welcome back to the Thursday, we should, we should have like a little contest to rename this thing, you know what, what can you rename it like, there's a, what torture group. Anyway, everybody turn on the camera everybody's gonna say Hi, this is great because I get to see some of my European friends, which is wonderful. I had a bunch of Korean friends last weekend. Unfortunately, that's great. Thank you everybody. Unfortunately, the Korea event is not available, but I had so much fun with it that I'm thinking of actually offering it and, you know, without the interpretation, the translation because it yeah I mean everything takes double time when it's translated. But this topic, we taught on. Right. They asked me to add Mahamudra, and death. Many of you know Mahamudra is like the apex teachings in the Karma Kagyu tradition, really cool stuff. So they will call the four pointing out, pointing out, what is it all appearances are mind mind itself as empty emptiness is spontaneous presence, spontaneous presence is self liberated. It's a really profound set of teachings, which I honestly don't think I've ever ripped on this stuff. Now that I think of it. So anyway, I think it was cool enough for rich enough that I'm thinking of doing it completely in English as an English speaking program. So thanks for you who had interests updatestar stuff I did the best in or I wouldn't say it was the best I had the best time with Krishna Das KD on Monday. He's a hoot. Oh my gosh, I so love his music. Some of you may know him. He's just like pure time master. And I'd heard him in concert before and we've crossed paths and retreat centers and things, but I've actually never got to hang out with him for a while and we had a really good time and he completely disarmed me it was interesting because I came in there with all my little usual nerdy, you know intellectually irritating questions. And he, and he just like it was great. He just said, you know, he goes, he goes now I'm not I'm the wrong guy for that. And then I said, Okay, we'll talk about music and then he said, Nah, you know, I'm not even a musician in a certain way, it's like I just had to give up. It was really sweet. It was like we talked about devotion and all that and so it was perfect with the theme of surrendering. So I had this whole trajectory set up. And since I didn't know him. It's always, always a risk but it's always like, Okay, what's it going to be like, it did not go where I wanted it to go but actually went in, I thought got a really sweet, sweet place and so it was fun as we, he offered. I asked him and he offered to have his care time things a chance with commentary, and then I actually offered one of my Rachmaninoff things so it was it was a love fest, it was a new bromance. It's actually really fun so anyway that's coming up soon we just processed that that'll be released next week, Claire Johnson is coming up again she just published a new book, My dear buddy. She's a rock star. I really love her and her new book I'm rereading it I endorsed it. So she asked if she could come on in and get and I said, Are you kidding. She's awesome. So soon as I come back I'm taking all next week. By the way off, I, my first real vacation in a heck of a long time I'm going skiing. I'm a big, big time skier I used to compete freestyle is to be a freestyle mogul competitor. So one reason I can't play golf is because my back is so screwed up, but anyway I'm going skiing and Vail. Up to three feet of snow coming in if I get out of town so I'm going next week with my dear friend Joseph parrot is going to be helping out. Some of you may know him, you know he's a PhD psychologist 3d retreatants really smart guy really savvy, and he's a dear friend, hell of a golfer, by the way, terrific golf instructor and so he's going to be helping me out Monday and Thursday. Tuesday book study group will probably repeat or who knows what we'll do, but anyway, I'm taking the whole week off. Yay. So, Claire Johnson is coming up. We got the third in the series of science and medicine webinars coming up with Dr. Ed O'Malley, he's great, he's done two already. He's going to do the third in the series. If you haven't heard it. He's really good.
And then the last lemonade stand thing is the men love Tantra program, Todrick pure Land's End of the month, super excited about this one, I haven't taught this in, literally, 14 years. And as I'm going over the material and reading new books about it, that it's like whoa, I forget how awesomely cool this stuff is super pure line is what we did before there's you don't, there's no prerequisite so you can just sign up, I think Andy will put the link in. And this stuff is awesome. Tundra Pure Land means the Tantra is taken out Hans's the Pure land of the present moment, but it's really more about pure mind than pure land. And so the juxtaposition of sutra Tantra exoteric esoteric land mind is pretty fun, and Bob is just as you know Bob is Bob Bob Thurman is there's no I like Bob nervous, right. So, anyway, that's the lemonade stand stuff coming up so I thought what I would do today. I'm really deep into this, this book I told you I'm writing two books. And so, the one I'm, I'm pretty much done with that now I just have to you know the essence so those of you who are writers, you know, the essence of writing is rewriting, you know, literally over and over in slash and burn and cut and edit, you know, it takes a lot of work, but I'm done with the book. And now I'm going through the edits re edits cleaning out it you know that part of it. And so, I'm jazzed about this book. This is the one, the title of which is okay I'm mindful, now what it's a critique, it's a it's a praise of the mindfulness revolution, which is unbelievable, so many benefits. But it's also a little reality check because you know, mindfulness is great as it is, as I mentioned mindfulness will not liberate mindfulness just pacifies it's a tranquilizer. And in this age of such a people pacification is a big deal so it's colossal contribution, but there's so much more. And so I think eventually it'll top out. So, the charter this book is to is to introduce to people. Just an array of some of the practices that are available to them. So I'm kind of psyched on it so this is one of the things I wrote that I was re editing today I thought I would share it with you. So, little subsection here is training, or discovery. There are two ways to look at what meditation does. By this I mean meditation in his broadest sense, encompassing the entire arena of practices. The more relative into intuitive and conventional ways that meditation teams and then trains the mind, like any other discipline. The more you do it the better you get. And the more you amass the results. This is an entirely valid way to look at meditation, but the limitation with this view is that it is dualistic. The results are out there somewhere in the future and you have to work to acquire them. The second way to look at meditation is more unconventional. This more absolute approach is based on the non dual wisdom tradition and is therefore in is therefore unfamiliar to many in the Western world. From this more ancient perspective the many qualities that meditation seems to develop, or actually already present is innate qualities of the natural mind. Oh yeah, that's the subtitle of the book. Okay I'm mindful now what exploring the wonders of the mind, exploring the wonders of the natural mind or something like that. I'm sure my editors will completely change it but maybe not maybe I'm gonna dig my heels in and say me touch on this one. Meditation serves to dis cover them these qualities, just remove the adventitious defilements, you know, adventitious what that means. It means not inherent to, like, like, well actually I say here like dust. Just remove the adventitious defilements clean off the dust and the golden qualities of a meditative mind shine forth. According to these traditions, these non dual traditions. We somewhat forgot that we possess all these natural wonders in the mind. Meditation jogs our memory. It's like running commentary here, so it's like the budget region, famously said, great, great line. The essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. I would say pren, the essence of spiritual practice is dis covery uncovering, same thing from this dance the results you're after are always already in here present right here and now you merely have to unearth them. Well meditation shows a great deal with other disciplines. It is unique in this regard. I'm a concert level pianist and competitive tennis player I can sit at my keyboard or standing on the courts till I'm blue in the face, but I will not get better at either discipline,
