[5] Contemplating Mortality and Transforming the Mind

8:09PM Oct 15, 2023

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Chelsea Waves

Keywords:

die

mind

bardot

death

practice

great

teachings

meditation

samsara

bardo

fear

feel

dharma

reality

world

work

impermanence

talks

experience

realm

There we go, always have to remember to do that. So we left off last last time on page 24. Going through this super important kind of renunciation thing. We which is one of the great gifts of the Bardo teachings altogether, is reminding us harshly noble reminder that we are going to die to wake up every morning, look in the mirror, point right at it, write it yourself and say you are going to die. Because if you really take it the hard way, it's a game changer, right? All of a sudden you realize priorities shift use death as your advisor, everything changes. Okay, so halfway through the page, we see others dying all around us but somehow feel entitled to an exemption. In the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, the sage Yudhishthira is asked, of all things in life, what's the most amazing he responds, the romancing others die all around him, there were things he will die for isn't that the truth, somehow, will be the exemption, I'll be the first person in history not to die. But this is actually a little bit interesting. Because there is a there is a bit of an accurate intuition around that because there is a part of you that will not die, the changeless nature of the deathless nature so that then intuition is partly accurate, that there is a part of you your formless dimension. That doesn't die because it doesn't enter the world of space and time. But everything else that's accrued around it, yes, for sure anything constituted a form so long growth that is going to die. If we acknowledge death and use it as an advisor, right? It will prioritize our life ignorant or renunciation and spur meditation. Yeah, and then this famous famous statement, the Buddha said, of all the footprints that have the elephant is the deepest and most supreme of all contemplations, that of impermanence and death is the deepest and most supreme. And so this is really arguably when I teach our Bardo yoga proper using the 12 links of dependent origination, which I have, I don't think you can see it's yet on this wall. I can't get it right there. This is really what the Buddha contemplated. That led to his awakening right seven underneath the Bodhi tree 2600 years ago, started at the end with this thing called death and worked his way back. It's kind of 12 Step detox process through the 12 links of dependent origination that while Madonna's it's kind of a terrified version, and the outer version of the Bardo teachings work his way back to the first Madonna ignorance ignorance is that which causes and conditions death. So it really it really led him to his awakening, and therefore contemplating it deeply. Yeah, we're no different can lead to our awakening. And then one of my favorite lines, I got this from my dear friend, Jeremy Hayward. Some of you may know him. He's a physicist, a dear friend of mine. And when I visited him, he had this little plaque on his desk, which I just grew up not that said, Exactly this he who dies with the most toys still dies isn't something we need to send to Elon Musk and Bezos and all these other people who have things like more or more more need more and more anymore? Nope. He who dies with the most toys still dies and doesn't matter what kind of toys you have rank on with you. Bring the supreme minders into your life realize that life is like a candle flame in the wind. Hey, who was saying that Elton John right? Visualize friends and family and say this is a wonderful, wonderful and quotation quote unquote wonderful. This is what I do when I do my full reminders every morning is reflect right on the preciousness of the human condition and bring to mind all the all the loved ones in your life, the animal life forms, human life forms, and just click through them just click through them. Right. It may seem like a Morse morose, morbid contemplation but those of you who work with us you know it's not morose at all. If you want something to empower your life if you want something is really going to bring you into life. Contemplate impermanence contemplate death. So a paradoxically actually brings you more fully into life. It's that beard. The good thing to do visualize friends and family and say uncle Joe's going to die my sister Sarah is going to die my friend Bill etc. And then most importantly, why me? Look yourself in the face write me put pictures of dead loved ones on your desk of your show. I actually have that in my other study. I have pictures have loved ones friends who have passed I have those pictures of just to the side. But sticky notes with the word death or I'm going to die inside drawers or cabinets to remind you. I used to do that, but but it creeped out all my friends and they wouldn't come over anymore. Because I'd asked him like, Hey, can you get me something out of the drawer or whatever and they go, you know, they'd be like, they opened my cabinet, there'll be a thing and there's as you are going to die. So I either had to go around and pull all these things off or warn my friends that I'm weird. And you're going to open a drawer and you're going to get one of these reminders. Great thing to do with upcoming Halloween by the way right. Now they have a little gal who was around girls gallows humor around this. Yes, I'm going to die inside drawers or cabinets to remind you glove compartment. That's another place. Any place where there's mindless, kind of potentiality. Read an obituary every day. i i wouldn't say I read one every single day. But I read a lot of them for just this reason. To go into nursing homes, cemeteries and funerals, the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. This is from the larger region. This is such a great statement. The essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. They would I would I would toss you in here again. My second edition after we write this book. My second edition would actually say the essence of material practice samsara is forgetfulness, mindfulness. It's really true. The essence of samsara is distraction forgetfulness, my mindlessness, the essence of spiritual practices, remembrance, mindfulness, memory, so deep that even the word for meditation and the Tibetan language, drum PA, for mindfulness means literally to recollect to remember. Whether it's remembering to go back to the present moment or recalling the truth of impermanence, do whatever it takes to realize the time is running out. And you really could die today, right? One breath in one breath, breathe out, don't breathe in. That's it. Gonna take out a Gong Gong Gong me on. One of the marks of the advanced students is that they finally realized that today could be the days Paul Simon saying, it's amazing Paul Simon and his some of his songs. He really was like a bit of a was he still alive as far as I know, I'll see die today. He was kind of a prophet. I mean, in a in a cultural way, mother or child reunion. I mean, a lot of the songs have really interesting kind of dharmic connotations. I continue, I continue to pretend to pretend that my life will never end. We essentially spend our lives moving deck chairs around the Titanic. I like that vision, right? I really reflect on that. No one is going to get out of this alive, right? We spend our lives moving deck chairs around the Titanic, waiting for a better view waiting for whatever. It's all going down. No matter how we position ourselves or comfortable we try to get to all going down. These teachings exhort us right? Not to spend our lives which most of us do literally and figuratively. So this is this is the whole notion that fundamentally, I mean, really, for people here probably not as categorical as with the general population, but take a look. Isn't it true that most of the people you know, literally just distract themselves into death? Fundamentally, just keep distracting keep asleep keep it busy, active laziness. Do whatever you need to do. To avoid the harsh noble truth of your impermanence reinvest, take the precious opportunity that has been given to you and do not waste your life. The fourth thoughts to turn the mind turn it from relentless reckless spending to wise investing. Invest in your future lives now. Yeah, okay. On a personal note, this has been one of the greatest gifts of my study the practice of the Dharma Bardot's for sure. They carried by I finally get it. I am going to die and it could be today my life has been completely restructured because I now believe that this is really so true. I mean, my life is pretty disciplined. I wouldn't say it's completely monastic but close. And there's a reason because I want to look back when I'm on the deathbed if I have the luxury if I don't die from a stroke or some sudden accident and look back with no regrets. You know, I did the best I could. I took advantage of every breath every day. I didn't wait on my life away.

