[15] Tibetan Buddhist Perspectives on Archetypes, Consciousness, and the Afterlife

12:06AM Mar 15, 2024

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Keywords:

deities

bardo

form

practice

archetypal

archetypes

unconscious mind

work

mind

mantra

question

people

die

principles

dream

read

memory

body

teachings

death

This one is preparing to die. practical advice and spiritual wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition which I wrote some 1012 years ago, even longer actually, to be as comprehensive and systematic as I possibly could be around how to help yourself and others. before, during and after death from a practical and spiritual perspective, I don't think there's any other angle you can take on this, right? So that's why this thing turned out to be almost 400 Some pages. And so I'm doing what's called an auto commentary, which is a traditional thing where I just read and then just riff away and then I'll always allow a little bit of time a couple of really cool questions were piped in. I'll read those respond to them. But if you want to ask something, just you know how to do it. Okay, last time, we left off on page 57 What to do for yourself before you die, the peaceful raffle of the Shi tro which is literally what it means she trial peaceful raffle. And the voucher is not for practice. So I kind of knocked off right after the second paragraph, which I generally don't do, but I must have gotten tired. Okay, so the peaceful wrathful deities are also associated with the practice of butcher Safa. So let me just say let me say something about these guys right away just this afternoon. This is this is the way I roll these days. We'll be lucky if we get through two paragraphs today. Just this afternoon, I was doing more and more research I've been reading a lot about wills called E flux and reflux from the Neoplatonic tradition Plotinus the principal expositor I'm sure Bindu Kuma Ananda Coomaraswamy Ken Wilber the recent really articulate expositor here involution evolution, this particular model, which I don't say much about it in this book, and if I was to write another edition, I would definitely add quite an extensive riff on this the circle of life and death thing and so the way the way these deities fairly come into play here is these deities are archetypes they you can absolutely positively relate to them. As these first forms, some Bolkiah language and in the Tibetan world, some yoga kya is first forms it's with Swinehart mind spirit Dharmakaya the target that whatever term you want to apply to it, first starts to manifest and so it manifests in an archetypal way. In when when spirit whatever you want to call it, thinking logistically comes out to play literally Lilo Rolpa in Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist sell through this evolutionary process or this efflux process. And what's incredibly cool here is this is where the archetypes come in. So the very first forms of involution are the very first form this is where the archetypes actually make the first manifestation because that's what archetypes are literally first forms. So therefore, these these forms are then buried in deep in the unconscious mind because there's this whole journey of involution spirit becoming involved in and as form. It's a really compelling one because all these archetypal processes then are buried deep in the deepest parts of the unconscious mind. And this is why these deities come out to play. When you die, because what happens when you die is you're basically cascading in this evolutionary process back to spirit back to the Dharmakaya. I mean, that's what the whole bloody journey is. And so this again, this is so cool, and I'm kind of into it in a big way now because I'm just rereading all this stuff. And I'm like, wow, there's that can see why there's so much power with these teachings. And so these evolutionary archetypes of the deities, they're different these, these are correlated also to the Platonic archetypes, which are different from Union archetypes. They're not the same. It's, it's the same word archetype, but youngin and platonic archetypes. are not the same, because platonic archetypes are the first forms of evolution. Young in archetypes are the first forms of evolution. But the idea here is these puppies are buried in your unconscious mind. And hence they come out to play when you die. That's what they represent. So the 100 Peaceful wrathful deities represent the archetypal principles of your awakened mind. And so the stuff that if I was to do this book again, and again, who's transcribing this for me, I think Jerry right, Jerry, you said you're going to help transcribe all 10,000 pages. We're going to do a new edition of this book. It doesn't happen. It's your fault. I'm expressing these archetypes within a platonic and also union sense. It just has a lot of explanatory power. So anyway, excuse me. The Shadow deities are associated with the practice of Asha SAPA novasure, Safa see this is we're really in trouble today and might get through this paragraph. The reason VAs yourself that is so bloody important. He's like the king of all the samba kya deity. So for some of you who may not be familiar with, with all these terms, I apologize. I've been defining some of them for the last couple of weeks. But the larger stuff is, he's considered so bloody important because he represents this basic perfect purity and he can be visualized and iconographic form. He also represents this this kind of radiant brilliant white light, which is also deeply connected to Amida Amitabha Buddha and that principle, the Buddha the infinite light so they're, they're all in one big happy family. But the reason why they're Safa is is stressed so much. The reason he's like the king of all the symbol good cardio deities, is because he represents the first of the first forms. So even prior to the 100 unpeaceful wrathful deities, you can think of this archetypal primordial light is actually the light departure suffer. So this is the big deal, the 100 syllable Vajrasattva mantra, right. Yeah, I'll put a hold on that I had another 10 minute sidebar there represent the 100 seed syllables of the peaceful and wrathful deities.