as it happened yet. However, if I'm shown how to sit properly on my meditation cushion. I will get better at meditation. When people ask me what we do in my meditation center. When I sometimes say, well we do nothing, but we do it really well. this mischievous Maxim will come into play when we talk more about some of the more advanced meditations coming up. So just two more paragraphs, knowing about the seemingly opposite approaches to meditation helps us understand where the results come from the relative way is more the path of effort and training. While the absolute way is more the path of relaxation and D training. So what, like for instance when, when the, you know, I did the whole shamballa training program. I bought about halfway through I said they need to rename this, you know it's not shamballa training is shamballa D training detoxification. Why is this important, this more absolute view. First, it helps us to relax. Sometimes people just try too hard when they meditate. And that effort can backfire. Second while meditation may initially feel contrived and even artificial is actually the most natural thing you could ever do. Ironically meditation only feels contrived at first, because of all the contrivances that have accrued to obscure the wonders of the natural mind. In other words, Meditation only feels unnatural at the beginning because of contrast, because of all the artificial realities that have accumulated over our lives. In terms of mindfulness meditation. When you start to meditate, you're going against the monumental tide of all your mindless habits, all your previous training and distraction. You've been unwittingly trained into distraction and mindlessness for so long, to such an extent that that is now what feels natural, but it's not. Mindfulness is totally our mindlessness is totally artificial. It's a twisting and tangling of the natural mind. Mindfulness is actually what's natural. And meditation does the young twisting and untangling that reveals that radical truth. We like to buy things we like to buy natural things at the grocery products with no artificial ingredients. Meditation is the most natural organic product you could ever buy. It's a return to nature, the true nature of your own mind, once you get the hang of it, meditation feels like the most natural thing in the world. This more unconventional approach to meditation is also really good news because it helps explain why results can occur quite quickly, because you're engaging in a practice that is in harmony with the way things really are. Once you get over the initial hump of resistance. You may be surprised at how quickly you progress. Instead of spending your life swimming upstream, you finally relax and let the natural current take you where you really want it to go all along.
What do you think,
got to put in the column because it's all about me thumbs up, all is brilliant, Andrew was really good. Anyway, I thought I would share that with you because that's what I was editing this morning. It still needs a little bit more editing but you know that's my crack at it. So for those of you who may be new what we do now, is once I get over my little spontaneous riff. We talk about stuff, whatever you want. So I'm going to, there are a couple questions came in, let me go to my other thing here. And then we can open it up for whatever you guys want to talk about q&a discussion. Okay. Okay, so from Bruce. Does anybody have experience with Remi. I guess that anybody would be me. Well, I guess we could ask everybody here, I think, is it Remy. Remy Rene. This is a, this is one of the many knock offs, but let me read the rest of it and then I'll talk about it. What it is it's actually, I suppose, let me tell you what it is now because it will help you understand the rest of Bruce's question. It's a goggle it's a knockoff actually on Steven the bears he came up with this idea, early 80s I think I was actually talking to him about it. He came out his first prototype I still have it somewhere I have the actual the very first prototype called MOBA dreamer, it's it's kind of awesome. It's like a museum piece at this point. It's a very clever device where you know when you're, when you're excuse me when you're dreaming you're in REM sleep, literally rapid eye movement sleep and what Steven came up with was this idea that when the eyes are moving that could send a signal. In fact, that's the way that a lucid dream was actually proven in the labs. The Dreamer was actually sending like Morse code to the sleep researchers, but the goggle works in the following way. I have not used this one but I've used the Nova dreamer, a lot, when the eyes are moving, it'll activate a sensor, and some of the newer additions, I think there's an auditory cue as well. That, that takes the shape of a flashing light, light, light, and what you do, you read the manual, you sensitize yourself to the white light, and other lights for that matter. And then what happens is because there's communication, you know you're there, like if you're really cold, you know, you might be dreaming about skiing, that kind of thing. There's some communication. And so, in my experience, What happens and this has worked a lot for me, is I'll be driving, you know, in my dream lucid dream. And then it's like well why is this person in front of me pumping their lights, why are they, why are they flashing their weights at me and my dream. And then, because I associate that with oh, wait a second. Oh my gosh, that's the dream goggle flashing. That's a dream initiated lucid dream. Dream sign wakes me up oh my god it's a dream. So something in that new little pulsing light my eyes will move that triggers the light to pulse. And you can set it that's the key. They come with a standard setting and then you have to tweak it, that takes a while. Because if it's too sensitive, we'll let it be flashing all the time. And if it's not sensitive enough, nothing, nothing is triggered when the eyes move so you have to tweak it a little bit, but that trans dimensional communication is enough to trigger lucidity. So Bruce continues I find that it just doesn't cut through my sleep. Yeah, you're not the only one doesn't work for everybody. The unit works on I've increased the light intensity but with one exception I just don't see it during my dreams. The one time I did see the light and manifested as someone shining a flashlight me Yeah, exactly. So I can't help you here Bruce cuz I have not used this one. There's a bunch. I mean there's actually I saw some YouTube instructions where you could make your own. So I if somebody out there who's had experience that maybe you can help Bruce, I have not used this particular one, but the Nova Dramer which is no longer being made. Unfortunately, I have used and I've used it with pretty good success. But again, these things don't always work for everybody from Heather Hi I'm Heather from St. Petersburg, Florida, or Russia. I assume it's Florida. Isn't it the oldest city in the United States, isn't it, St Petersburg or St. Augustine or I can't remember. I'm Heather from St Petersburg and I have been practicing lucid dreaming for about four years on a somewhat regular basis, or most of the time I experienced vivid dream recall and have had several lucid experiences but I noticed that I go through periods of amnesia, where I can't remember my dreams at all, or I just, or get just fragments, for weeks at a time.