These reminders may seem like a more of a preoccupation with death that all Because of our extreme aversion to die, for most of us death is the final defeat. Oh, these are my two favorite quotes from Arnold toimi. Right? Death is on American as just bloody fantastic. Death is unAmerican. Why? Because defeat is on American. I remember so clearly when my father was dying of esophageal cancer. And the prognosis was like, I mean, he's got like a week left to live. So we took him out of the hospital, we brought him back home. It was actually very powerful week for me. I spent that entire week with him. But I'll never forget that college is called. And I mean, he's a nice guy. I'm not dissing him. And he basically was just he was, he ran, you know, he made his little roof like all the lab bloodwork came back, the lab came back, you know, it's looking good, looking good. I really had to bite my tongue. And I said, Well, I really appreciate your words. Thank you. But I mean, everybody, but this guy was willing to acknowledge that my father was about to die. And again, I'm like, categorically criticizing the medical establishment. You know, they're just not trained to accept this thing. It has we have this thing called artificial life support. I think that's appropriately named. Artificial Life versus authentic death. That is not a defeat. Jack lane. Remember those of you who are old enough, right? Remember Jack lane, he has two beautiful white dogs. He could do like, what did he do? He could do 1000 Push ups in 20 minutes or some ridiculous thing like that. The first really kind of fitness guy. Amazing line, I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image. I love that one. We live in the denial of death and suffering direct proportion to the DIS denial when death comes for reminders remind us of the uncover uncompromising truth of reality and prepares to face it. Lama Zopa Rinpoche So this guy's great at the time. I don't think this comes from his book, wholesome fear. He was one of them, he his main students and dharma air. And he's written some really pretty compelling things around end of life part of the stuff. The very last thing the Buddha left is very last teaching like a will that ordinary people leave the talks of worldly things, the most precious things to the ordinary person. The most important and beneficial thing that Shakyamuni Buddha could bequeath the most important thing for us to realize and understand is the truth and reality of impermanence. Remember what is impermanence. Permanence is the most direct expression of emptiness. Everything in Buddhism, circumambulate, emptiness, everything, and so on permanence is the most direct expression of this emptiness. His entire teaching career ended with this one word impermanence captures the full range of samsaric suffering. I think it was I want to make sure I didn't say it here. I didn't. Suzuki Roshi was once asked to summarize the great Zen master, he was once asked to summarize all Buddhism, can you summarize Buddhism, and he paused for a minute and reflected and then is simply said, everything changes, which is the way of saying what everything ends everything else. Before reminders, right for thoughts that turn the mind joining was shamatha. And still a strength of mind that benefits both self and other secondary purpose a taught on the strength of shamatha is that our mind is slow enough and stable enough to bring in the reality to really see it. Then when someone we know is dying, we aren't so shaken up, we may be sad in the sense of human compassion. We have thoroughly incorporated the notion of death to the point that is profoundly affected our life that is known as strength of mind, spotter, that stability nationally radiates to stabilize the mind of the dying person, which helps them with everything else is being blown away. So this is an important rather quick interjection here about one of the great things and I'm not entirely sure, again, I can't remember if I say this later, but if I did, it's worth reinstating. That. One llama told me that it's important. Yes, it's important for us to take care of a person's body care for them to whatever extent you can. But he basically said let the professionals do that. Our job is to care for their mind. And that means this case, stability of your own mind born from the confidence of these teachings from your own practice, and I know I share this later for sure. Christine Longacre really beautiful writer. In fact, there's an excerpt from here in this book, we're going to read it together, talks about how that one the mind of the dying person is transitioning. It's literally literally kind of spilling into space. And therefore you whoever if you're in that space, you can read them in that space. Mix your mind when you mix your mind with space. You can mix your mind with their mind. And literally, Christine says practice for them. You You know, your stability is something that they will be magnetized towards because you represent that which they're losing. And so therefore, studying this stuff is not only of tremendous benefit for ourselves, it really helps others when they're transitioning. Because when you have a really decent sense of sense of what's going on, where people are the part of them that really doesn't die. You can bring this confidence in the most unsettling, disturbing, groundless situations and your stability. Just your presence alone can be a profound benefit. That's super important stuff is definitely not just for ourselves. Like people are sometimes jealous of those still left alive, why do I have to die when everyone else keeps on living? So unfair? Why me? Why me? Right? That point, they need to remember that those left behind are not returning to a party that lasts until infinity. The infinite rave goes left behind are returning to a challenging life that is filled with the three kinds of suffering. As you are dying, remember that it's just a matter of time before everyone else joins you. Just as you're about to join the billions. I don't it might be in here again. I can't remember. This demographer estimated from the from beginning of recorded history, something like 108 billion people have died. I think. I mean, again, what do I know? But I collected this data some 10 years ago, so it's probably 100 910 billion, but who really knows a lot, let alone all the sentient life forms, right? Trillions trillions. You are about to join the billions of others who have already left this life for another. Those left behind are minority. No one's gonna get out of this alive, cheerful, right? Is this just perky? What a great way to start today, actually, in this case and the day, but it's a wonderful thing to do. You know, if you work in this area, you contemplate these things. It's a fantastically powerful thing to do, which is only same as morbid morose from the outside. From the inside. There's a reason that chokyi Nyima Rinpoche said, take these reminders to heart mazing statement right 50% of the path to awakening is complete. You're halfway there. When you finally definitely emerge, that's the word for renunciation and Tibetan, Asian definitely emergence versus partial emergence. Most of us are partially emerged, or partially renounced. Otherwise, we wouldn't be listening to spiritual teachings and the like. But a lot of people, right still give out little carrots still out there. Haven't quite given up hope for samsara. Right. Oh, the next job, the next mate, the next house, the next car, the whatever, that that'll make me happy. that'll that'll be the success success story. Right. Alright. Get back to me on that. Let me know how that works out. It doesn't. Okay, the doctrinal preparation. One of the best ways one of the best preparations for the Bardot's is learning about them. Right? What did Dumbledore say? To the well organized mind death is about the next great adventure. What a great line. Right? So these teachings help organize the mind. Because it's a journey of the mind to realize that it is just an adventure, it really is just an adventure. Study the map and you will recognize the territory setting the Bardot's is like installing a psychic GPS. After death, you will know where you are and what you need to do. Learning about the Bardot's establishes the proper view like right view. This view allows you to see your way through the darkness of death and to eliminate fear. Because what fear is virtually synonymous. It's the effective expression of ignorance, we're always afraid of what we don't know. You get rid of your fear. Obviously, you're rid of your ignorance, you get rid of all your fear. But also inspires us to do the meditations that prepare you for death. To go beyond understanding and into direct experiences, and this is by far the most important thing, absolutely positively. Every single word in this book, every teaching in the Bartos, everything is fundamentally about creating the view so that you're willing to go to the cushion, go into retreat, to take this map, no matter how sophisticated it is, and make it your territory, make it your experience. So everything is like take the teachings take them to heart, what is it going to do? It's going to put you into retreat, it's going to put you into working with your mind because then you realize truly you know that when you die, you know the journey of the mind does not stop. You just transition from one dream to the next ad infinitum until you catch on to the process of what's going on, and then wake up to it. That's the whole point.