Oh lordy. So watch this thing here. The world is made at this primordial sound and light. The whole thing if you want to know the very, very first forms the truest first archetypes, it's light and sound what we know is physical light. And sound is just a so called physical manifestation of this evil primordial archetypal light of the mind. sound of the primordial mind. And so visualization like when you visualize these deities when you visualize larger suffer, you're working with this light of the primordial archetypal mind. And then when you recite these mantras in this case, these are the seed syllable mantras. Each mantra has what's called the beach app, not each month or each deity. So it's called the beach, a mantra seed syllable that's associated with it that's basically represents the sonic acoustic essence of the Deity that's that's what the monitors represent. That's one reason they have so much power, because these archetypes are just as much inside of us as they are outside of us. So by reciting these mantras, you're activating sonically, you're activating the acoustic form. Of these deities and that kind of resonance, that kind of harmonic resonance so that the recitation of the mantra invokes the presence. It's the type of moment to moment, RB Shaikha empowerment that invokes the resonance with these archetypal principles within you and so you're fundamentally waking them up. You're activating them, because they're already within you. They're just buried. They're just asleep in the unconscious mind. And so what happens Oh, guys, again, sports to say, what happens in the process of involution? It's fundamentally a process of forgetting it's a process of amnesia. Basically, it's like spirit. In Western terms, spirit, crystallizing, condensing into soul, which crystallizes, condenses into mind that crystallizes into body that crystallized into matter, using the principles of Plotinus and that perennial philosophy and as it does, so there's there's the unconscious mind is actually constructed. And therefore there's there's forgetfulness taking place with each one of these processes of crystallization. Now, does this make bloody sense when the central Maxim or one of the central Maxim's of the spiritual path is what the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance? I mean, oh my god, does this make sense? So then when you begin the evolutionary track back What are you doing you're you're literally remembering. So the dismembering the forgetfulness takes place, when you're coming into form these properties these deities, all these things are they're already latent. They're buried in your unconscious and super unconscious mind. spiritual practice then is a process of remembering literally reuniting membrane backup with these particular aspects of of your forgotten nature. And so like I say, over and over and over, you know, these teachings are all designed to jog your memory you already are these deities. You already are Virgil Safa, you just forgot. You just forgot. And the reasons for that forgetfulness. We can talk about that. Again, I don't want to get too far astray here. But this is super helpful for me in terms of like understanding, okay, well, why do I recite these mantras? Why do I do these visualizations? Why do I work with the deities? Why do they come into play here? What WTF is really going on here? So using this particular framework to me it just has so much explanatory power? Because now I understand Oh, you know, I mean, you want me to recite a million mantras. Okay, I get it. No, I know why you want me to do that. You want me to visually construct and see the world and myself as a mandola and as a deity, for you know, 10,000 hours or whatever? Oh, that way you understand why you want me to do that. So this is incredibly empowering for the view behind some of these amazing practices. And again, all this is the amazing thing. All of this comes undone or manifest when we die. Because all these evolutionary Givens they're they're buried in our unconscious mind. They're gonna come up. If you don't recognize them as yourself when they come up. What do you do? You just contract again and again and again. And the whole cosmic recycling process known as the circle of samsara will have life and death continues for ever. by reciting the mantra we are establishing a relationship to these energies within us. When the deities that represent these energies are released in the Bardo marmota we will recognize them top bomb assay I am that now are that so instead of freaking out when you see these things, most people won't see them. But if you do see them, you will freak out. You will realize, Oh my gosh, that's just me, so to speak, right transcendent me. This is simply just me in my purest, archetypal form. by reselling a bunch of stuff, a mantra or purchase of a home that's the short version on Bhadra sattva. Home. You can recite that the longer one the 100 syllable mantra that's a little bit more involved. But just by reciting the short macho, macho stuff for home and purchase that for one, you're actually working to invoke the essence of these these principles. by reciting the Varsha stuff, a mantra the seed syllables of each deity within us reverberate that count as the acoustic form of the deity that is the deity and Sonic form. The wisdom channels open which means the channels within your body open, you start to feel it, you feel lighter, freer, more energetic, because where are these deities? They're in your unconscious mind whereas your unconscious mind your body, and in particular, your subtle body. So when you're working with this stuff you're working with literally opening the chakras, channel systems and energies within your body and you feel it you feel these energies flowing and releasing you feel more open you feel more light, literally. The wisdom channels and open the deities come to life to perform their transformative magic. Yeah, my dear friend, Francesca Fremantle, what a beautiful soul. So this the Bardot's in general. This is one of the last chapter to her incredible book, luminous emptiness. Recognition is the key or remembrance Thing. Thing. Recognition is the keynote this whole teaching, but we cannot recognize what we have never met. So its message to us during this life is to get to know all these manifestations of the mind while they're still time. All meditation is about getting to know the mind. First our individual minds and then the essence of the mind itself. There is no Bardo, outside the mind, no gods or demons outside the mind. No existence or awakening outside of the mind. We learn to know our mind during this life, we shall understand that the same mind continues after death and that whatever occurs after death also happens here and now wow, what a beautiful quote. Kabir right what is found now is found then there is no pre existing Bardo just like there's no pre existing dream. There's basically the journey into or through the line. That's what the journey of the Bartles is. It's a journey into and through the mind, going through the relative dimensions. That's what constitutes the eighth stage. dissolution and the painful part of dying. Landing into the true nature of ultimate reality. The mind Unlimited is part of an avatar. That's basically associated with the top that's when you reach the end of the evolutionary process. That's when all hell breaks loose. You become the universe you become everything yet, but if you don't recognize yourself as everything, right, you returned to nothing. That means everything. If you don't recognize yourself as the universe, you dissolve small self dissolves, to be replaced by big self, the universe. So this is actually really good deal. This is a really heck of a good swap. So let's make a deal that was working out the gym the other day and they had this these game shows are just I can't believe people watch this, but they had this one on let's make a deal. I can't believe it's still on the air. This is let's make this deal. This is a really good deal. If you can, if you know in your heart of hearts that you're going to the moment of death you're going to swap out your body for the universe. That's a pretty good swap. That's a pretty good bargain. That's a deal that I'm willing to make. But in order to do that, of course, you still have to die. You have to let go of exclusive identification with this. Otherwise the swap the deal won't work. You know Deal's off but if you can do that, if you can die before you die, then when your infinite nature is revealed at the moment of death at the grand opening. The other thing that happens with this evolutionary evolutionary thing in evolution is all about contraction. Evolution is all about expansion. Opening, what is meditation, habituation to openness I mean, does this stuff like sense or what? It's just amazing. It has so much explanatory power. So if you recognize yourself luminous part of Dharma top, recognize yourself as the universe body you swapped out with the cosmos you recognize top Farmasi I am that. That's it. Like mint. If you don't want to do your contract, your contract that begins that evil evolutionary cycle. That's not me. I'm not that big. I'm not a deity. I'm not an infinity. I'm a schmuck.

It's because we we visualize and practice schmuck hood all the time, right? We visualize ourselves I mean, slightly exaggerated, but you get the idea of poverty mentality. I practice the sadhana of samsara. I recite my samsaric mantras, right, the seed syllables of which are what III Me Me, me my mind, right. Those are the three principles seed syllables of the samsaric mantra. III, me me me, my my mind and all variations of it. And then I visualize my little samsaric pathetic self and my little samsaric pathetic world and so I'm just practicing my finer tude I'm practicing this ridiculous contract itself sense all the time and so when I finally open it the grand opening of death I'm not the universe I'm not all these deities. I'm this piece of crap. Because I've been practicing piece of crap hood practices all my life. My society, my parents, you know, whatever, I'm exaggerating, right? You know, the by the stuff, you're practicing, you're always practicing. By yourself plays a deity yoga is that generates the age generation stage meditation. Deity yoga as we have seen is the tantric bhaji on a method that helps with recognition during the part of Dharma TA and with transformation during the Bardo, becoming generation stage meditation you generalize I'm sorry, you generalize you visualize slash generate yourself in enlightened form. It seems like you're doing like again you're just joining this totally fake thing Well, I'm like this deity Yeah, but I'm not I'm not these Yes, you are. You just forgot so so totally it's totally a fake it till you make it practice may not think that you're Varsha Safa, you may not think that you're these deities, but you actually are. And so by doing this, it's actually a form of elevation ism. It's really basically saying, Okay, I'm going to lift my identity, right, I'm going to take my identity using this transitional object. I'm going to lift my identity out of exclusive identification with form reified form into water, purified body of light and sound, which is the body of it indeed, that's where you really are. It's going to be this is going to take place when you die anyway. Or not do it? No. Because then when that happens, you'll go Yes, that's me, quote unquote. I am the deity I am the universe. And then they'll call you but ah. And then if you're bogged down, then you can come back as Tara or voyage of Safa or any of the 100 Peaceful deities or anything else, literally anything else. Instead of unconsciously, comically becoming a form of confusion which is what we do all the time. Since you mean, you consciously lucidly become a form of wisdom, a deity. This is how generation stage meditation purifies birth. So this is a little sidebar here. The two one of the two main practices of tantric Buddhism are what are called Creation and completion space, stage practices generation stage and completion stage practices and generation stage practices purified birth. So that's what's happening here. You're purifying birth. Well, okay, well, what does this mean? Well, I was sharing this this week with a preparing to die community it means take a very close look at your mind. And your mind is always birthing your mind is always taking form just look at it. Mind is always taking form, always. Under the background. formlessness of your mind constantly arises unless you slow down in meditation. Of course you'll never see this because the smokescreen of linking thinking the smokescreen of relentless discursive thought is so dense. There's no space to actually realize where these thoughts are coming from. It just seems like thoughts are coming from other thoughts, which actually, for a lot of us they are but you saw it I don't know if you start to see that those thoughts actually arise from this back background, formless dimension of your mind. And so every thought that arises is actually a spontaneous samsaric manifestation of generation stage you're just generating samsara. Because you practice it all the time thought arises the thoughts taking shape. It's a type of birth. So when you engage in these practices, you're purifying that. So instead of that happening just on autopilot ignorance, automatic ignorance driven by karmic patterns. You wake up to the process, you take control of it, and you replace this involuntary rebirthing with voluntary rebirthing. That's called a Tulku nirmanakaya. And you do this through these practices mantra recitation does that every time you recite a mantra, you're practicing voluntary birthing. It's actually a form of generation stage meditation. So if you don't think mantras have a lot of power, think again. Mantras have tremendous power, they're archetypal manifestations. And every time you recite a mantra, not only are you invoking these principles, these archetypal energies within you but you're also intentionally performing an act of contraception. mantra means mind protection. That's what the word literally means. And what you're doing with mantra recitation, in this case is a form of birth control, because your mind is always birthing. You're going to give birth to samsara. Well, yeah. You don't wake up to the process. Habits going to take control, you're going to just practice and give birth to samsara. You recite a mantra. It's birth control, contraception. I love the double entendre intended this is really quite powerful double entendre intended contraception, you're you're actually intentionally forming your mind. Because one of the biggest problems we have is an overpopulation problem, right? Not only in the world, but in our own interiority. It's so true. To yourself is also a principle purification practice the principle the biggest problem we encounter in life and death are the repercussions of our negative karma. Which takes on overwhelming force on the Bardot's Yeah, like controls the whole show. Any purification practice that erases or softens these negative mind states will therefore benefit us after death. Seeing everything as emptiness the way things really are, I talked Mark brought this up a lot today in the conversation, my puroland friend is really terrific rep. I can't wait to share it with you. saying everything is emptiness is the ultimate form of purification. That's what real purification means. So when you're talking about a pure land, you're talking about a land that's fundamentally purified of all the projections of all our acacia, our obscurations. But fundamentally, the root level of the Pure Land principle of purity principle is emptiness. That's what purity fundamentally means. And that's what version of software represents. That's why Rockstar software is a purification practice. It's also our principal defense after death. As it says on the Tibetan Book of the Dead emptiness cannot harm emptiness. It says it like 10 times. When the terrifying forms of our negative karma attack is on the Bardo, seeing them as empty melts them on the spot, like recognizing a dream to be a dream. While there's so much here because we don't recognize this emptiness, our bodies seem so real. So body solid. So when you're working again, when you're working with the these deities, they're there you're also working with what are called Empty forms or de reified forms. And so, I mean, you can imagine just, you may imagine, literally through the process of, of visualization and imagination, when you're constructing through your through your imagination, just like in a dream, that you actually made of this light and kind of solid form. This is still has a form, but it's a de reified form. Right? It's the reified it's not nearly as solid. It's like a hologram. I mean, holograms are fantastic as as by the way is virtual reality for actually tuning in to this kind of partially D reified state, which again, is exactly what's going to happen when we die. Death is a process of of