This is despite my day and night time lucidity exercises and having little stress in my life. Are there reasons for this ebb and flow dream recall. Yeah, there are, first of all, what are you going through Heather's supernormal. And again it's it's this. This amnesia memory thing is really interesting. It's really interesting. So, let me just go to a little primordial riff on this and then we'll be more practical, and a very real level. You know like when Roger region says the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance, this is a colossal statement, Because it's not just merely coming back to the present moment, which is what the word mindfulness, it actually in the Tibetan language translates as grandpa recollection. The practice of mindfulness is the practice of memory coming back to the moment, coming back to the moment. So not only does remembrance apply to that return to the present moment, but that's a kind of a micro step on the path to the primordial remembrance of our true nature, that again, we're already awake, we're already the Buddhists so this idea of, of amnesia and enemies is, is a big one. That's really in so many ways from an absolute perspective the spiritual path jogs our memory. And so the fact that you have periods of amnesia, I mean we all suffer from primordial Nisha you, Heather you forgotten that you're a Buddha. Really you forgotten you forgotten your Buddha. Whoa. So the teachers are all here to like don't slap us they're, they're here to jog our memories. Hey, wake up. Wake up. Wake up wake up your Heather you're a Buddha Don't you see that. So you know you have that amnesia, as do, as do is do many other people we just forget, you know, I think I'm just as confused. Cindy and being and Andrew kind of can, or Andy can confirm that yes indeed, he is a confused sentient being. So next time I get on the line, Andy, you should say, oh, no, you're not Andrew you're the Buddha, that's your job is to remind me okay but. So how they're practically speaking, what you're going through is super common. It's like, interestingly enough when I was talking to Katie Krishna Das about devotion, remind me of what one of my teachers Paulo PJ said about this where he said, same thing applies here. Same applies to these practices, He said devotion is, is, is like an EKG. He says it's never flat if it was flatline, you know, EKG you'd be dead. Devotion is up one day down then like the stock market up one day down one day up one day down one day. And so this is just absolutely par for the course, but you will find, like, here's another analogy like the incoming tide, you know elicits a tsunami the tide advances received advances recedes advances recedes, but eventually it just advances, right. So, when you're going through a super common, Why you're going through it now, hard to say but also I can tell you is a very very common where you enter these kind of droughts, deserts where like nothing's happening, man. Well, something's actually happening but it's happening below the radar. And this is where it's important to understand dimensions of mind. It's happening at the level of your substrate consciousness, you're, you're eighth consciousness. You're putting heat into the system, you just added a full boil yet. So, if you understand this and you understand what's called phase transformation. Literally the analogy of heating is good, you know, you put a pot of water on a stove, depending how big the pot is how cold the water is and how much heat you're turned on, you're putting energy into the system. But there's all these variables, sooner or later, if you just stay with it, you get this phase transformation it'll, it'll turn, it'll start to boil, you will start to gain more constancy and lucidity, but for now, what I would do is like Milarepa said so beautifully around all this stuff. Hasten slowly, what a great line right hasten slowly. In other words, keep going, that's the kind of
effort that's needed. But all the while having a sense of the power of the dark side. The forces of the dark side. And how mindless forgetful non lucid, we are, and that eventually if you just hang with that, you will start to find greater and greater frequency, but even then, even more advanced phases, so to speak, you can still find times where just you seem to enter this drought. So that's why it's always helpful to remember what the Dalai Lama says right I have a little, little scroll upstairs that says you know anything of value. Never give up. Never give up. So just keep going. Really, I don't mean to be patronizing here, the reasons for the ebb and flow, there's so many it's hard to say for sure, mostly that there are so many tributaries of non lucidity that are influencing us, this is bottom line Heather it's super common, and you just hang in there. So Marissa oh this is Mariana from from Munich high. This is one of my European friends. I think I may only have one European friend actually so you have to be really keep hanging there for me Marian don't, you know, please, please be my friend. Meditation and tears. This okay so for Maria meditation in tears. So now I am practicing meditating with eyes open. Thanks to the weekly meditation group, and I need to cry a lot, tears running down my cheeks. Is this a cleansing reaction, anything I should change, close my eyes a bit more,
uh,
you know it.
I mean, a couple things I just assume you're tearing up. Not just because your eyes are open all the time and if like, you know, physically uncomfortable. There are some practices where meditations where you like you keep your eyes open at all costs kind of thing. I'm used to, assuming that's not it. So yes, the need to cry is, is, is, I mean what to say I mean using the word good it's a strange label for this type of phenomena but,
um,
Trump RBJ once said, The ideal emotion, this is really beautiful. He said the ideal emotion is sad, Joy. Sad joy, gets me so choked up I have to blow my nose.
Sad joy.
And he talked a lot. As you may or may not know about the genuine heart of sadness. And so, is this a cleansing reaction. Maybe. Is it an opening reaction probably. That is, we slow down and relax and open. There's a lot of reasons to cry. And they're not all, they're not all bad. I mean we cry out of joy. When something is so beautiful like when I listened to some of Katie's stuff i mean it's so beautiful. It makes me cry. And when I read devotional songs and he said it was so cool afterwards he sent me all these really awesome devotional things I hadn't heard before these poems from Schwab card and the like is like oh my god. And after we got lined he said you know I'd really do em do but I did end up crying so I'm gonna do it. So he sent it to me and then he made me cry. So crying is is, you know, it's a good thing in the level that it denotes a sense of receptivity openness, courage to feel and the tears could be from tears of joy and just tears of just tremendous sadness of what's happening in the world. For me, Yahtzee dicey you know when I saw when I slow down and really contemplate what's happening. It's extremely painful, what's happening to the planet. To all the animals to the earth to life forms to to minorities to LGBT I mean, that list is endless. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And so in that respect the crying is really good because it's literally quality of compassion to suffer width, that's what compassion literally means suffer with. And so this is where things, maybe if you're doing the weekly thing perhaps this is somewhat what you're talking about Tom lamb, you know, the practice of sending and taking. Oh my gosh, you know, when I, when I touch into tonglen I do it every morning. I mean tears are just like right there is eye open, and just touch in to what's happening in this world, it, there's a lot to cry about. But here's the the so called good news with all this is that, you know, as you go through this journey of increased expansion and openness. Like I've mentioned, it's heartbreaking but the heart is really interesting organ and that when you break this puppy it just gets bigger. I mean a properly broken heart just gets bigger. And so the heart just continues to break and this is why the Dalai Lama, I mean it's the most amazing thing. I have seen him in public personally literally have to throw his robe over his head and just weep. Just absolutely weep. He's not afraid of showing that, you know he, he's just, he has this incredible capacity to feel and to just accept in the best sense of accommodate you know the pain of the world so should I change anything. I again I don't think it's a physiological thing, Then I would say no be a warrior, continue to open your heart continue to cry, my one of my, one of my friends Jeremy Hayward physicist was asked this question by a student in a really kind of poignant setting when he said to Jeremy said, You know Jeremy are our tears rain. I thought it was what a beautiful thing, or tears rain. Our aim, and Jeremy said, I don't know but what a beautiful thing to say, you know that you're raining in rain is nourishing, right, so I guess the thing I'm rambling here a little bit, but for me it's just the quality of, don't be afraid to feel. Don't be afraid to be open, don't be afraid to cry. That kind of vulnerability receptivity openness is actually a sign of strength, it's not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength, and then maybe, you know, the only near enemy there is don't appropriate it don't take it. Don't don't absorb it in that negative sense, feel it, but don't feed it, feel it but don't feed it. So, unless you have a follow up question and that's what comes to mind. Yeah. Nice. Thanks for offering that Evelyne, and then we'll go we'll go live after this one if there are some live ones. Okay is meditating and then dedicating the merits of practice while lucid dreaming more powerful than practicing during the waking state.