To go beyond understanding and inter direct To experience the confidence born from view and meditation and then leads to the fruit of action. So that's the other kind of trilogy here, right? View, meditation, action. So the view inspires the meditation, the meditation then when you actualize it for yourself inspires you went to action to do what to help others to serve others. With a stable mind cultivated by viewer meditation we can benefit ourselves and others because now we know what to do. It's trilogy of view meditation and action is a central teaching for how to progress along the spiritual path the classic Buddhist approach the Tibetan word for meditation many of you already know this right transliterated Gollum, GLM meditation cushions, a little square meditation cushions. I don't have one here. Those are called gum Dan's gum dense seeds of meditation or seeds of familiarity, familiarity basically. Gone means what to become familiar with. monasteries, and in Tibetan speaking language are called gum paws, places of familiarity places of meditation. So it's all about becoming familiar with your mind becoming familiar with, first of all, who you are not, because that's what's gonna die anyway, that's what death is going to reveal. It's going to reveal who you are not. And then at the moment, the death on the Dharma tiles reveal, it's going to point out who you really are. And I think I say this later, if not, I will return to it. Meditation is about becoming familiar with every aspect of your mind. Yeah, what it what it does. Turn Kabat Zinn said the most beautiful thing I mean, hauntingly powerful thing when he said, so when you know the mind fully, you get beauty at the Arts and all things wondrous. When you don't know the mind, you get Auschwitz. Or in this case, you know, the terrorism of Hamas, when you don't know the mind, right. We're always whether we know it or not. We're always working with the mind, always, always because there's nothing else. Whether you know it or not, whether you're lucid to it, whether you're aware of it doesn't doesn't matter. You're always working with your mind, always, because there's nothing else. And so death is going to force you know, Beth is going to force us to kind of meditation, this force relationship to mind, just like a dream. Why? Because there's nothing else. It's all gone. All sensory distraction is gone. mind becomes reality when you die. And so that's either bad news or good news. That's such great news. If you're not prepared, enough familiar with your mind, all hell breaks loose that right for most people. But if you are familiar with your mind, it's extremely good news. Extremely good news. Because you're prepared you know, you know what's going to happen because you know, your mind. This is important because as we've seen, the journey through the Bartles is a journey of the mind, of the mind journey of the mind, into and through the mind from gross to subtle, to extremely subtle. And then back, if you're not familiar with subtle and very subtle is a journey through the mind through both is wisdom and confusion. Learning to face death is therefore learning how to face ourselves. Do it now. By becoming familiar with the Bardot's through study, right? That's why part of yoga Bardo yoga is principally contemplation practice. Principally, there are things over practices, especially like dark retreat and stuff like that. But in the classic texts, part of the yoga is is a contemplative, it's, it's a form of contemplation. So what we're doing here, this is part of the yoga. By becoming familiar with, with bartomeu study, we're becoming familiar with our mind and by becoming familiar with our mind. Through meditation, we're becoming familiar with a Bardot's. That is never the enemy. Ignorance and unfamiliarity are the only enemies. practice and study defeat the enemy. And again, it's a little tricky because when we're using the word mind here, this is a multi Vaillant term. We're talking about the relative dimensions of the mind what's called SEM, SEM and Tibetan. That's the part that we want to become familiar with it we are not, but that's who we think we are. We think we are this relative mind. When that all falls away, either through deep meditation or the death process, then who you really are the absolute dimension of mine and Rick GPA, or a GPA that's revealed, then you want to become familiar with that. So the familiarity works with both hands going in and then coming out. As we'll see on the following pages, it confused aspects of our mind die during the Bardo, dying, that's what it's about releasing all the fake news, all the stuff that we are not neti neti, the via negativa all the fake news, all the adventitious defilements that all goes because it's not real, it's not true. So all the false stuff is cut away to reveal what truth literally Dharmakaya body of truth, body of reality but confused, massive remind confused aspects of our mind died during the Bardo, dying, the wisdom aspects are revealed during the Battle of Dharmakaya. That's what that's what that Bardo is. And then the confused aspects are reborn in the Bardo, becoming. And so coming up, we're not there yet. But coming up, I don't know where it is. That's where this hourglass diagram comes in. I know where it's coming in here. Somewhere, I did my little classic hourglass typification of this. This is why people experience the Bartles differently. And this is why we should never let any map no matter how sophisticated construct the experience of the territory, because otherwise what can happen is the map can backfire. Right? You think, oh, geez, you know, you're going through the death process. One of the things with the Bardot's like it makes them challenging is nothing is fixed, double entendre intended, nothing is fixed. It's fluid. And so therefore even the map itself points out these orienting generalizations, these fingers strokes. And so if we, if we make the mistake of reifying the map and thinking that everything is going to go absolutely recipe textbook in this way, I, you know, then it can backfire. It's like, wait a second, you know, this isn't supposed to happen this way. That's not what the texts say. While eventually you want to self liberate even the antidote, right, you prepare, study, prepare, and then you just let the whole thing go and go for a ride. Because as elegant as this map is, and it seems pretty darn compelling to me. If you reify it, it can backfire. When the mind is liberated from the body, it's seven to nine times clearer. So this comes from the classic contrasts, right? Good news or bad news. Just like any dream, good news or bad news. This will pick statement and the Bible literature is clarified. In Trungpa Rinpoche, his comments below, he suggested suggested instructions should now can be recalled after death. So he says triangle Rinpoche, having heard these barleywine structions. Having heard these birds instructions will have placed a certain habit or Karma imprints, it's called Buck chalk or some Scara in your mind. And you will recall this imprint when you reach that phase of the barrel. So this is this is one, this is the good news about putting this into your operating system into your unconscious mind. Because that's what's going to come up on your diet, all these dimensions of your unconscious mind. It's not all junk in there, some of the repressed elements can be a little bit problematic. But below that, there's really good things that are that are what's called the emergent unconscious, there are dimensions of the mind that are actually very noble, really fantastic. And so these teachings do do, you can look at them two ways. One way you can think of them that you actually planting them in your unconscious mind is provisional truth to that. But the other truer dimension is that these are dimensions that are already there. They're going to be revealed. For example, when you find yourself in the part of becoming you will notice what is happening and you will think again, this is trying to say, Wait a second, I have heard about this, let's see, I'm supposed to do such and such when such and such happens and growth. And that will obviously benefit you tremendously. Bardo instructions are particularly helpful to you. At the time when you are in the most danger and undergoing the most terror and stress. In other words when you need them most. Yeah, spine up. And always remember right right. Always remember that is beautiful. And as important as these teachings are. This is my languaging this is all the Bardo teachings are insurance Dharma, right insurance, dharma. So I'm basically an insurance salesman here. I'm selling you on behalf of this tradition and immortality policy, right? Immortality insurance policy. Fundamentally, these these Bardo yoga teachings are considered supplemental in the sense that if you do the main practices fully, you don't need this stuff. But they're in the tradition for a reason like pull up. Obj says right you want to travel when you prepare for a big trip. You want to have plan a plan B plan C because sometimes plan A doesn't work out and what are you going to do? So these Bardo teachings are like a parachute insurance, they're there to help you. If there isn't enough security with your standard regular practices.