de reification or in this case, playing on the word deification. deification I don't think that's a word, but I just made it up. So instead of reifying you deify instead of falling into the habit patterns of solidifying This is a practice of de solidification. This is a process a process of actually seeing yourself in a truer, less less solid, less material, more transparent, more translucent form, just like into dream. Just like in a hologram, just like in virtual reality. Exactly what happens in the process of death. Exactly what happens. Same thing. We feel that I exist and therefore that others also exists. Cool. It's called Kollmorgen ignorance. You can't have self without other right? They both commerce they lean on each other. This dualistic relationship means that others can now hurt us right? Where there is other there's fear as it says in the Upanishads. This is the basis of all fear, which is the fundamental emotion of samsara and the heartbeat of the ego. Yeah, remember where there is other there is fear. So this is a kicker. So also, there's so much in the subconscious mind business, right? Right. A lot like 90 At least 95% And this is this is just neuroscience. I mean if you if you get into like spiritual science, there's a heck of a lot more than 95% because you have all the histories of your previous lives if you believe in this sort of thing. There's this massive repository of unconscious processes lurking in there. And at the groundless ground of the whole thing is this radiant, perfect purity and this infinite light that's incredibly important to understand. But the relative expression of that quite a few wavelengths above that. The bedrock of relative self sense is fear, fear and basically we then spend our entire lives avoiding both of those, right the fear of our relative, the fear of the relative nature of our being, and then the fear of the absolute nature of our being. So basically, our lives turn out to be these amazing, amazing avoidance strategies, fundamentally, distracting ourselves onto death. In the Bardot's we literally become no body literally. Our physical form dies and the mental body continues. Literally. My amount of made of Mind Body How can anything harm a mental body but because habitual patterns continue? We still believe we are somebody even a dream. Look at look at your dreams. Look at your dreams. You think there's a dream body and there? There isn't. There's no dream body in there. You think there's somebody witnessing the dream and there there isn't. It's an illusion. So very fun. It's a fantastic exploration. Next time you have a lucid dream or even during life, just look back. Can you find the dreamer? There isn't one there's no dreamer. There's literally nobody in the dream. Same thing happens when you die. There's literally nobody but there's this continued manifestation this play, all this stuff appears all these forms appear. Well, what's going on there? That's what these teachings are all about. Just like any dream, we experience fear. There's nobody to hurt in a dream yet. We still have nightmares. Why? Because of our habits. You want to know what's going to happen after you die. Look at your dreams. Did I ever tell you about the stream ahead? I don't know. The other thing that I'm doing these days is I'm some of you may know. I've been exploring a little bit this whole psychedelic thing for last couple of years. In fact, I had a call just yesterday with one of the leading researchers in the world Anthony bosses out of New York, NYU. He's going to come up and join me and Bob Thurman at Mema and October we're going to do a program on dark retreat. Psychedelics and virtual reality. Like is that a cool gig or what? And so Tony's gonna come up and riff with us and so I was talking to him a little bit about psychedelics and whatnot. But I had this dream. Not too terribly long ago, I actually had several of these that are really pretty awesome. So check out how this is these are among the wildest dreams I've ever had. I mean, these are really out there. So I've had several now, and I think part of it is because I'm just reading all this stuff and experimenting with these agents. And so I had this lucid dream. I was lucid. So I'm totally lucid in a dream. And so I figure out what are we going to do today? I am a little bored with these nine stages of Dream Yoga. Let's just do something different. So I conjured up a psychedelic I don't know what it was. I can't remember if it was five Meo or psilocybin or LSD. I just don't know. But I conjured up so check this out. This is so trippy. I conjured up this psychedelic and my dream. My dream avatar then takes it and then I start tripping. Like, Are you effing kidding me? I mean, talk about placebo effect and the power of the mind. So here I am. I'm creating a mental body. The Dream avatar doesn't exist. I create this psychedelic, whatever it was. That doesn't really exist. I ingest it and I start tripping. I mean, like, is that kind of awesome, or what? It has happened several times and talk about the placebo effect talking about the mind effect, right? It shows you the extraordinary power of the mind. You know, really the dream show your role as a magnificent creator. So the next time you have a dream, this is totally great. You can you don't have to worry about getting arrested. You don't have to worry about hiring a dream on a psychedelic sitter to be with you. You just sit there you create your little whatever psychedelic you pop it and then come back and write your little psychedelic travelogue I said out there. What, these are some of the coolest names I've had in the last couple years. I recommended this I do recommend I can't recommend this without ruining my political career. You can ingest this stuff in the context of a dream and then just see what the heck happens to your dream mind. I highly recommend it it pretty trippy can't wait to do it again. Okay, how are we doing? Oh, we got a few more minutes okay. Do we raise this fear we have to erase the sense of self. That's where all the fear comes from. And wake up to the fact that we do not inherently exist how do we do that? You have to die. You have to purify the sense of self we have to purify any level of reified you go. But in order to do that, what you still have to die one way or the other. You still have to die either now on your on your titrated voluntary turns. Right death is a spiritual path is death on slow motion die now or wait for nature's uncompromising non negotiable terms? This is this is this is the Buddhist fire and brimstone Right? Right. Die now or like it's really like putting the fear of karma into its goodness, wholesome fear. It's a good thing to do. All the purification practices on a spiritual path itself are designed to instill social realizations. Okay, working with passion. Oh, this is a good one. We live in the world of passion. We literally live there three cosmological realms and Buddhism, the realm of form the formless realm and the realm of desire we live in the realm of desire. You may have noticed and so therefore, of all the main principle obscurations and what's called kleshas, emotional energies, the one that kind of rules and ruins this dimension is passion grasping attachment, everything associated with it. What is it that moves you? Right some level of passion some level of desire. The Bardo teachings recommend periods of celibacy, relating with sexual energy as a way to prepare for the Bardo, becoming. This is because at the end of the bar to becoming we will witness our parents or future parents and sexual union. This is this is like the archetypal Freudian Oedipal complex right here. So the Bardo teachings beat out Freud by 2000 plus years. Our own habitual desire will be ignited and will long to get in on the act, which gets us into samsara. This is this is some of the most interesting oh, gosh, I should have pull it out. Maybe I'll remember for next time, a really brilliant quote from Trungpa Rinpoche on this stuff, but in the latter parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, if you haven't read it recently, there's some quite evocative descriptions of what's actually taking place. Here. You know, this, this extraordinary energy of passion towards one member aggression towards the other, and then how these root energetic these these root kind of clashes basically propel the move. They move the mind of the Bardo, being into this particular form.