Ah, then just a second question it, yes it can be, um, and this is based on, on what the Maha Maya Tantra, in Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and others say that the practice we do in the meditation in the dream arena is up to nine times more transformative and effective efficacious than what you do in the waking state. So everything depends on the force of the intention. So if the if the intention is really pure, really clean. And you can do this in a lucid dream. The literature does say In fact, it can be more powerful than the waking state. Number two the inception question. I guess that's when the movie Inception right. Is it worthwhile pursuits, to try to commit suicide in a lucid dream. In order to experience death before I dive now, there is an original question, you get the original question of the month award. I don't know what to say to that one, I wouldn't say suicide because, I mean, again, that's a little. Seems like slightly aggressive. So I wouldn't use that word. This would be interesting if I could get you online, you know, trying to pursue seeing through the illusion of self, for sure, I mean that's what the nine stages of Dream Yoga are about, in a certain sense, very quote unquote qualified, it's a form of religious suicide. But that's such a loaded charged term, I, I really danced sensitively around the use of that word. So I guess what you're saying and again I don't know for sure, you know, you're talking about like going to the edge of dream ledge and jumping off the dream ledge. Yeah, that I would recommend walking into a dream fire, absolutely, that, that I would recommend because then you're in fact that their classic Dream Yoga practice is where you do that, because then fundamentally what you can discover is, as they say in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Emptiness cannot harm emptiness. And so if you're looking at the practice in that regard. I think that's warranted, but again when you say something like suicide, to me, oh that's a loaded term and can be somewhat self aggressive. I wouldn't do that. If you're looking more like seeing through the illusion of self self transcendence, that kind of thing if there's any sense of self aggression or even violence towards self don't do that. Don't do that. Because they even that intentionality may not be so cool. So again, the verb the wording the verbage here makes me a little uneasy. So I would probably say in strict nomenclature terms I would say don't do that. Oh there you are. Hi, Andrew, yeah, you're helped me out a little bit here. Yeah, I
didn't, I didn't mean like, you know, slip my wrist or anything but I was so I was lucid last night and then cool, suddenly I was like, oh, I should practice meditation because I've been thinking about how you say whatever we practice in our lucid dreams is more effective. And then, and then after that, I suddenly was thinking about what Altair said and bookclub like about his flying experience and then and then I was like oh I'm still lucid maybe I should just try to kill myself. I'm not commit suicide but
that, that's what I kind of thought, and I would say yes, in fact, this is cool I want to share this with you I just attended a little online book study thing. Study thing with a neuroscientist, really really bright guy from Denmark. And he's doing some really interesting stuff. And one of the things he said I actually was so cool I took a picture of it on my phone. He said resting in the present moment is annihilation. I thought that was a really interesting comment, rusting in the present moment is annihilation. And what he meant by that is, is that if you're truly resting in the present moment, you cannot do the CPR, that is necessary to maintain the narrative of the self sense, you know, ego is just the storyline and storylines cannot take place if you're resting in the present moment, that's a, that's not a page turner that's a page burner, that's a page Ender. So I thought, That sounds yeah meditation I thought was really wonderful statement you know resting in the present moment is annihilation. because it annihilates the narrative that is actually generative of the egoic structure. So, and that says, go for it, but in the other sense you have don't do that. Okay, yeah. Nice, good for you for having a lucid dream. So I'll take one or two that came in live and then Tim just penguin in here but I'll get back to Tim in a second.
Here we have, Bridget Sonia and Ted all queued up from last week. Awesome.
Oh that's right yeah we got to get to them. Yep. Okay,
hi and hi.
Um, my question is about the term Bardo yoga, can you somewhere, wrote and said, it's about losery body practice Dream Yoga and sleep. Yoga if I got it right.
But my question is, how about poor and Amitabh practice for instance, would they not be considered, also, to be part of Bardot yoga.
Yes.
Is that seen differently.
Well yes or no. So in the, again it depends on the structure so in the sixth yogas of Naropa. The two supplemental yoga poses are Bardo yoga and power yoga, they're actually they're separate. But in the same in the way that you say, both Bardot both POA, transferred some consciousness and pure land on one level, could be subsumed under the umbrella of Bardo yoga, so it really, you know, people are always especially scholars they're framing and reframing. It's actually quite helpful for instance, with. I read a scholar, actually now scholar meditation master, in his mapping he actually had the main, the main practice was illusory form. That's the main practice after chandauli illusory form is the main practice and then Dream Yoga is actually subsumed under illusory form, I hadn't heard that until a couple years ago and I thought wow that's really interesting to me. So it depends on who you talk to, they're all obviously deeply connected, they all support each other in the people just have different classic classification schemas, but you know Pureline teachings Amitabha. It's its own in a sutra exoteric approach it's his own thing, you know 100 million practitioners. They don't know anything about Bardo yoga, but within the Tibetan scheme. Amitabha puroland teachings, would probably be slotted underneath both POA and Bardo because when you do POA, where do you, where are you FedExing your consciousness to Amitabha, to the, to the cavity. So, there's a lot of variations on the way people classify these things.
Okay, thank you. Welcome.
So bring in Sonia.
Hi Andrew and everyone, and thank you again for always just being genius and incredible I'm so grateful. So, a couple of things. One is, when I was originally taught, and this would have been with a Glock PA school and my early teachings, when we talked about gathering merit. I was told dedicated immediately dedicated immediately because it's like having a debit card, and if you put it in the debit card bank, dedicated, then with your next burst of unwanted anger you could not diminish it because it's a bank, and that's why it was so critical to dedicate immediately because then even if you have an outburst you know instead of wasting, you know 15 kalpas of good deeds that you've accumulated, because you hadn't dedicated it's in the bank, and I wanted to know if that aligned with your standing of the relevance and critical importance and value of dedicating all the time
up there before you further. Yeah the literature does say that, and, and I chuckle because I think it's Chuck level material right so here's the image I have again this should be like. Andy, Andy, you should do this, you're, you're a good stand up comic, I'm gonna ping you some lines you should do like the Robin Williams of dharma. So, what comes to mind here is like you know. Okay, so I'm going to still be a total jerk, but I'm going to do something really nice. I'm going to hit the save button on my computer right away and then I'm going to be an asshole. Then I'm going to have my outbreak and it's not going to affect the thing I just did because I dedicated the merit, I mean, really. So I get the spirit behind what they say. But, and again, I'm, what do I know right, I just I read the same things that you have. And I read it a lot from the traditions that when you do something good, You, you want to hit the save button before you crash. Otherwise you dissipated, what am I gonna say am I gonna say no I can't really challenge that, because it is in the tradition but on another level. I, I just I'm like slightly agnostic and I wonder about that. So, that's all I can say some of these things are a little bit like okay well I guess that's what they say so whatever. But you know, the important thing here. Did you attend the parallel teachings with my love.