You may not this is a This is actually not to say you may not feel that you'll be able to remember these instructions in the Bardo and resign yourself to a difficult journey. But Rinpoche continues back to him. Since you have no physical, corporeal body, your mind is the most powerful thing in your experience. Why? Because there's nothing else, therefore, are virtuous states of mind, and states of meditative absorption and so on, have much more power in the Bardot's than in our ordinary lives. All of these types of meditation will have much more power and be much clearer in the Bardo. And this makes total sense. And that's why it's again, unquote. That's why it's so important really, to work with these things. Because you may not feel like oh, geez, I don't think I have this. I haven't mastered these. I don't think I have all this stuff down. Well, the good news is because we're working with a template that's in resonance with reality, then when the reality is actually revealed, the opportunities are heightened in a very positive way. So this is the classic positive exhortation for studying this stuff has more power than you think. Okay, back to the book, fear is always associated with the unknown and the unfamiliar, right? You're always afraid of what you don't know. fear and ignorance are virtually synonymous. Right? Fear is the like I mentioned the effect of the emotional expression of ignorance, and therefore it's the effector of the emotional bedrock of samsara. So very brief, parenthetical interjection here. I don't think I'm checked. In fact, I know I don't have this quote, this beautiful cool from a written cheekbone Trooper which a fear is that is the primordial emotion of samsara. And therefore, underneath underneath it all, even right now, underneath it all percolating everything at the bedrock of relative reality, some services fear, fear of your inherent of emptiness, fear of the truth, fear of emptiness, sphere of reality. And so this fear is lurking, everything we do is fundamentally a very sophisticated and sometimes not so sophisticated avoidance strategy, to avoid the center have ourselves to avoid this truth. And so therefore, we spend our lives in these very busy, active distraction approaches. But again, all that's gone at the moment of death, you know, there's no capacity anymore to be distracted. And so therefore, this fear, that's the relative bedrock. Unfortunately, if you're not prepared, that's what's waiting for you. But if you are prepared, and you know that that's what's there, you can recognize it for when it arises and say, oh, there it is. There's this fear thing. Oh, my gosh, and you'll be trained for how to relate to Will you realize that this regard fear is really good news. Because it's an indicator that you're getting really close to the truth again, and really warm. And so if you understand this, even now, in deep meditation, boy, I run this maxim all the time, right? Follow your fear, really want to grow in this life? Follow your fear. So one reason I started exploring this death and dying thing so intensely so long ago, because I had this deep intuition. And I follow your bliss. Yes, okay, provisionally. But if you just follow your bliss, you get blissed out. You really want to grow in this life. Follow your fear. Through our study, in practice, we remove the darkness of ignorance that surrounds death and transform fear into fearlessness. This is the job of Manjushri the deity of wisdom. So he's waiting within you as well, by the way, so if you work with him and his mantra, right, all Mata Partena de homie, become familiar with him. He's waiting for you. His raffle manifestation This is cool. The raffle manifestation of Manjushri is Yamantaka. destroyer of death. Yama is the embodiment of death. So remembering that Baba Chakra The Wheel of Life, he's the dude that holds you holds the wheel of life. And it's really helpful to remind yourself that he's holding you right now. And if you pay attention, you can feel his cold breath behind you. Right? I love this image, right? Yes, it's great. It's like puts the fear of Yama into you, right? If you just relax, chill a little bit or chill a lot. You will feel his cold breath on your neck. Because he's his he's breathing, man. He's there. He's holding you. Right now. He's just a hold. Right? But what's going to happen when you die? It's gonna turn into a squeeze into a crush. Yeah, there you go. Thank you for that. Who's that? That's Christopher Christopher there yo, Yama. So there he is. He's holding you right now. Grip isn't too tight. But he's gonna put the squeeze. Is this great isn't as great as fire and brimstone. Crap is great. There it is the Buddha's wheel of existence. Wonderful. Now, you have to show me who wrote bring that up Christopher who wrote that book. Is that Is that the one by David? David Nicktoons. No worry. We'll get you can put it The Chat column. But the idea is there is no need behind you. breathing down your neck feel it feels cold breath. Let it wake you up. I love that image Yamantaka, uncompromising and almost wrathful wisdom is how we conquer death. In other words, we conquer and transform death by becoming familiar with it, knowing it, befriending it understanding it definitely occurs in the realm of form. That's what ego is exclusive identification with form. What is that based on? Ignorance. One of the reasons is difficult to leave this world is because we're so familiar with it. We're too familiar with it because we practice it all the time. This is the other thing. Whether we know it or not. We're always meditating. We're always practicing. And our default practices samsara our default practices mindlessness, forgetfulness, distractions selflessness, we've accomplished samsara. How do you know when you've accomplished a meditation? Well, when it does you when you live on automatic, right automatic accomplishment, in this case, automatic ignorance. We've accomplished samsara. How do you know? Well, if you see the world do realistically, if you see it was solid, lasting and independent, if you think that there is this thing called death. You've accomplished samsara, we all have. Why, because we practice it all the time. It's a default, literally default mode network. We practice samsara. Every time we're distracted. And we capitulate to this distraction. That's why we're so good at it. It's all we know it even though it's samsara. We feel snug and secure, and it's ways Yeah, Shambala language, the cocoon. And these ways are hard to abandon. Conversely, one of the reasons it's difficult to enter the next world is because it's so unfamiliar, we don't know it at all. Even though it presents great opportunities for enlightenment were afraid to step into the unknown. So too much familiarity with this world and not enough with a next is what makes this transition difficult. In other words, too much familiarity with our superficial confusion, the superficial, most surface aspect of our identity, appearance, which we always tried to beautify and clothed while I was working on our tan, one way or the other literally and metaphorically. Too much familiarity with our superficial confusion, the outermost level of our intensity, physicality, and not enough familiarity without our innate wisdom. formlessness both of which are revealed in the Bardot's is the basis for a rough journey after death on graceful exit. This is how a graceful exit comes about. We'll return to this important theme throughout the book, because there's lack of familiarity is what shoots us out of the Bardo. domata Basically, we shoot ourselves fundamentally we can't apart ourselves and enter the bar to becoming and therefore back into samsara. As the basis of reincarnation, do we choose wisdom, which is brilliant and unfamiliar, wake up, or confusion, which is cozy familiar, and fall back asleep? I look at your life, what's your default. Learning about the Bardot's is also more than just learning about death. There condensation of the entire path. This has been one of the great, wonderful surprises for me and studying this stuff so deeply for so many years, decades at this point is this is like the singularity of samsara, and Nirvana. It's like everything is here. That's why the Dharma the Bardo 's are a little bit dense. Sometimes because everything is condensed into the Bardot's, it's like the whole Dharma is recapitulated in these teachings. This means that a concordant experience of the Bardot's occurs in a microcosmic form every night when we die into sleep and are reborn the next morning. It also occurs between the birth and death of every thought. Studying the Bardot's helps us not only have a good death, but lead to a good life. theme will return to frequently Yeah, so this is this notion of triangulating, right? Because in reality, this is interesting reality is fundamentally iterative, it's reiterative. This is one of the great gifts of complexity theory, which is a little bit different from chaos theory. Well, one of the bases of complexity theory is the reusability of reality to fundamental template components. This is healthy reductionism. And so what happens in character complexity theory that's really interesting is that by reducing things, you can you know, you can see these reality you can see them in fractals and all these kinds of patterns that the reiterative nature of the phenomenal world is based on these recurring patterns.