If we can hold that passion and transform it into compassion, we can block the womb door and therefore entry into samsara. You can do this right now you don't have to wait till you die. To do this. You can practice celibacy in the sense of a so called purified relationship. To the contents of your mind. So that you black the womb door by not being seduced into any level of movement fundamentally, so even even more irreducible than what's happening here is the seduction for movement. This is what ponlop Rinpoche says of all the habit patterns, we have all the karmic predispositions we have the heaviest, most powerful karma and habit is for movement. This is really interesting, because in Tibet, languaging thought was literally literally described as movement of mind. This is another way to talk about what happens in evolutionary process. It's driven by these winds. So instead of the light in tantric language, you can replace wind with light. Oh my gosh, there's so much to say here. It's just this is really really deep stuff. So even more reducible than this is actually the seduction for movement itself. Because ego knows very deep down inside, move it or lose it. The ego Gnosis This is one reason why we have these infinite relentless movements of the mind. This is another reason why there's so many I think thoughts because God forbid even though there isn't one, you said an absolute cessation somebody absorption jhana state, all thoughts disappear, guess what happens? You disappear. You disappear. And so what is ego back there's 50 Skanda those you know that languaging eagle was back there, you know, puffing away. thought of that before, that's a good one. It goes back there puffing away. Keeping the whole thing moving, keep it moving, keep it moving, keep it moving. You know this when you sit on the meditation cushion. You know, you sit there for X amount of period. First of all, it's kind of cool. Not so cool. After a few minutes gets really hot after a while you got to cool off. You have to move. I gotta move. I'm gonna go crazy. That's ego. And so this is the karmic Bardo, becoming is the Bardo of movement. That's what that's what this barn was all about. It's the Bardo of movements. The luminous Bardo die. mataas. The moon is the Bardo of complete cessation. Nirvana, no Rodez stasis. But because we're not that comfortable, habituated acclimatized familiar with stasis, what do we do? We have this insatiable appetite to move, right? Sit on a meditation cushion. If you doubt me, sit on your cushion without moving for three hours. Right you're gonna you're gonna go crazy. Go into a dark retreat. Look at your mind, movement and his movement. That's karma. Literally action lay in Tibet, move it, move it, move it, move it or lose it. The other remedy which we'll discuss in chapter five is to view our parents as deities in union. Triangle Rinpoche says this one what propels you into the womb. Us This is great. You I shared this with Bob Terman. He loved it last summer. A woman with a view. You want to be thrown into a woman with a view? Woman with a right view. And because what we're trying to do here is if you don't have a one with a view, you're gonna have a one with a wrong view. And you're gonna get thrown in and recycle in this cosmic process. Because you have no view you have no idea what's going on. So I shared this with Bob Thurman and he just loved it. Oh my goodness, what propels you into the womb a one with no view is the desire for sexual intercourse. So this is trying to rember che and if you come under the power of that, in other words, if this is where you practice birth control right here, if you come under the power that and what is this even what is the whole sexual union thing about right? Right. It's about the union. It's about the desire for non duality. That's this. This is just a substitute gratification. You want to unite with a form of thing of body and ideology, whatever because you feel there's something missing. So you move to unite with it, the archetypal representation of that movement in the realm of desire sex, and you do that primarily what to cool off basically, to just get rid of the heat for a little while until it kicks up in another way. And so fundamentally underneath this driver, this thermonuclear generator, that manifests itself archetype lead sex is the heat to cool off that's why we want to move it just gets it just gets too hot. So what you want to do that is to remember J. Actually, I guess I said this is you want to transform this heat of passion into the warmth of compassion. Keep the fire is on. But no longer try to grasp after and unite with something else. Unite with yourself. That's what you really want. What you really want is non duality. uniting with a person with a job with an ideology with doesn't matter. Fill in the blank. Anytime you want. You want something other than what is that's an expression of duality. What you really want is non duality. You don't know that so you just keep going back to the counter having more and more sex or more and more whatever. Sex just represents this. So if you understand the phenomenology of this process, you don't have to buy any more chocolate, candies and cookies and flowers and you don't have to take people to movies. You're gonna spend you're gonna save yourself a lot of money. Because really what you want to do what you're really trying to unite with is yourself. You're trying to remember who you really are. So instead of trying to remember what somebody else or some other whatever, I'm mighty, or she was all these damn books, I like to, you know, grasp after this kind of stuff. So what's so incredibly powerful with all this is this healthy reductionism? You know, this is why these teachings are so powerful. They're taking you to the reduction base. That which drives it fundamentally, everything we do, is driven by these fundamental archetypal principles, and that's why there's so much to say here, because all the matters like reality concentrate, right everything else is just the delusion of watering down to these fundamental archetypal principles. There's so much going on here. If you come out into the power of that desire, so that you just cannot control yourself D is is that ever happened? Then you would not have the time to look at what kind of parents you are getting involved with. And you adjust, be overpowered by it and find yourself in the womb. And this is actually part of the quote that I was going to try to find for you. If you are not overpowered by sexual desire, then your mind will become stable. And the whole thing will slow down and so that you can examine the situation that you are moving towards NKRO Bardot yoga pause. Slow down, stop Do I really need to do this? Do I really need to say this? Vast majority of time yet? Why do you need to do this? Remember Tao ism by doing nothing, nothing is left undone. Why do you need to say it? Well, because underneath it all is this driver ego Move, move, move. And every time you move represented archetypal Lee and what dis traction to pull apart to distract is to pull apart every time you move. You're distracting away from the present moment. And even more deeply you're distracting away from the nature of the non dual reality. There's so much explanatory power here. So my teacher kept by Robert J recommended the following. You can also watch erotic movies and work with the energy of desire that way. Working with passion means not indulging it so people often say oh you know there's this climate a level of snide comment in some spiritual communities when somebody has kind of an emotional issue. That's like, you know, unsolicited unwelcome advice, work with it. That's, that's basically a spiritual way to flip you off. And what it fundamentally means what is work with it means it means stay with it. Stay in the heat. Don't indulge it. Don't repress it, feel it, but don't feed it. That's what working with it means. That means you're relating to your mind instead of from it relating from your mind is no relationship at all. That's karma taking over. So you feel a particular emotion. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be just passion, anything. The way to work with it is hold. The very etymology of the word dharma to hold literally what dharma means is to hold is and to contain and in is to cease to cease. And desist order. Hold relate to the energy stay on the fires