Well I got them just after I was. Yeah, in the days but I've listened to them now seeing them now.
Yeah, so you remember at the end, you know the most, I think the most compelling description of the refined approach to merit is the one from Alexander buzzin where, where he talks really beautifully about positive potentiality and how merit really applies to the 12 Madonna's on the 12 links and interdependence. That's really the way to think about merit, because otherwise in his I think really cogent criticism, you know merit, then seems to be like these merit, these badges these little girl scout badges or whatever, and I guess I guess if that's going to make you a good person, go for it right, but that seems a little bit reified To me that seems a little bit provisional to me while I understand it, I think is much more nuanced and subtle than that and that's why I appreciated with Alex had to say about positive potentiality perfuming intention perfuming directions, setting the stereo Linda Don is in the right direction that makes a whole lot more sense than these kind of you know this bank and this merit reified pet like pellets of pellets of karma or something right, it's like, somehow there doesn't seem to work for me except
that, you know, if you assume not assume but if your motivation, all along the path is to become enlightened and you're trying really hard and you're working on your power meters and getting better and better and better ever cleaning up, but then you have some outbreaks because you're not perfect yet, so then in a way it's like the punctuated equilibrium theorem where you get that, you know you're still not perfect but you, you know, but you keep on ever upward, you know, shifting the whole game up so that's kind of how I've been interpreting it, yeah. Thank god I've got some merit in there.
Right, exactly, but you'll see that here's a really colossal near enemy with that is, is, and I won't name names because I don't want to offend some pretty famous teachers on this, but I, if I was offline and this wasn't recorded I would say, I think that's just BS, when they say you know that anger is somehow anti dharmic, it's not, I mean that do not get into that it Robert Augustus masters in his book, spiritual bypassing has a couple of really, I think they're the strongest chapters on the book, where he talks about you know many people think they're kind of sitting with their anger when they're actually sitting on it. Yeah, so there is a place of anger and aggression. Aggression literally means to step forward and grass means to step forward. There is a place for that energetic, that's like Shoba that's larger family that's clarity of mind that has a place that energy in itself is pure. So what we know is anger and aggression in the provisional sense that stained because a reference, we have those experiences. We stay in that pure energy, which sometimes is necessary. I mean, you know, if you look at the 100, the pantheon of 100 and peaceful wrathful deities that are the archetypal expressions of the awakened mind do the math. There are more wrathful ones than their peaceful ones. Yeah, there's a reason for that, so I get really leery yes on one level anger is really bad, but that's conventional reference role contracted egoic anger. You know sometimes anger is the fourth karma before karmas, I mean, sometimes you need it, raffle action. I mean, tough Love is absolutely an order and I've seen teachers like, well I won't name names but I've seen teachers get really pissed off in public settings. And just like come down like a whip on a person or a situation. But the thing is it's so pure, it's so clean, it was absolutely what needed to be done and two seconds later, It's gone. There's no smoke, there's no residue there's no nothing, it was just really direct cutting minds usually blades action. And so I say this because sometimes it's easy to think of spirituality as this kind of feeble pure pacification love and light thing, or if you think that's the way it is. Good luck to your unconscious mind because you're going to have a hornet's nest of repressed unprocessed and metabolized digested aggression. So the idea this is where the tantric teachings really come into play, you know where you learn how to relate to that energy purely. That's a big topic so I won't go there now, but I wanted to throw that into the mix because there's nothing wrong with anger, if it's if it's used the way it's sort of being designed to be used. It's just the pejorative self referential thing that's so dangerous. So anyway, that's what comes to mind. All right, thank
you for that and I need to look into that more but the next question is more technical. Amitabha, we think of is in your throat. But isn't the seed syllable tree for Amitabha and why I mean I've
not I've seen Tibetan Tibetan, it depends on the language. I cut you off, I'm sorry, that's fine.
I mean you know what I'm wearing going, I just was a technical I'm not sure, white which is the seat syllable for Amitabha.
Oh, ha.
Ah, Joe, are you out there, the actual the beaches, the beaches syllable.
That was history.
Well,
I mean he is appendages to a lot of these deities. I don't know what his Beija mantra is his seed syllable is, it'll probably come to me, the minute this session, finishes, but I'm having a senior moment on that. I don't think it's I don't think it's free, but it could be, I just don't know. It's escaped me.
It's okay. All right, well,
it's dissolved into AMI tires mine so if it comes to mind I'll spit it back out, but it's not coming to mind right now
for many things that
I'll bring in TED next and Joe just typed in the chat, it's free, it's great.
There you go see, and yet he's are in the throat.
Yeah, these got you know, they're all over the place right so here's, Here's the thing about these syllables and their mantras in their chakras and their locations, you know, I used to get slightly annoyed by exactly the sort of thing well how can this, how can this chakra be read here when somebody else says it's blue, how come there's four petals here and another Tantra says they're six, and the teachers will tell you that. A lot of times there's variability flexibility in these rupiahs based on particular circumstance and the like, you know, I mean, I'm one instance Amitabha another instance on the tireless and so there I see a little irritated with that sort of flexibility because I thought it was sloppy, but lately I've just softened around the whole thing and that, you know, there are various ways to work with these various expressions and not get too tied up. I think the clarity is helpful on that, challenging the search for that clarity. But you know the near enemy of articulation is reification again. So always be aware that that's lurking somewhere it's like why does it have to be this way, apparent statically in the Bardot's This is a major problem with the elegance of the Bardo map the eight stage dissolution process it's so articulate, you know, a near major near enemy of that is like well this is the most amazing map. Unbelievable. And so when you have the experience and the territory doesn't match the map, what do you do instead of having the map inform you and make you relax you freak out, oh my gosh it's not supposed to happen this way, why. Well Wait, I hear a voice from Amitabha,
I've got a commentary on that. Wait,
I'll be Amitabh ah,
I have a commentary on that is from our instructor in the three year retreat, which we, We got a practice where we were introduced to practice late in the retreat where all the colors for all the different centers were all mixed up. And we said to him, you know, I think that there's a problem with this translation. You know, because they have green where there was orange and there's yellow and they're the white, red and blue isn't the white, red and blue anymore. Right. And, and he said, Oh, we do that sometimes, to keep you from getting the idea that it's real.
Oh that's great, that's beautiful.