And so therefore, we can do with these three iterations. There's another one, depending on cosmology if you believe in it, that the entire rising, abiding sociation of the cosmos also abides by these pencil beause you can then triangulate these insights you can use your meditation to help you under understand death you can use that to help you understand dreamless sleep you have these three iterations of the same phenomena taking place the three different states of consciousness right and so that's that's one reason why this stuff is so awesome right you study your meditations helps you with your with your nocturnal practices of lucid dreaming Dream Yoga sleep yoga, that helps you with your part of yoga that comes back and helps you with the other so they all they all lean on each other they Bootstrap and therefore you can triangulate you can use all three which I do to help you understand the basic iterative nature of reality. Okay, how are we doing? Okay, let me just go through the timeline thing and then we can have a little discussion Tom land sending and taking right so we've done if those of you who are not called people and have have done the Monday night things Why did what three four or five, maybe sessions on Tomlin a year or two ago such a powerful practice? I asked my friend Ken Wilber way back when like what what he thought was the best meditation for death. He said, Tom land baby. I just love it. Like those of you who know this, this is this is like industrial strength meditation, Tomlin baby. Those of you who know this practice, wow. Tomlin ascending and taking the practice of taking in the suffering of others and giving out the goodness within ourselves strong preparation for death. It's especially powerful for a dying person to practice and for others to do when someone has died. The rugged quality of this practice can match the toughness of death the more I am around death, the more I find myself taking refuge and Tomlin for sure I do it every morning. I do I do a one breath toggling session when I see a dead animal, or sometimes if I read about it right now, because everything that's happening is like I'm doing tonglen all the time. Every time I see some some expression of impermanence, instead of contracting, in fact, I feel the contraction because it's so hard to witness like everything that's happening in the Middle East. But I find myself reciting these mantras I find myself doing tongue lunges, more and more and more. The reason we suffer during life or death is because we're selfish, right contracted. When we think small, every little irritation gets big, you know this right? Mind get small problems get big. Your mind gets big problems get small. homeland is about thinking and feeling big. To think big, we should first reflect upon our good fortune, we have the precious Dharma to guide us through the Bardot's, we have the potential to transform death into alignment. So mid year MPJ talks about this all the time, and I did it because of his exhortation is at the end of every day, think of two or three things to be really grateful about. It's a fantastic way to sandwich your day. I laid out either when I'm doing my evening practice or when I'm actually lying down. I reflect about three things that I'm really grateful for for this day. Every single day, my ability to study and practice the Dharma, always, always always so fortunate. We're so lucky. We have the precious timer to guide us through the Bardot's we have the potential to transform death into alignment. We are incredibly fortunate to die held by the teachings of the Buddha, the awakened one who transcended death. Now think about the millions who are dying without being held imagined all those who are dying alone. Without physical spiritual refuge or under violent conditions we can reduce our anguish by putting our depth and perspective on Lennon stills the perspective and brings greater meaning to our death. Oh yeah, this is my little thing the shotgun Yeah, if you take a teaspoon like this because I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, so this one has a lot of meaning for me. If we take a teaspoon of salt, put it in a shot glass of water. Water is powerfully affected. super salty. Take the same salty experience right bitter experience. Put it into Lake Michigan virtually no effect right? On land transforms our mind from a shot glass into Lake Michigan or even bigger from the small little mindspace into the Space of the Universe. on every level, suffering is the result of the minds inability to accommodate its experience. But isn't that true? Definitely worth stating look at your own experience. Suffering is directly proportional to our inability to accommodate experience. Again, Lama Zopa tried to die with his motivation. If you die with this bodhichitta thought the thought of benefiting others your death becomes a cause of your enlightenment in this cause, the enlightenment of all sentient beings, live your life with this precious thought. As you get closer to death, you should think I'm experiencing death on behalf of all sentient beings. Try to die with this thought. And this way you were dying for others. Dying with the thought of others is the best way to die. I mean really beautiful. And this is why if we'll talk about later on, this is why things like organ donation speak to you. Really good thing to do. The Indian say Shantideva said if you want to be miserable, think only of yourself if you want to be happy. My point of answers and even adath think of others. Coughlin is there for a way to practice the good heart to bodhichitta Oh, yeah, I forgot about this one. When asked what practice you would do during death tongue or Trungpa Rinpoche even said he replied Tomlin. So? Yeah, refer to those roles riffs in the Monday night group and plus, you know, Pema children has written a ton on this right? By by her book. I think start where you are, has a quite extensive riff on homeland. She's She's one of the great expositors of this particular topic. So we'll stop there for today. So we have a chance, let me just mark this for next time. So we have a chance to talk about some of the stuff. Let me see if there any questions that came in. Otherwise, those of you who are here and want to raise a question or have a comment, contribution doesn't always have to be a question. But let me just see if anything piped in so we can stop me blabbing here so we can actually talk about some stuff. Okay, what page Yeah, page number right, Paige. Paige. Paige. Paige. Paige? Was there easy questions? All the pages? The bonus wheel of existence guy you know, I don't know this book, Jacob Lashley and stuff on here? Well, okay. I mean, there's so many books on the other Baba chocolate? Well, I have I have at least 10 of them. Right there somewhere in that shelf? Can we use Tong Lin to take the fear of those who are dying alone? If so, and it seems to make sense. What is best to breed that? Yeah. So yes. So absolutely, you can breathe in the fear, right. So during during the installation there. So again, little bit beyond what I can talk about in terms of going through all four stages are there four stages to the tunnel in practice. Um, but for sure, you can breathe in and very specifically, so like there will be the third step of the four steps of tunneling you breathe in, very, very specifically a person, like they're having fears and pain, whatever, through every pore of your body you breathe in, you're not breathing in. And of course, the universe is you're doing it on behalf of the universe. And then when when you breathe out through every pore of your body, because again, reality is made of mind. It's not made of matter. And so therefore causality is transcended, Space Time has transcended. You know, you have this kind of ripple effect in the quantum field, if you want to use that analogy, where we have so much more power than we think we do. So we breathe in the fear, having the aspiration, I'm removing this from them. And then you breathe out through every pore, you radiate out. Fearlessness, love, peace, tranquility, you just in you just beam it, and you can beam it very specifically very directly to them. And this is where it's important, a little bit outside of what we talked about. But this is where it's really important to understand the nature of reality, the whole idealistic thing that reality really is not made of matter. The reason this stuff seems ineffectual and just spiritual mumbo jumbo is because we subscribe to materialism. The world is not made of matter. It's made of heart, mind spirit. And so what we do with our heart mind, spirit can be a profound benefit to others because there's no statute of limitations. Is there already conventional physicality. So I recommend this is such a powerful practice. If you're a nightclub person, I can't remember when probably your maybe more two years ago, I know I personally gave at least four or five talks on Tom land with the supporting statements from Pema children who's written a lot about it. There's so many other really great books on this.