the energy and then and then say do I do I need to move to cool this energy off? Do I need to express myself in this way to cool this energy off? Well, if you habit patterns are super strong. This doesn't even come into the equation. Of course you're going to move how else am I going to relate to this? Well, welcome to samsara. But now what you can do, pause birth control. Do I need to say this? Do I need to do this? Do I need to go there? Right there is the birth control. Do I need to take birth in that particular state of mind? No, you don't. This is how you practice voluntary birthing. This is conscious birthing. This practice has so much so much practical power. The energy arises and we try to relate to it instead of from it explore the passion What is it made of? discovers empty nature which purifies the passion. If we can control these energies now and this is this is really isn't controlled her was like muscling it down in this kind of puritanical thing. No, no, no, you're controlling it with space. You're controlling it with a spacious relationship. It's like I was talking to the group just last night I had this really wonderful bug in my book about spray your mind with space. What a great what a great image, right? Instead of like, sticking to it. The stickiness creates the birthing process. It's like It's like all these things that you spray on your pans right to keep things from not sticking. You know, Pam and olive oil and avocado oil. And I said what's the most nonstick spray in the universe? Space? Nothing sticks the space. So do with it what you will I like the image actually spray your mind with space. Nothing will stick to that. If we can control these energies now with space, we'll be able to control them in the Bardo, like the reverse meditations. The point is to establish a healthy relationship to passion or any other emotional energy on our terms. Now, we're really cooking and I got through two and a half pages. Wow. It'll be a miracle if I get through this book before I die, but that's actually quite okay. I don't mind. Okay. I also don't like to rush. So a couple of questions came in. I'm going to read those. And then if you want to ask something, you know how to do it, raise your hand or put something in the chat column. And we can chat about any of this stuff or any other stuff. Oh, yeah, there's also one that came in. Oh, I have to pull it on my other computer. So I got three questions here. The bottom of page 52 of the prepared to die book you write every night you cycle through the kayas and therefore get a glimpse of the Bardot's every night is a mini death and every morning is a mini rebirth. Now back to you. Does this mean that every night I am cycling through the hourglass so that the hourglass is in the book and I'm just not seeing the appearances of the Mirage smoke sparks firefight. I'm sorry, but what appearance right increased blood increase and so on. Yes, that is exactly what it means. Yes, precisely. So these processes again, they're iterative. They're fractal. Reality is iterative. So exactly the same process happens every single night, so absolutely, positively. And according to book, our Rinpoche, His Holiness Dalai Lama, a bunch of other teachers that happens with the writing of by rising a biting and cessation of every thought. So yes, yes, it happens in a microcosmic way every night. When we go to sleep, okay, sir, I always get worried when people start a question with Sir can you please outline some of the physical symptoms of meditation stages and what the signs are that you have progressed to deeper levels, like decreased heart rate, nervous system relaxation, etc. Okay. Then the question continues, but let me address that to begin with. I first of all, I wouldn't call them symptoms, right. There's signs there's a difference between a sign and a symptom. So symptom is not quite the right word, but signs is and so yes, there's a host of different signs here both phenomenologically physiologically, neurologically, I mean, the literature here is enormous. So the neural correlates here, oh my gosh, the literature here. I don't even know where to start. There's just so much to say but physiologically, in terms of some of the signs that happen and what's not clear with your question, or do the signs as you put them symptoms occur? Are you talking about like within one session, or are you talking about like over the course of lifetime liver practitioner, but some really quite classic indicators, and you can see these for yourself? Let's just talk pure physiology. One of the most important ones is respiration. Respiration diminishes. Right? And this is incredibly interesting, right? Take a very in terms of what we were saying earlier, take a very close look at the movement of your mind in its relationship to the respiratory rate, you will almost always find that as your mind starts to settle down in meditation. When you enter a deep state of meditative absorption. When the frequency of your thoughts starts to settle down, or guess what happens what are surprised your respiration diminishes. There's a vast literature here. It can get to the point it's not uncommon at all. You can enter these Samadhi near neurosis and apathy. Jana states a number of different types of absorption states where respiration ceases, this is not hyperbolic. If you're sitting in deep meditation. You're not breathing. No kidding. You're not breathing. The kind of neurologic or the phenomenological corollary to that is no thought you literally completely stopped thinking and you literally learn completely stop breathing. And so then when you do that is you might suspect this is Clifford Serrana and it's the three month shamatha project. I mean, I don't know who wrote this question. The literature here is colossal. Look at Richie Davidson's enormous work on Antoine Lutz, cliffs Iran. You see, I think Davis with three month shamatha project they collected a ton of data on this studying genetics around it. The telomeres thing heart rate, or every metric that you're talking about here plus 20 others have been studied exhaustively. So there are tons of signs here around this and literature is huge. There's like over 1000 studies now on this stuff. So there's a lot to say here. These are some of the main ones, there's more and then you have the whole phenomenological scenes, but really the most important signs are really are you a kinder person. Let's get real here. You know, on one level, yes, it's nice if your cortisol reduction goes way down and your dopamine goes way up or whatever. But what what what are the really the metrics here? What are the measures the real measures? How selfless Are you? How patient are you? How kind are you? How generous Are you? How disciplined Are you? How loving are you? You want to know signs? Those are the signs. That's why his holiness Dalai Lama says My religion is kindness. He's not being patronizing. You want to know the sign of a real practitioner. It's not what the flip side of their mouth is, how they live their lives and how they are. That's what you want to go after. I'm not dismissing the validity of doing some of the scientific study. No, not at all. It's fantastic. But you want to know the real science, kind of you are patient or loving or tolerant, how understanding how selfless. The questions continue. The Buddha was able to remember all memories about his life and past lives. Where's this memory stored? Depends on who you ask. This is a I'm working with one of the leading memory experts in the world. Ken Poller. Were designing some studies. I've been involved in some of his studies out of Northwestern University. So this issue of memory is a really good one. We had a conversation with it with Christof Koch two weeks ago, one of the world's leading neuroscientists out of the Allen Institute in Seattle. Nobody knows in the scientific arena. Nobody knows. Yes, there's hippocampal hippocampus transference. There's some neocortex. thing. There's there's all kinds of temporary provisional sites for storage, but nobody really knows and you want to know how mind bending does gets justice just from a purely physical sense, then we can go into the metaphysical sense are transplants, organ transplants, memories are stored in your body. In the literature here around organ transplants is mind bending. People who get a donated organ start to have memories that are consistent with the donor. Well, well, and what a surprise the biggest effects are those who get heart transplants, you can literally have a change of heart because you're actually the memories are stored or impregnated. Morpha genetically in the organs of your body, your unconscious mind, what is your unconscious mind, according to Candice perch out of national NHI your body is your unconscious mind. Your memories are stored in your body where nobody really knows. This is a really big topic look at the work of