So you don't attach to things being a particular version and they're stuck that way,
at that spot on. Yeah, yeah and firstly, the other thing that's great Joe. And the other thing that's really important, even from a neurological point of view, there is no color in the phenomenal world, there's no color in the world. Color is a construct. But anyway, that's a really great point. Thanks Joe. Okay, Ted. Ted Talks. Hi, Andrew.
Two clarifying questions and I don't remember the exact wording but in in love with a world bigger rapper shake. At one point says, I became, or I was the mountain, I was the river,
yeah right.
I was the tree and so on, is that one in the same as when you become nothing, you become everything zactly, so it's really just a different way of saying, exactly,
exactly. Yeah, okay.
So that's the first one. The second one is, and I'm doing a lot less watching the news now that our friend is out of the White House. But when he was and I was watching it almost obsessively. I was using it as reverse meditation, yeah, yeah. And so the my by question slash. Maybe fear is that also just planting and watering the seeds in the in the eighth storehouse consciousness when you're doing that when you're, when your input when that's coming into the consciousness.
It can be it can be Ted it depends on how you stick to it. So here's the thing about the Alia. The audio only things only land and get planted in the Alia if you give them a place to land. So you can listen to that stuff, And that's a good question actually, you can listen to that stuff. And in fact, it can be subliminally feeding your entertainment center. And that is then going to be registered in your area and that's going to then keep recycling, and you will start to see it in exactly that way, you will start to see it recycling and your thoughts and your dreams. It's just you're spinning that narrative. So in that case yes it's being planted. But you can listen to that, without planting. In other words, don't give it a place to land. You're just informed. But literally, the relationship, the experiences the same. The relationship is profoundly different in the first case it's it's contracted appropriated referenced, and then stuck to and the second one is like those no trainers, you know like those billions of neutrinos that are flying through your body right now. So you can still be exposed to that kind of thing and not let it stick. In fact, in a certain what sense that's kind of a good practice, is actually to listen to those things and notice how it affects you. If it's affecting you, it's going to stick. If it's informing you. It's not going to stick, see. So, argue but don't let it affect you. Adversely
when I'm, when I'm doing it as a practice which I was able to do most of the time, I would turn inside. You know what's the felt sense of what's going on. But then there were times when there was not the awareness there was not the mindfulness, there was, you know, but then, then usually afterwards in reflection. It was, oh, you know.
Yeah, I mean first of all thanks for saying that. SNL did the hit most hysterical thing Saturday Night Live couple months ago. It was a brilliant little skit about what are we going to do, do now that Agent Orange is gone. Right, right. What, where's the entertainment. I don't even watch the comedians anymore. You know, because the grist for the mill is gone. And so it was a brilliant riff satire on, what are we all going to do now that the grist for the mill is no longer a grist and in the mill. And so, you know, something that is better than nothing, it's very interesting what the ego does something that is better than nothing. And so the entertainment value of this guy is twisted as it is he was entertaining for the ego, because he was a representation of the archetype of the ego. So, I mean, for one, that's a really cool thing to do to relate to this very kind of colloquial expression from from both these different ways and basically using both his, his opportunities to practice. So it has to do with intentionality, it has to do with levels of stickiness levels of reference levels of appropriation. And again if you simply let this inform you without landing feeding and spinning out it what you want to stay away from is the poncho, the proliferation. That's what you want to stay away from. Because once that starts, that's gonna recycle, that's, that's the deep ecology, the recycling of these residues that as you know, it's, I mean, it's pretty sick but it's also perversely entertaining, it's a little bit like the ambulance chasing motif, you know, oh wow, jeez, that's really tragic but Whoa, can't wait the gooseneck and see what that is about right. So, just somewhere in there, we have to look at our motivations and see what's really going on. Thank you. Hey, thanks, amigo. Okay, there's a question from Tim and cam and then we can go back to the live ones. Cool, from Tim. Hi Andrew we are interested in our spiritual evolution and kind of understand that concept. What about involution, what is that. And can you say a bit about the concept, yes I can, um, yeah, I get a lot out of this perennial model so. Oh geez, this is a big topics and it's really interesting one goes all the way back to Plotinus, that Neale, the Neoplatonic philosopher, really sensitive mystic scholar philosopher who talked about he flex, He flux reflux, same thing. 1000s of years ago. Ananda Coomaraswamy or a Bindu, somewhat more recently Ken Wilber writes about it with a lot of power. I find this model of involution evolution to be extremely interesting and super helpful. You will not find it in, in the overtly in the Buddhist tradition have looked there intimations of it in the Trakia principle and other things you can say I think that's what they're talking about. But the idea briefly again this is a really big topic. Jason Smith and others also other perennial thinkers riff about this, but the idea is a very compelling one is that, you know, excuse me, that what happens is one way to talk about the entire cosmic play is that out of nothingness out of Dharmakaya Godhead whatever you will call, you know, formless spirit awareness, and the Bardo teachings are actually somewhat resonant with this is, this, this literally involvement and that's why I like the word involution is the involvement of spirit into an actually as form. So you could say that the, the progression of Dharmakaya sambhogakaya nirmanakaya. That's the extrapolation, you can say that's an expression of involution spirit becoming involved in an as form. And, and then what happens if you think of this as an arc and this is just a really quick bullet point, race across a really deep topic. If you think of it as a kind of a descending arc spirit formlessness, on the top, eventually descends involves reifies crystallized concretizes into form goes through this vast intermediate bandwidth of what the Buddhists would call sambhogakaya, and then it kind of bottoms out and what we know is matter nirmanakaya physicality.