Oh, yeah, we croak Yeah, I have I had that and it expired. I really I liked the week hope week coke app it cost 99 cents. And what it does is five times a day I was in contact with him the founders for a while. I think four or five times a day. It'll ping into your phone. Some basic wonderful little quote from some resource from all these different traditions is basically about you are going to croak and it has the little icon is a frog. It's very cute. I'm sure Barry can pull it up. Or Alyssa you can probably still get it for 99 cents. Maybe it's you know a buck 99 Now But it's worth it. I used to have it, and it would pick up I'd be at a meal. I really I did this, I would be at a meal or something. And I would get one of my five pings during the day, and not hold it up. And I'd show the people to me, oh my god, I just look at the text I just got. And it was basically some version of you are going to die. I've always wanted to do this, too. I've always wanted to, you know, have this restaurant, right. And so when you have fortune cookies, right, all these fortune cookies have these positive things. They're great. They're great. But I want to have like a reality restaurant with reality fortune cookies. So you open up the fortune cookie and it says you are effin going to die. I mean, something like that. I would love it. I think that would be like, all my Dharma friends. They would come for that just to get a chuckle out of it. Yeah, so we Coke is a good one. It's a great one. If it's still available. Alyssa can I'm sure she'll find it if it's still there. By for some reason, these apps sometimes they expire. Even the app itself died, so I don't get him anymore. Yeah. Okay, so let's see here. Do you know, I'll get you get to you in a second. Chris Rohan. Do you know about the Greeks? Especially stoics? Yes, I do. Yes. Practicing and remembering Yeah. Momentum already the Christians. Yep. Marcus Aurelius. Yeah, absolutely, positively the stoics. So many, you know, many monastic traditions. I know of several that actually. Were you were you had you dug your own grave, which is actually it's kind of cool. You know, I mean, I would do it here but my HOA would have a fit. You know, put put up dug, dig a big hole in my backyard. You start to see how weird I am. Dig a big big ass hole in my backyard with all the dirt. And then here and then have you know, got this would be awesome, right? And then have my little headstone there Right? With my dates, and just put it back there and see how long it took for my HOA to just have a fit. I would do it just to get under their skin and say, Wait a second. This is my house is my yard. Why can't I dig my grave? I've been I get on the local news. Maybe I'll do that. Before I open my restaurant with these Chinese cookies. Right? I think I'm on a roll today. I've got some great ideas. Yes, the Greeks are amazing. The Greeks also the Greeks also did dark retreat dark practices. I mean to Peter Kingsley's work, some of you may know his work. He's he's been revelatory for me over the last couple of years. Talking about the work of in paddock, Lee's permittees the real deep mysticism, deep non duality, mysticism that's in the western culture that has been buried for a number of reasons. So I'm studying a little bit more the effects of the Great pre Socratics amazing, amazing body of wisdom. Yeah, yeah. Nice comment. And thank you for that. Yeah, the universe is made of stories. Yeah, my dear friend, David Loy has a sweet, wonderful little book called The world is made of stories, I highly recommend it. And also Bernardo kastrup, in his book, more than allegory. This is there's a brilliant book where he talks about the narrative structure and basically the same thing world is made of stories for sure that Adams absolutely positively. Okay, great. Okay, Christopher, fire away. But thanks for your patience, man. Unmute yourself and then.

Okay. At any rate, I went ahead and got this brochure that opens up to about four panels. And rather than going into that, oh, yeah, nice. I'll just do the front as the Buddhist will be assistance. On the on the back, it just summarizes it. You have the six realms of existence right there and MCAT Yep, the

links. Yep.

Aspects of dependent origination. There's Jama. Yep. There's Buddha shocky Mooney. Boiling to the moon. Yeah.