Rupert Sheldrake morphogenetic fields super interesting stuff and even deeper, Michael Levin. This guy's gonna get a Nobel Prize right this now mark my words invest in this guy. He is effing amazing. His work with Xena bots and the stuff he's doing with these these hybrid life forms and memory is believable. So he takes Rupert Sheldrake 's work with morphogenetic fields and adds a tirely new level. So this memory thing nobody really knows. Really, it's just this ongoing thing. Now, cosmically, you have things like the Akashic Records cosmically you have things like the eighth consciousness, the storehouse consciousness the Alia video piano. So again, that's a slightly different store that that literally level of memory then is literally housed in your subtle body. So when you're doing really deep, subtle body yogic practices, you have to be a little careful because you're targeting the release of memories and not just from this life but memories from countless previous lives. That's why these practices are really somewhat dangerous and really charged because you're going to the reduction base of memories that go back to countless previous lives. So where this stuff actually takes place. This is at least some run at it. This is a really massive topic. I'm super interested in it. But you know, I mean, my mom died of Alzheimer's, so it interests me on that purely physiological, neurological level. But But memory memory disorders really, really interesting. Especially from a spiritual point of view, you know, again, lots to say here the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. So memory ties in even at spiritual metaphysical levels. Last part, hear from you. I heard that Buddhists don't like the term soul. That's correct. It's a four letter word in Buddhism. But this doesn't mean you can't have some sense of essence, right? So if you're talking about soul as some sense of essence, then they would say yes, you could say Dharmakaya could be associated with soul, you know, the 50 terms they have for essence, but the issue that the Buddhists have with soul is it's usually some reified thingy. When people talk about soul they're talking about some reified essence. And so that's what's under that's what the Buddhists will will go after. Because there is no reified essence. That doesn't mean there isn't any thing there. There's just no frozen reified thing there. Yes, we don't like the term soul. But I do like Soul music. And but the fact that memories and karma and merit claimed to an individual No, the IDs are so mature seems very similar to the immortal soul essence of beings talked about in other religions. Can you riff on this? Yeah, I can but I, I'm not sure I want to

Yeah, you know, the memories and karmically here's the here's where I might direct you. I didn't get the name here. So I'm sorry. The place to go here because again, I stutter a little bit because it's these are really good questions. And they're really big. And so if you don't it's a challenge for me to shrink wrap massive questions like this and convenient bite size spent doctored bullet points. Study that night, the eight stages that a consciousness is in the yoga Chara, you've heard me say this over and over and over, study the Lanka Vitara sutra boy, there's this as you want to understand things like memory from a yoga Chara point of view from a Buddhist point of view, karma who's clinging to what what's transferring what's going from moment to moment, what's going from life to life? The Yoga Chara probably has more explanatory power than anything I'm aware of. So because of you know, I want to address some other questions from people. I'm gonna let that one go. But I really recommend strongly it's a really great question, but to explore it, go into the yoga Chara. It's amazing body of teachings. It'll just blow your weight. Damien Keown and others say it's the most sophisticated philosophy ever to come out of India. That's no small thing. In the yoga Chara is I'm a massive fan of these teachings. So there was another question that came in. I have to pull this up on my other computer. In the meantime, I'm going to give me one second here. Felt like a stockbroker if you saw my room here is ridiculous. Have a computer here I have a computer here I want I'm really I like one of these traders. You know, I have computers everywhere. So let me look at this one for this question. Give me us one no momento por fullbore there was another one that came in that had to do with the unconscious mind. I thought that was a good one. So let me find that one. And then if somebody has another question, oh, there's a couple that came in.

Okay, well, let me these are great. Okay, so let me get this one here. These are really good questions. Let me get this one. I store these in my storehouse consciousness here.

Oh, yeah. Okay, I address that elsewhere. This one

Yeah, so I can't remember exactly when this one came in. I know these teachings around death are geared towards humans. But any application they could have for nonhumans? Absolutely. There's a chapter in this book. On pets and the same phenomenology takes place with pets. When you die in you strip your human costume off and your dog strips its dog costume off. Do you just clothing, particular fabric costumes that we wear masks if you're not good to your pet, you could switch swap roles right? You could become the dog when you enter this ultimate democracy at the moment of death the plant the plants, not plants, but sentient life forms like animals. We all return to the same reduction base of the Bardo. Dermatol bath when everything is stripped away the cat the cat costume was gone the animal costume was gone the human costume was gone. You're returned to the stem cell nature reality the reduction base the Dharma talk. And then before that bet, mind is then formed shape with another costume with another body with another form. It's the same. You have the same essence the same one chaste eponymous nature of mind and heart is any animal on this planet. This is why we have to treat our animal brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. And so yes, you can totally swap roles slip roles. So everything that applies to us applies to them. And I have I have a section in the book that talks about this any resources you can suggest to people who've worked with the teachings in this way. I live with an elderly dog I expect his time will come soon. I'd like to ease his transition to new to new life as much as possible. Yeah, so one thing you can do in the teachings recommend this just very briefly is practice with him. When you're reading the Dharma, read it with him. When you're reciting mantras recite them in his presence, his or her if they have a chance to actually get them. This is what the tradition says makes sense to me to impregnate to stamp their mind with the sounds of the Dharma, the sounds of the mantras, even seeing these things. The teaching say will actually stamp their mind it will be of benefit. And then everything we'll see later in this book that you can do to help a person who has transitioned you can do exactly the same thing for an animal. Absolutely so stay tuned on that there's a lot coming up what to do for others before during and after death. You can put in there animals. So stay tuned on that. It's a lovely question. In terms of outside resources, yeah, nothing comes immediately to mind in terms of anybody. You know, Marc Bekoff, his visa guy lives in the area love this his work, B E. K. O FF. He doesn't speak overtly about these sorts of things, but he is an incredibly sensitive individual who's written exquisitely about relationships to animals. So Mr. C, I believe, B E. K. O FF, his work here is lovely, highly recommended. Okay. Yes, here's the question I was looking for from Bundoora recently you spoke about the unconscious mind after death. Yes. Years ago, I did an intuitive reading for a man who asked about having a difficult difficulty with his relationship. I have to smile here just a little bit. Because if you're in a relationship, you are going to have difficulties they're isomorphic they're virtually the same. You're in relationship. You're having difficulties and that's why you hire these people. Right? I mean, read the work of my dear friend, Bruce Tefft. He has this wonderful thing about how we hire people. I love it. We I just love his way of relating to this we hire these people, you know, to act as our mirrors. I mean, if you're having a life that's like completely comfortable with somebody, I mean, you've either hit the incredible rare jackpot or you're basically drugged. So somewhat tongue in cheek but I don't mean to dismiss your question. His internal world appeared fragmented, like a series of Yes, God. I don't know how to pronounce his name to combat the sculptures. I advised him that maybe people were confused because he seemed to have a lot of different people inside we all have a bunch of people inside. Look at study the work of Schwartz and internal internal family systems. Read this work. It is just amazing. Read Minsky's work on the society of mind. Read Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes. Study the literature on dissociative identity disorder and multiple personality disorder. We have a ton of different people inside but see they're not people. They're not reified people. They're just basically bandwidths of our unconscious mind. That become completely unproblematic if we relate to them as such. And then they just come and go on they have the little voices and they disappear. If you reify those voices, you have problems you can become a schizophrenic like my sister you can become psychotic, you can have really intense untoward relationships to the contents of your mind because you're reifying those contents. So study the work of these thinkers, especially recently these days, the work of Schwartz and internal family systems. Really clever stuff. We all have people within us I contain multitudes. Afterwards, he told me he had a multiple personality disorder, we all do, it's a matter of degree. We all have we all have these propensity. So just like we have all these Buddha Nature qualities, all these deities within us. We also have the the converse of that we have this evolutionary so the deities live and abide on the evolutionary spectrum of our identity. But we have the same spectrum of evolutionary the infrared aspect. And basically, this is where all the disorders lie. And most of which can actually be talked about in terms of I mean, I don't want to be too facile. Here, but in terms of levels of reification to the contents of our mind. And so um, this is really helpful to understand, because we're all just a niche away from being a schizophrenic, you know, a little bump away from being psychotic a little bump away from being you know, bipolar or borderline personality or any other I don't know, how many hundreds of 1000s are in the DSM five category of mental pathologies. We all have these potentials within us. Okay, since then, I've wondered about constellations of energy in the unconscious absolutely read the work of these people. We all have constellations of these energies, they're not problematic unless he's solidified them and relate to them appropriately. Especially since I've seen both luminous and scary figures and lucid dreams. Totally. Jung said. Yes, it's a great quote. I know this one does not become enlightened by imagining figures. Of Light. Well, actually, that's not entirely true, Carl. Because actually using the principles of deity yoga, yes, you can become enlightened by visualizing beings of light, but that's a different story. But by making the darkness conscious, the latter part of that is spot on. How does Buddhist practice address integration or wholeness in the unconscious? God? These are great questions. So you know, why so much to say here? You know, Buddhism does not talk about the unconscious mind, in a Freudian union and Larian. There's no depth psychology. You don't have the the nuance and the granularity of the upper band was in the unconscious mind, which is a massive contribution of Western schools.

