clarity and intellect and scholarship and so for whatever reason, that seems to be my predisposition in this world. You know I'm a nerd. I'm an, I'm a frosty intellectual, right, I apologize, I'm so sorry. I'm really working on it, but I just can't help myself. So because of that Manjushri is my guy. And actually, my bowtie soften name. In someday maybe I'll share the story how I got my booty soft named Tanga Tanga, he gave it to me was a really very powerful event. He gave me a name that was connected to my jewelry. And so, because that seems to be kind of the frequency domain where I have some capacity, not me, it's just like what I've inherited. I just I resonate with that I work with that I recite His, his mantra constantly I do his practice every day. He's just my guy. But you know they're all the same, like I mentioned playfully they're all crossdressers so Manju Sri Racha pani Avalokiteshvara, they're all the same. They're just different bandwidths different frequencies of the same fundamental principle that gets centrifuged out for purposes of teaching, exercise your Ristic and the like. So anyway, I love him. He's, he's the father of all the Buddha's also on my desk I didn't show you so I've got I've got mama. I've got pop on one side and mom on the other. So on one side I have my douchey. Father of all the Buddhas on my other side I have prajna paramita, the mother of all the Buddha's. So I have mama and papa on either side of me and I'm their pathetic progeny stuck in the middle. Okay Anisha do only advise me on our practices do protect practitioners do protective practices no anybody can do them. No, anybody can do them, they, they come from the advisory on a tradition, but anybody can do them, and so therefore maybe someday we'll do a whole program on protectors. When Trump promised a left Tibet, you know, he left. Really, when he ran for his life fundamentally you can read about it in. Born in Tibet. One of the very few things he insisted take he take with him and he did take with him was a Rupa of Mahakala. One of the main protectors so ma kala viaja ecca djati Are his two main peeps his two main protectors. And, you know, I remember the RJ Leuphana one of his main senior students told me he said you know it's it's really is a student of the vagina the big data, Tokamachi it's, it could be of some interest to us to establish a relationship with these, whatever you want to call them energetics phenomena. And so I took that very seriously, and because I've had, you know, because I've taken a very CCE I've had, you know, some incredibly beautiful experiences with these protectors. I can tell you right now. They are as real, like I mentioned earlier, they're more real than we are. They're more real than we are, and they can help you, as in fact, can you know this whole array of these bandwidths of enlightened energetics he Adams Dharmapala is look Apollo's tetrapod has all these amazing peeps. These are our peeps. At least they're available to us why not call on them, why don't use them. So if you want to maybe we can do something about introducing some of you to these protectors I do these puppies. Every night, even if I'm lying in bed, and I like oh man I forgot to do the protector thing, which is pretty rare. I sit up in bed and do them, I do not go to sleep I never miss a day without working with these energetics. So we can say more about that later if you want, it's really cool stuff. Okay from Julian Hi Andrew, can you make a distinction between open awareness and non meditation. Oh, yeah, nice sensitive questions so yeah, open awareness is still is, is beautiful and powerful is amazingly fantastic Is it is it still not completely formless. It still ever so slightly, non dualistic non distracted non meditation, not just non meditation, non distracted non meditation. That's complete formless practice and so
there's so much to say here, Jolene. One very brief summation between these two and then if you do open awareness, maybe this will speak to you is that the fruition of open awareness is, you could say, on one level is awareness of awareness. It's still awareness of this is really subtle, it's really subtle but the transition from open awareness to full blown non distracted non meditation is very subtle. So awareness of awareness is another way to talk about open awareness, awareness of not distracted non meditation is awareness as one word makes all the difference in the world. Awareness of still in the realm of naam Shea still in the realm of consciousness still in the realm of sound, sound super subtle, but it's still awareness of not distracted not meditation as awareness as awareness as, and I'm going to leave it at that is a kind of colon. Okay. Uh, one more from Tim and then we'll take a live one, And then it's time to die from Tim Hi Andrew I'm so interested in how we come to be as individuals. Yeah, no kidding, isn't it. Me too. Really really interested. You should read Tim if you haven't read it and I don't know if you're in the Tuesday group. I sent the link in that group, a really, really interesting interview with Sean Carroll, he's a theoretical physicist, he has a new pod ski, everybody has a podcast now. So he started his it's called MindScape I think. And recently he interviewed. Robert Sapolsky who's a really terrific character polymath anthropologist historian biologist, I mean this guy's like, he's amazing. And he's got a wicked sense of humor. I just love this guy. So the reason I mentioned this is he just published a book called behave, which is like I haven't read it yet but I'm going to, in it's all about from a scientific point of view, why, why do we behave as we do, why do we do the things that we do. I'm absolutely going to devour this book the conversation is really interesting. You can probably look it up if you look up Sean courier Carolyn MindScape. but one thing I could tell for sure when I listened to the interview, the podcast, is that as compelling as it was. There was no information whatsoever as you might expect about karmic influences about all these other contributors to what we come to know his individuality, that are completely outside the realm of materialism and so I find this super helpful because not only do we is psychospiritual Psychonauts is Rob Thurmond talks about it have all these really interesting ways of looking at how we come to be what we are. If we augment that with books like behave, and also Robert Bruce Lipton's work. Now you start to get an understanding of how complex this whole thing is how many forces are at work. This is why like the whole integral approach, there are all these ingredients that come together to create this illusion called ni. And until we tease that stuff apart, we're going to be victims of them. So anyway, back sorry I'm so interested in how we come to be as individuals. Me too. I know the concept that ultimately we don't exist separately, but we certainly experience what we do from our own perspective so why is the So, are we just a spontaneous creation of the pure light mind, or is there a hidden purpose. Do you have some thoughts on this, and can you share with us I have to almost like burst out laughing bro, because this is a colossal question. It's like okay I mean, do we have like 100 years to unpack this thing. Oh lordy, so Okay, um, briefly. Yeah. So on one level are we the spontaneous creation of the pure likelier light mind. Yes, it's just play Leela Rolpa Shine On one level, yes. Is there a hidden purpose. No, there's no teleology, there's no eschatology. There is no purpose, the purpose he could say is to discover that there is no purpose. You have to centrifuge out here the difference between relative and absolute This is the more absolute approach. We certainly experience, what we do from our own perspective, why is this so oh lordy.
Oh my gosh, so many reasons, fear, fundamentally, ignorance, my rape pot, not knowing any better. Karmic inheritance biological inheritance, social inheritance cultural inheritance. So I'm just going to defer to what I was saying at the outset, the first, the second part of your question, on one level, easy to answer and not so easy to understand. There is no purpose there is no teleology, it's just play. And even though that has to be put into quotation marks because this is completely transcendent on a relative level. There are hundreds of reasons. And so, again, you know, based on what I said at the outset, I explore all of them, what in fact, are all these reasons, because the question is so big Tim I kind of have to let it go because I have to go, unless there's one last one last. Great question, my friend, nothing else. Oh good, we're all dead. We're dead. Thanks everybody. So to whatever extent dedication of merit means something to you. Whatever of value of merit, we may have gathered during the session, we can send it to all sentient beings, and in particular to these 10, beautiful lives that were lost prematurely, this week, So thank you everybody for joining me. We'll be back with our regular sequence of events, you know, starting next week but until then take care of yourselves treasure each other, because you never know if the next breath can be your last really, you never know. So until then. Ciao everybody. Take care.