Yeah, this this the bomber chakra is. I mean, there's, there's a reason that's great. Thank you so much, Chris. There's a reason that and I've seen these in Tibet. They have Tonka has the size of a football field. I mean, no exaggeration. And they unfurl a target, the size of a football field on the hillside. And then they teach on it. And very often, the riff on the the wheel of life was one of the most famous riffs because it's really the intellectual content of the Buddha's enlightenment. I mean, there's

maybe the most important thing is just, you can be overwhelmed by all of this conceptualization in Buddhism, in what direction do I go? Well, this It's one of those little guides that will pull everything together for you would help to summarize and show you where you're watching. But

it's a fantastic body of teachings. And for those of you who listen to you know by HMI platform I had, I had to, I think pretty rich conversations with Delson Armstrong and maybe a little over a year and a half ago, he he talks about this really like his main body of teaching these days. And so this topic, I personally think in the Tibetan tradition, I don't think it's taught enough. It's really emphasized Tera Vaada tradition. And so when I when I first came across it decades ago, it was like, why, why? Why don't we hear about this more often? Why isn't this taught more often? And then of course, I realized that it is taught and it just wasn't taught in my particular kind of Deeley. So thanks, Chris, for I appreciate that. Absolutely. Good to see you my friend. Yeah, David Nicholas moved from Barry. I know David, you haven't read this book either. Very, but I know David and a son, Ethan. They're really cool. Batman and Robin, David's nichter book is so good, because it relates the wheel of life to modern life with appropriate meditations. My my Tibetan Buddhist wife didn't really know about it. Yeah, I'm gonna have to get David's book. Because there there are parts of it of the 12 links that are that are somewhat challenging to really understand. So I'm really curious about how David runs with it. So thanks for that tip. I'm going to write that down. Hold on, give me one second. I don't want to forget this.

Okay. All right. from DOD, I think he's got this great book. Oh, good. Thanks, Don. Thanks for the kind words. Oh, there he is sharp Udraw. From the US, far away, my friend, good to see you again,

sir. Nice to see you. A couple of quick comments. Specifically regarding precious human life, and, you know, one of the components of precious human life, as you all know, is the exposure to the Dharma. living in an era where, you know, the Dharma teachings are available and all that, and the power of the of what you're teaching and the other Dharma teachings to activate the intrinsic compassionate nature, versus the worldview, a worldview that we're seeing on television, which encourages the aggressive you know, and delusional tendencies that I have. So I really appreciate, you know, that's what I'm grateful for the precious human life that I have the access to, you know, be able to learn all this. So I appreciate that. The other comment I had was in relation to the heart chakra. You remember, back in the 80s, when, you know, the Voyager was sent with that gold disc of, of the humans, you know, and, and I, and I had the weird thought that what if on that gold disc, the greatest human achievement would be the Bama chakra. Yeah, no kidding. All right. Thank you, sir.

I appreciate it. And I appreciate the comments about the preciousness, you know, I mean, not only is it the preciousness, what makes it truly precious is exactly what you said, it's not just merely being born in this realm, the human realm, which is considered the most auspicious of the six realms. Because the the two highest realms, the God Realm on the jealous god realms there, there's just too much love and light and too much bliss. And you can just get spaced and lost out because it's too comfortable. And then you get the three lower realms to hell around hungry ghosts and animal realm. And those are, you know, they're too tight, so you got to loosen too tight. And so the human realm is kind of the middle realm, it's in between. And I remember very clearly, when I was first studying this stuff, and starting to teach on it or trying to, it was pretty easy to riff on the characteristics of the other five realms. But when I was trying to like pigeonhole the human realm, it was actually somewhat challenging. And then I realized, that's part of the opportunity that it's the one that is the least reified. It's though it's the most fluid, the most malleable, the harder to pin down. And therefore, there are more possibilities for working with one's mind because you're not, you know, really kind of just completely entangling envelopes and all this karma, whether it's excessively so called good karma, which are the God realms, or negative karma. And the second thing this is a little bit more esoteric, right? Is that like, this stuff isn't esoteric? Well, there are a number of different Types of human realms. And while we were in what's called jumbo Deepa. And this is just one of the human realms. And what's particularly auspicious about this human realm is that karma ripens quickly. And so this is either good or bad news, depending on how you roll in this world. But if you really want to wake up, you want your karma to ripen, you want it to come to fruition and be exhausted as quickly as possible. And so you may notice this, I don't know if if longer term practitioners listening here have noticed this, that when you start doing a really deep dive and you make this stuff, you know, a priority, you may notice that your life can actually fall apart. Is anybody here, notice this, right? So you have to be you have to be really careful. When you sign on to the Dharma path, you have to get your dharma lawyer, you know, get a good Dharma lawyer that can get in there, read your spiritual contract. So you're not baited and switched. Because if you think you're signing onto this, I mean, Trump or MPJ basically said better not to start mean really, he said better not to start. But he said if you are going to start better to finish quickly. And so this is actually important, because you started doing deep and our work. brace herself, Bridget, it's like it's like, what did he say chaos should be regarded as extremely good news, right? The stuff is going to come up. And so basically, if you don't have that right view, it's like, gosh, my life was actually so much better before I started practicing the Dharma, like my world is falling apart. Well, if you understand why it's falling apart, samsara is falling apart. Karma has been coming coming to fruition. So if you understand this, and you start doing this stuff, and things seem to like be coming undone, and you get all these physical things start to happen. I remember this is one of the big surprises for me, I was doing the ninja preliminary practices. And I was somewhat ready for psychological whatever. I was not ready for my body to fall apart when I started having all these bizarre physical symptoms, and I said, Hey, wait a second, this is supposed to be a mental spiritual thing, right? That in itself was a major lesson for me like, Well, hey, what about this body? So I say this, you know, not in any way to defer sooner or later. This is the idea of death and taxes, right? Sooner or later, these issues have to be dealt with. I mean, there's just no other way. I mean, you know, Carmela, Daffy, John said the fire must have its way. Karma, you know, has to be purified habits have to be purified. There's just no other way. And so one of the great gifts of being not only in a human realm, but a precious human realm where you're exposed to the Dharma in Java de bas, is karma ripens quickly. And if you understand that, and you realize click, click, click Whoa, I can barely hold on to this ride. That's realize, man, something's happening here. Right? You're getting warm things are starting to really cook so Pam does thank you so much for bringing that up. Okay, any last final questions or comments or jokes otherwise I'm going next week doing all those these programs with with Richie and then tenza one gal really psyched about both of them actually. We'll be back here in two weeks for another round of this preparing to die journey. Let's see here if there's anything else here popping in. I think we're pretty good. Oh boy. Chelsea adjust buzzer shot as I was about to close us out. Okay, last question from Chelsea. Fire away dear.

While you're coming on, maybe you disappeared in the Dharmakaya. From Marie what teachings were 10s on wing one yell 10s on one goal. Oh, that's nice. Tenzin one gal. Dream Yoga. He's one of the few people that teaches on Dream Yoga with some regularity. And he started I think it's a six year cycle of teachings on basically the six Bardot's fundamentally. And so this year, starting on Tuesday night, we have a link for six days of teachings with Dream Yoga with him. I'm super psyched. I'm going to be doing at least three presentations with him. So I'm very excited to spend time with him. He's amazing. So really cool guy. So Chelsea, we Oh, there you are. You disappeared far away.