But what the Buddha is talking about in terms of the unconscious is actually goes deeper, because this is when they engage not only the yogi and collective unconscious, but even deeper, the archetypal nature of reality altogether. This is described again, here's the yoga Chara thing again, the eight consciousnesses number ones through six are conscious number seven, and eight, which are by far the most impactful these are these are so called unconscious. And so on one level Buddhism doesn't say anything about the unconscious in the way Western psychology relates to it. They talk about it in a kind of more ontological level and metaphysical level. And so to me, it's actually the integration of Eastern Western Indigo theory approaches to this. This is where the stuff really rocks relating to the unconscious mind using the great contributions of the East and the West. And so, you know, on one level, you could say that the essence of Buddhist practice is to bring it very similar in this case, the Jung's idea of individuation. Bring all these unconscious processes into the light of consciousness then you're called a Buddha. And then you no longer have an unconscious mind. Buddhas don't have an unconscious mind. Which is really another more accurate way to say it. And I don't know how far I want to go into this is the unconscious mind is really the obfuscated mind. It's not really unconscious. It's obfuscated, it's obscured. And one of the principal things that obscures it off you skate said guess what? Movement? What a kicker. Movement is one of the principal sources of obfuscation. It's one of the principal things and this avoidance strategy that actually creates the levels of the unconscious mind. But again, these are wonderful, massive questions. In terms of classic psychoanalytic depth psychology, Buddhism really doesn't work with this. But now with contemplative practice, like what they do at Naropa University and CIS and a couple other really cool breaking at universities, they are bringing in you know, the the kind of the best in the eastern West. And this is a colossally important topic, because unless you bring these processes of the unconscious mind, which again, in western neuroscience alone, at least 95% of what we do, think about this number is dictated by these processes, what it means to say you have you have no free will be free Well, first of all, there's no self to have or free will. Secondly, 95% of what you do is dictated by these unconscious processes. So this is a colossally important practice. Buddhism breaks down these boundaries, the practices allow all this stuff to come up. And actually the unconscious processes are purified altogether. Everything changes your dreams change when the storehouse consciousness is completely emptied, you actually stop dreaming. Excuse me, because there's nothing in the unconscious minds to see to dream you stopped sleeping, because sleep is a product of ignorance in the unconscious mind. And guess what happens? You stopped dying. Sleeping dreaming dying doesn't exist. You're you're on 24/7 constant consciousness. Basically, you're you're not you're not like you're up all night playing video games. Or checking your tick tock account, you better do that quick before Congress shuts that baby down. You actually these levels of mind never turn off. And that's one fruition of not just union individuation, but spiritual individuation and last comment here I've mentioned this several times connected to this is my my dear friend Bob Thurman says something brilliant here. When he says it's not safe to die, as long as you still have an unconscious mind. That's an amazing statement. Because why guess what happens when you die? All that stuff comes up. All comes up, The Good, the Bad, and the ugly. And if you can't relate to it, well, what are you going to do? You're going to run away from it yet again, just like you're running away from it now. And then welcome to samsara. It's constant avoidance strategy of the RP skated. Unconscious Mind rate rushed him. I hate to race through these because they're so rich. Yes, I got through that one. There's one one or two more that just came in. These are really great questions. So let me get back to this. With me. Yes, I already answered this one. Oh, here it is. Okay, from Carol. Hi, Carol. My 95 year old mother. Well, devout Catholic, I was a Catholic, wonderful tradition. recently widowed I'm sorry, that's why that's hard at any age. That's tough. It has watched many family members and friends returned to the elements. She's getting tired of living. She prays all the time for God to take her. I have suggested to her that when the time comes, it would be great to envision the Blessed Mother and Jesus are a favorite saint as their arms will be open in waiting for you to embrace them. fantastic advice. Good for you, Carol. One day originally, she mentioned that she wants to be reunited reunited with her husband, parents and relatives. I don't feel unnecessary to tell her different but maybe I could bring it up again some time. What do you think? I think your trust your intuition, you're doing everything right. Don't challenge them. Now's not the time you want it. This is this is a really great question. very earthy, very practical question. We'll get into this quite a bit more in the later parts of the book. But one of the best things you can do is simply create an environment of such unconditional love and acceptance. The consequence of this type of holding environment is one of just relaxation and release. That's what you want to do. And so whatever brings that about, I mean, within legal limits and whatnot, you know, it's I say this all the time. It's a wonderful image. It's I like this a lot. You want to create a feeling for yourself and for others when you're dying. It's like the feeling you have when you've had a really tough day and someone you really care about and really love walks over and just gives you a big, beautiful bear hug. Right? Right. I mean even thinking about it, what do you do? You just go ah, I can I can surrender to this wonderful loving, caring embrace. That's the atmosphere you want to create. Holding environments or hugging environments. You want to create a space for your loved one and for yourself. That when they enter that space, they breathe a big sigh of openness, relaxation relief, and release that's the best you can do. So everything Carol that you're sharing here, Wow, beautiful, very sensitive spot on. Don't Don't challenge them. You know, I mean, I mean within limits, you know, I mean, if they're having challenging psychotic hallucination type things, that's when you might need to sedate them and stuff like that, but that doesn't sound like what's going on here. They're not hurting themselves. The idea is just to love them. I mean, it may seem patronizingly simple, but it's profound. It's really just love them unconditionally. And you will find, then you just get out of the way. It's just another way to get out of the way. Death is the most natural thing you can do. It's the only thing it's the only thing you don't have to do. But here it is, yet again. What are we We're doers. We're not human doings. We're not human beings. We're addicted to movement. And when you're dying, dying is the cessation of movement, and that's why dying is difficult for people. And so whatever you can do, allow them to open relax, surrender, trust, surrender. It's almost like a psychedelic trip. Right? You want to Maxim for a psychedelic trip. Trust, surrender. Same thing applies when you're dying. Okay. All right. My stockbroker I go to this screen this is kind of fun. Let me go through the chat file if there's any questions you want to raise your hand please do that I'll yeah, so Varsha saw what that was spelt Thank you sky if I shall sapper indestructible being vydra. Means constructability. Adam and teen Safa means being