And then what happens is, and this is where we can think Darwin, up to a certain point, By the way, Darwin did not discover evolution. There were writers and scholars before him, he just gave it the biggest voice, then we have what we call evolution, their return, you know, literally Darwinian evolution and then psycho spiritual evolution, the return of matter back to spirit. And so therefore you can look at the descending Ark is an evolutionary one, the ascending waart Ark is an evolutionary one and there's so many really compelling things about this map it's really powerful. One is this process is reiterated phylogenetically and by that what I mean is this happening all the time. So, and this is why I like the word involution every time a thought arises out of the background formless dimension of the mind, and we get excessively involved in it that's why I love the word. We go into a kind of runaway involution we get literally too involved with form. That's the definition of samsara. So, the whole guess there's so much to say here. One of the thing that comes to mind and then I might let it go and just get the topic is so big that one really compelling thing here, and this is also in line with this idea, the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. It's a little bit like a mixing metaphor is it's a little bit like a rubber band, you know, the, the descending are can also be the rubber bands stretching out, you know, your, your, your way you're farther, farther away from form for the deeper divers in here parenthetically, this also may tie into spinosus double aspect theory of mind and body, that's kind of interesting to throw into the mix. But then what happens is when it's stretched apart this way the rubberband form and formlessness, Then there's this tug, you feel this ineffable pole to what to return to source, you know to come back to formlessness, which by the way, if that's what death and old age is it's an involuntary evolutionary return. That's what death is. It's a forced involuntary rapid evolutionary ascent back to formlessness. So on one level the rubber band is a good one so you stretch, stretch, stretch and then we feel this calling, there's something missing, I'm feeling this pole. And that pole is actually to return to our to nature. That's the evolutionary input there imperative impetus and so the last thing I'll say here because again this is a really big one. This is this, this realized the Platonic version of the archetypes, not the union. There are subtle separate distinctions between young and platonic Greek archetypes. Here's a, for those of you who do what's called deity yoga practices, which Lama he rented shade talks about generation stage practice yet on deity yoga, he actually uses the term evolutionary yoga, which is when I read it I said oh my god this is brilliant. Evolutionary yoga. And what it does. I'm sure he didn't know anything about evolution, evolution but it totally ties in, because here's the way the logic works, and this is why learning about this stuff is really interesting for people who do these tantric practices. The first forms of involution. These are the archetypes, in the Greek sense. The first forms of involution, or the last forms of evolution. Let me say that again, this is a this is a deep topic, the first forms the archetypal forms. Then in Buddhist language are represented by the lights in the luminous Bardo of Dharmakaya first forms of involution are the last forms of evolution. So therefore, when you do these evolutionary stage practices you're sitting in your meditation, you're visualizing yourself as Amitabha, you're visualizing yourself as Chen razie Tara all these deities in their in your pure land, why are you doing that well there's a ton of reasons. One is it's an evolutionary practice it is a reminder, the essence of spiritual practices remembrance. It's there to jog your mind to say you know what you are. Chen razie, You are Amitabha you just heard God here's a deity yoga practice the slap you into remembering. And so it's a fake it till you make it practice. And then eventually of course the ultimate evolutionary archetype is formlessness itself, and that's where the formless meditations come into play. So I use this in my Bardo teachings because this recycling process happens at least four different levels, the beginning and the end of the universe, the beginning and the end of every single life, the beginning and the end of every single day, the beginning and the end of every single thought. And so therefore, this kind of universal process has tremendous explanatory power.
I'm gonna leave it at that, but it's it's a fantastically compelling contribution from now what's called the perennial tradition of perennial philosophy that I personally have I've used that a ton. It's helped me understand a lot of things. So anyway, big topic. I'll let it go, otherwise we're going to talk about that one for a week. Okay, who am I, Kim, oh yes, who am I, I don't know. So this is, this is a question from Kim see. Who am I, I am no I'm, who am I, I can be anyone. 10s of one year Rebecca has a poem on YouTube. Yes, I saw that it's really cute. I saw it, it's lovely. It's like a Doha. Yes, in a line with this and again this is the kind of the cross pollination between masters, this originally, I heard from before this years ago from llama he Ribbit J. Again, I mentioned him earlier on when he is a cool story where allegedly he was teaching a class or something and there was an actor in the audience, and he identified himself as an actor and Lama he got all giddy and excited and he said, Oh actor actor I best actor I best actor is broken English, I best actor. I nothing. Therefore I act, everything that was beautiful, right. I'm the best actor, because I'm nothing, I'm nobody. Empty. Therefore I can be everybody I can't be everything, I thought that was beautiful. But I do know this, this, somebody sent it to me I listened to it it's really beautiful, you can pull it up on YouTube turns on Juan Gil, Tom, it's nice. Yeah, I agree. Cool. Okay. Any live ones or Are we dead for today. Yeah, we have a few queued up we have Glenn, then Stephanie Beatrice and Kenan. Okay, then maybe we'll close it.
Ah. Hi, Andrew, green room. Yeah, wonderful time today, I have two questions. The first one is, maybe have some subcomponents. That was realized I was realizing that in fragments and and fuller lucid dreams I've had there's, there's often a characteristic not only a vividness but also inquisitiveness, exploration, discovery, and the whole sort of scene kind of buzzing. And I'm wondering whether that's just kind of a neon of my lucid dreaming, it's just a state, it's not a characteristic. And then, I've noticed that there can occasionally be when I'm walking around outside, real world is awake the whole thing is there, the same kind of characteristics. So I'm just wondering whether that you'd say that's like, yeah, that just exists but that's not necessarily a characteristic that I should identify with acidity. Well,
yes and no, it could be because you know then yams are, they're not always pejorative right so these meditation experiences like bliss clarity non thought this sounds like an experience of clarity conjoined with the experience of bliss. These are their intimate is their pointers, out of these dimensions and so they actually could be characteristics of the foundational state it's difficult for me to say cuz I can't step behind your eyes. But, you know, that type of. Oh, how to say it. Anything that let's put it this way anything that can help you. De reify your experience, whether it's in the dream state or more particularly here. Yes, that may be an Yom in the sense that it's temporary for you as an experience, but it actually could in fact also be a glimpse of the characteristic of this internationally non dual state. If you're still experiencing it as something other than you, then it's definitely still experienced by definition. I am aware of that. That's definitely a young, but you know, those types of experiences if they're related to properly, they can mature, they can become more stable realized and then you see the world. It's hard to say, you know, I'm not going to tell you how you're going to see it, but yet I guess where I land on this land is anything that can help you fractionate separate and see the world as illusory and de reified is good, so it couldn't, you know, these, these classic Nam experiences are actually pointers of the natural state for sure.
Thank you. And the second part is I'm slowly reading around 10,000 Young goals, Tibetan Yogi's those sleeping dream. Okay. And, which I find really quite interesting kind of jog and so one of the things I deal with is like my relationship to dreams. Previous 30 years has been for meaning, and I came across the statement where he said, meaning does not exist until someone starts to look for it, meaning and dream, meaning and dreams is not inherent to the dream it's being projected into it by the dreamer, examining the dream and then reading it. And one of the things I've noticed recently is that I, you know, the majority of my dreams are non lucid and I actually captured them all because I'm recording them, and then writing them down later, and the meaning the psychological meaning now seems to be eminent in it. Yeah, I guess what he's talking about is the the being in the dream is one thing and then as I'm writing down and realizing what it is I'm working with, that's the meaning that I'm projecting into this experience.