Um, so you're just speaking to how when you start doing these things, karma ripens quickly. And something that I've been experiencing for several years is that I get to this place because my fear is around my mind where I get more comfortable with experiencing different unsettling experiences and during yoga, for example, feel more comfortable with like, daytime practices where things are kind of like disappearing or shaking or that feels like I have more control over it. But then when I'm in the dream world, sometimes it It feels like the beings are the entities that I'm encountering aren't necessarily mine. And then I think to myself, but this is all mine. But then it doesn't always feel like that's true. It's almost like the feeling of intuition, where when it's a real intuition, it just comes up. And it's not really like a story. It's just like, intuition.

So I didn't I didn't make the last connection, the last connection between intuition and it's all mind I something's skipped.

Yeah, it doesn't. So with the intuition, I've been kind of thinking of it as when we've talked about it before. Intuition kind of comes from this place of not really having a story attached to it, and more so comes from like your gut. And that's how these, and they're not showing up all the time. But it feels like when I get deeper and deeper into the practices and the Dream Yoga, then they tend to show up and it doesn't feel like I'm like, it doesn't feel like they're my mind.

And so can you say more? If you're comfortable about what they are? I mean, are you are you okay? Sharing a little bit

about what that is? Yeah. Um, so, for example, I'll have a dream where I become loose, where I'm like speaking to an entity, I'm not lucid, I become lucid. I go to facing entity. And then I like sit and I say, what, what is going on what is happening? And they say things to me, like, why are people angry with me when I help them when I support them, for example, in taking their lives, and then I come out of that. And then the following day, I feel like I'm, like, jetlag, oh. And I feel like I kind of have these like thoughts that aren't necessarily my own. And then it kind of freaks me out. Because I don't want to experience that. And I've been working with, like cleansing practices and things like that. But then I also think to myself, well, this is mine, because it's all made of mine, but then it doesn't fully feel that way. So I'm kind of in this.

Yeah, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing it. You know, when we say it's all mine, it doesn't necessarily mean your mind I used to have and this is actually one of the things I'm going to be talking with Rinpoche about is, there are certain Tibetan schools, and I don't know where he stands here. So I want to ask him, that are solipsistic that, that it's just it's just your mind. I personally don't think so. I think it's all mine. But not I think it's all mine, because that's all there is, but it doesn't mean it's your mind. Right. So you have this, this this kind of Whirlpool dissociative Ultra thing. That is the appropriated awareness that you call yourself sense. As an outsider, that dissociative boundary there is mind a mind at large, it's not your mind, there is something out there that is not you, that is independent of you, it's just not matter. It's made of mind. It's just not your mind. It's just like big mind, Draco mind a large, whatever term you want to attend to it. And so is as we become more open, transparent to ourselves, and they're transparent to the world through practices like this or even Dream Yoga, then we can make ourselves more available to these these external agencies and sometimes their their benevolence, you can you can supplicate for them, you can create guides and whatnot through that, but sometimes they can be a little bit more mischievous and even malevolent. And so, therefore, at these deeper levels, forms of protection that can be done to work with that, you know, ultimate protection of course is emptiness right, not realize reifying anything, but I have absolutely positively and this is what I heard some teachers saying it was all your mind and there, I've had experiences in my dream like you with your intuition 100% That ain't me that is not coming from me. I mean, I have sometimes it comes in an archetypal form that I can identify with a deity or protector, but the point is that there are agencies that will infiltrate my mindstream that are not me, but they enter my event horizon. And so, one of the most important things is to realize you know, the play of the porosity of your mind and heart as it opens. And then to basically have a curious open inquisitive attitude and approach to whatever arises, because nothing becomes problematic unless you reify it. Emptiness cannot harm emptiness, but if you if you solidify the damn thing, then then it can become some Republic Matic but it's only problematic because you quite literally, it's a V culpa. You literally make it so it's a construct. So if you if you basically open, open open, don't give it a place to land, then it can it cannot affect you adversely, because it doesn't Have any traction. So I'm not sure if that speaks to what you're talking about. But it could be of some interest and benefit to excuse me to relate to these experiences and that capacity, maybe with a slightly bigger understanding. Sorry.

That's helpful. I'm just I'm not at the place. And I have a long way to go until I'm empty. And so when I think about that, I'm, I don't want to, like bypass it, and just say, like, I my mind needs to get bigger. You know? Because

when you say, Yeah, Chelsea, what do you mean? Bypass? What?

I don't want to bypass the experience and say that, it my mind just needs to be bigger or that I need to be empty. Right? So having the experience and it's still happening?

Yeah, and I'm not trying to intimate that you should bypass it. I'm just saying you'd only if you're talking about you seem to suggest that there were a couple of instances where it felt a little bit less than comfortable, a little bit less than whatever, then then this kind of larger embrace or lack of embrace can simply kind of help you with that discord. So this isn't that native, any way a bypass a dismissive thing? This is more relationship thing. It's more if it becomes problematic, then there are ways to relate to it that can be make it less problematic. That's all I'm trying to convey.

Okay, that's a helpful clarification. Thank you, Andrew. So more of more than an embrace of what's happening, rather than reifying. It

salutely Yeah, curious. I mean, for me, it's just this is why, you know, my languaging I guess I call myself a good is for tax purposes. But I'm curious. I mean, I'm just curious about everything. And so I think this is this kind of childlike, playful way to look at what's arising as well, this is really interesting, like, what is this? And so if I find I have this wonder, chama Cara right this this attitude of wonder a my whole Oh, look at this, this is like effing amazing. Then all of a sudden, my relate not always congratulate or whatever my relationship to changes, it's less, less less solidifies less reified. And therefore everything becomes much more workable. So sometimes the seeming seeming mischievous, external agencies, then they also become utterly non problematic. Because I don't I don't I my relationships to him has changed in that regard. So something like that. That's what comes to mind.

Yeah, thank you, Andrew. Yeah, now that I'm, what I just got from this conversation is to use more of those protection mantras, and then also to figure out what kind of resources can kind of help me get to a place where my mind is embracing what is happening?

Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Okay, everybody Nice. Yeah, nice to hang. So, does the world need a little bit of our help? Right? I mean, geez, just when you think it's getting bad, it's gonna get worse. Well, unfortunately, it is gonna get worse. So to whatever extent dedication and error means anything to you always remember, we're not doing this for ourselves. We're doing it for the benefit of others. And what we're doing here can't help others. It's irrelevant. So if dedication Amira means anything to you, you dedicate the merit or whatever way it means anything to you. Send it out to all the people in the Middle East, while what is seen right. All the pain in this world connected them. Don't be shy, don't turn away from the pain, connect to them realize this is you and Arab and Israeli drag. So keep our heart open and do whatever we can, at whatever level to be a benefit. But outside of that see you around the town, so to speak, and pleasant dreams. Until next time. Bye, everybody.