is all for my dear friends Rebecca and Brandon is fast yourself with a primordial light to the Dharma Tom before the Bardo, becoming it again it depends on how far up the tree you go, so to speak the primordial light. Brandon is verse yourself is one rendering of that. This this is some Olga kya level, just to so to speak a notch above it, so to speak in the evolutionary scale of things is the light of some month about are some of the Badri in union. There the Dharmakaya you don't see. So VAs yourself is the King of the Sun Boca kya. And it's the it's that light before in fact, you kind of get contracted into the bar to Becoming You know, I get the idea above and below is almost silly here but a notch above that would be the luminous radiance of of the emptiness of some of the boundary and the luminosity of Samantabhadra. So Samantabhadra is the primordial archetypal light in this deified form. Okay. Does that help? Ah, I mean, what is the technique of spraying your mind with space? Oh my gosh. I'll give you the technique. Ready? One breath meditation. For the duration of one inhalation and one excellent. I am not making this up. It's comes from the Mahamudra tradition of I learned it from my teacher Khenpo Rinpoche one inhalation one exhalation. Be with your breath fully. Let's do it

that's how you spell your mind with space. Yeah. And what are you doing? You're retreating on the spot. Away from the figure the display. Back to the spacious ground, you're actually retreating returning to the background. So you want to practice this. It's literally literally one breath. Meditation vinayaga to injustice second, Michelle, if I can't be lucid during night dreams, I will not be able to recognize anything after death. Not entirely. So this is a good one. There's there is there is a definitely the literature is is assertive here and my experience and others certainly bears it out that the ability lucidity again, lucidity is just code word for language, code word for language. It's code word code language for awareness. And so if you just because you don't have lucid dreams, it doesn't mean you're screwed. In the Bardot's. It basically means that that particular avenue of lucidity may not be available to you but this is the amazing thing about the Bardot's you know there are money mill a vast array of karmic kind of laws. There are certain factors that are at play here. And so there are a number of different opportunities and so if this is why it's helpful to read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, especially the latter part on the Bardo, becoming, read it. How many times over and over and over does it say if you do this you will for certain be awakened? And then a paragraph later they will say however, if you weren't you can do this. And then they'll say the same thing a paragraph later if you do this, there was no doubt then you will be awakened. However, if you can't do that, then you do this. And so it's not like okay, if I can't do lucid dreams, I'm not going to recognize anything in the Bardo and I'm just screwed. No, it's not that you have all these different dimensions, all these other practices you've been working with. There's all these other different frequencies, whatever you want to call them bandwidth that come into play, that allow all these amazing opportunities for awakening. But here's on one level, maybe the take home point is work with this Bardo principle like right now. Don't wait till you're dying be present. Now, be attentive. Now. Be loving. Now, what is found now is found then what is found then is found now you want to attain a good journey? The the single best thing you can do to have a good death is have a good life. lead a good life and the force of that karma is going to take good care of you. That's the most important thing. Okay, a couple more. Andrew, are you familiar with Loma lo do yes. I recently saw a flyer for some folks say he's giving a talk in the area in the bars. Yes, I have heard of them. Doesn't sound like you're asking for advice, so I won't give it you know, check it out. See what your vibe is. People with sleep apnea seem to not be fearful of it now. Maybe they are in a great state of meditation I'm not sure what this means read a may people with sleep apnea seem to not be afraid of it now I'm not quite sure what that means. Memories seems like it would be a true for a blood transfusion also. Yeah, I'm sorry. I apologize. They don't understand why by what you're saying. So let me let me get the live question. And there's a few more here and then we'll close menorah you've been very patient. So please unmute yourself and

well, thanks. Thanks for answering the questions. And also I just see we're talking about the archetypes and it just had to share briefly that when I was six and seven I had a book called at the back of the Northwind and it was the I was riveted with a picture of the Northwind with this cascading dark hair blowing across cloudy sky and I thought of it I now I would think of it as like a mother figure, you know, Mother archetype. And I went across when I was seven and went across to Japan moved to Japan on a military ship and a woman on the ship had these braids wound up on her head and women in those days mostly had short hair. So I was obsessed with that and one day I asked her can you take them down? And my mom reprimanded me and she didn't say anything. Few days later we had this torrential wind on the ship and these waves crashing. And she called me out to the deck and unfurled her hair on the way in the Northwind. And that was the first time I realized you know these archetypes archetypes can come to life in your from your unconscious into the this world they can appear. I don't know if you've had that experience but it was quite a totally,

totally even this whole archetypal thing and whether it's a youngin or platonic or whatever, why it's powerful to study this. And especially, I mean, really, when I did it, just to take a little sidebar again. It helped me understand so much of what I was doing with some of these spiritual practices. So understanding these it may be worth a little bit of heavy lifting on the front end, but it is so worth it because whether we know it or not, these empty forms that are archetypes are empty templates. They're empty forms. We are the ones that color those forms in we are the ones that basically live our lives as expressions of these archetypes whether we know it or not. The gods represent them in the West. The Deities represent them in the east in all these particular principles, which is actually fundamentally what we return to so this is when you die and you go to the other side. What the other side is, is the de reified aspect of these reified principles here, so you're actually returning to these archetypes when you die. So understanding them become familiar with them understanding how they relate to your life. Now, how your thoughts are basically formed into and through these how your emotions are you playing all these roles, whether you know it or not, you know, like, when you cry, say forgive them Father, for they know not what they do, or this goes all the way down. And so understanding mythology understanding the archetypes understanding the work of Carl Jung was a raging genius. Understanding his contributions here. I'm telling you, man, it's gonna really help you understand what's going on with your with your heart, with your mind and with your entire life. Because these principles are running and often ruining our lives, whether we know them or not, we're basically filling out these archetypes almost with everything we do on an individual and then cultural societal level. So good for you for having these experiences. They're fantastic. The more you become familiar with them, the more they will actually make themselves available to you in a certain way and you'll just start to recognize them everywhere. And then one will level that not only does it have explanatory power, but it's just incredibly fascinating, interesting, and there's something quite celebratory about it. Then you can inhabit these archetypes for the benefit of others. You can then take on these roles. manifest these consciously instead of unconsciously. And then you're really really increasing your capacities to help other sentient beings by understanding all the stuff. So this stuff, I mean, I study this stuff on one level, because yeah, it's kind of interesting, intellectually and philosophically, but the bottom line for every thing that I work and study with is how can I live a better life? Because of this? How can I help others more powerfully because of it? And so I think the more we can understand these principles, the more we make all these unconscious processes conscious and then we can not only help ourselves, but a lot of other people. Thank you. Okay, okay, maybe one more here. From James. How does one meditate on the wrathful deities versus the peaceful deities? Are there specific mantras associated with each and if so, what are their Yeah, all the above? Big question, and it's a good one. If you really are into this, James you get what's called the shitshow Empowerments. And again, this is not necessary. You don't need to do this. But if you're interested in it, the way to do it, there's actually practices so you get the empowerment, then you get a liturgy associated with it. And then you actually practice in this way. You can also do it by working with the 100 syllable, Barshop mantra, which I think is just not quite appropriate for me to share with you. Now that just requires so much explanation. That's kind of the seed syllable aspect of every condensed version of all this. But if you're really into it, and you want to do it, you get you know the Shi T arrow empowerment, find somebody who does it. Get the practices associated with it. And there you have it. Yeah, so Patrick Michael Levin. Yeah. Scientists correct spelling this guy's amazing genius level. Oh, luck. Have a Tara Alyssa. Thank you. Alyssa. lankavatara even with the diacritics Wow, high five. Good job, Alyssa. Thank you, everybody. Remember, if what we're doing here isn't a benefit to others. It's irrelevant. dedicate the merit and whenever it means anything to you send it to all sentient beings who need our help. Otherwise, I'll see you around the block. I'll be back in two weeks for maybe we'll get through more than two pages next time. But who knows I'm having fun going slow Jeremy very nice to see you. All. Bye bye.