Correct, correct. And you can do both, you know, the one minor, I wouldn't say criticism because who am I to criticize him. The only thing that I would pander amends to what he's saying. I definitely agree with what he's saying is that you can, you can have an ethical relationship to your dreams, you can do both. And so I would, I wouldn't be so there's kind of categorical, perhaps dismissive quality to that statement, that I may not necessarily agree with on an absolute level, 100% the case. We're the ones that bring the meaning to it for sure. But that doesn't mean after the fact that you could use, you can't use that data in a interpreted way to help heal wounds and so that's the one thing I don't particularly, I use would add that amendment because it tends to land a slightly dismissive tone to the interpretive lens of working with dreams and I think it has a place. I don't think it's the most important place because self liberation, that's what he's talking about self liberation is the highest domain, let it calm let it arise. Well the reason it's coming up in the dream is because you didn't do that in waking life. You didn't let it come you didn't let it arrive. Dissolve you grasp back did repressed it or whatever. And so then that got thrown into your unconscious mind and that was coming up as a dream. So yes, you can sit there and let it come and let it arise and let it come and let it arise, but you can also, I mean let it dissolve, But you can also apply a different skill set, you can apply the more psychological arena, like why is this really coming up. Why is it really arising. So I like a more integral approach because that's slightly what he's saying is slightly suggestive of us, criticism of the psychological interpretive way of relating to dreams, I don't. I like to have a bigger approach. While I completely if I had to put my eggs in one basket, I would say yes to him, but I would say yes. And right then, then bring this other lens, why not use both, why not use both.
Okay. Okay, thanks. You bet. All right, next we'll bring in Stephanie. I see. Yeah,
yeah. Okay, so, Um, Andrew. I can't see anything yet. Okay, I have a preparing to die question.
Okay, are you about time.
So, in your, in your book, you said I think it takes around the length of time to eat a meal. It takes around 20 minutes you said the let you call that the length of time to eat a meal I guess it depends how long but anyway you gave. He said, For the more subtle body processes to continue once the gross body has died according to Western medicine that correct. Okay, so, and then, and then you were speaking at one of your classes that I've been in it, he said something like the outer reaches you have these master practitioners who are in their most subtle manifestations still hanging out in the heart area of practicing or something, present in some way in the heart area. You even three days after that body has been considered death. Right. You weren't sick there was more there so, so I am in the thick of dealing with my Advanced Directive and all these other death documents, whatever. And I have some practical things I need to answer deal with and I have a sense of conflict around for one thing around organ donation and and it, and I want to see how maybe how you resolve this yourself or approached it or how you suggest approaching it but because my understanding is that if you're donating an organ, you probably, unless, obviously, like if I'm in some horrible accident. Please take my organs. Fine, but in terms of the questions you need to answer for the directive, do you want to die at home or at a hospital and I'd rather die at home but you kind of need to be in a hospital if you're actually planning to donate organs, and also there, they want to take organs from a body, as soon as possible, according to what Western medicine considers dead and this is where the conflict is is that a part of me sees it as a conflict and may or may not be, but part of me thinks, Well, I kind of want my body to be allowed, not just my body whatever process of dying is going to happen I want it to be allowed to happen at its own pace and naturally and not have it necessarily interrupted by particularly Western medicines determination of how, when exactly. It's over, because it's, it's a
process
as I am coming to see it, as opposed to this black and white kind of thing where oh she's dead, you know, let's stop it all, and I understand. Anyway, I'll stop it there but you kind of get the idea that long, how long to allow my body to be left alone. And then that conflicts. I don't know the organ thing is just one, one thing that that makes that a question, you know. Anyway,
yeah, yeah, no I get it. If you if you know I write about this in my book preparing to die, you know, I have a whole section on organ donation so I'm going to gently refer you to that and go back to that maybe yeah I have I have a whole section on that. So you might want to look at that again.
You know, it
really depends on you. I've asked a number of teachers this question you know don't the tradition says don't disturb the body for three right. Yeah.
How long does the tradition say, yeah, that's not gonna happen in my life at this point it realistically,
I can only tell you what I'm doing, I'm an orange. Yes, I have it on my driver's license. Most teachers, you know, with, with the, with rare exception the hardcore traditionalists, that just, you know the read the texts like the Bible and no criticism, that's just the way they do it, don't touch the body for three days. Most of the people I've asked say that the highest activity body software, take it all the way into the into the depth and you know in Bartos be an organ donor. So I am. But as you say, again this is a big topic, you have to have the tissues have to be oxygenated you have to have all this stuff it's not as easy as it may sound, but you know the technicalities around it. This is a very personal matter. You just have to do what feels right for you. Right. Um So you read the literature you talk you ask questions and then you just settle with and say I don't care what they say that doesn't feel right for me. Don't do it, you know, you'll want to go, you want to enter the the end of life the Bartels a death state really relax prepared with whatever feels right for you. You read the literature you get the guidance, some of it may speak to you some not, but eventually you have to make that call. So I'm not going to tell you what to do around that. No, most of the teachers I've asked we're pretty clear organ donation is a really good thing to do. It's a wonderful gesture of giving and going through the barns with the bodhicitta state of mind is the best way to go. The inner the inner yogas for like dismantling and it gets technical, and I think in a footnote in that section in my book I talked about the technicalities, it only applies to a very small bandwidth of practitioner. Right. And so you might want to just look at that again. But, okay, that's what comes to mind. Okay, it's good for you for doing your doing your advanced. That's all. There's no fun.
No fun. Yep.
It's very tough activity to do it's also a form of POA is called POA power of the white seed. It's actually a form of soutra POA, to do your Advanced Directive, so. Okay,
thank you.
Okay, Okay.
All right, a couple more.
I get be interested and keen again.
Hi, Andrew, I, um, my question relates to some of the amazing things you've been saying about the sense of touch and proprioception and the body and the unconscious. And I guess my real question is how to use that in meditation, but I'm trying to pull together some of these ideas so you know the baby has propio ception but, but it's not until a parent says, This is your body that it starts to become kind of reified maybe.
So, yeah,
localized, and I'm thinking also of the science that you quoted in dreams of life chapter 13 Quantum probability clouds that repel each other, creating the illusion of contact. And then Tuesday. Just two days ago you talked about the body is our unconscious mind. Right and you, and you said the Buddha Buddha's don't have an unconscious mind and they don't have proprioception, And I think, I never said that I never said no, no. Okay I got it wrong then.
I never said that. I said everything else up until that point.
Yeah, okay, it just say, the Buddha's have no body, kind of,
Oh, lordy, this, this, this is where are you gay. Yeah good questions. But does have a number of different bodies, let's start with that. This is one of the great gifts of the whole trick HYAH doctrine is in the Hindu tradition, this would be the Kosha approach the five coaches that the Buddhists have number of bodies. On one level, relatively speaking, they have an outer gross body. On another level more subtle relative but still relative they have a subtle inner body. And then of course they have the most indestructible body of all which really isn't the body Kaia, quote unquote, the cheaper TIG lay the Dharmakaya. So when we say a Buddha doesn't have a body. The first question is, well what body are you talking about, you know, if you say Dharmakaya then you can say yes the Buddha does not have a body, the Buddha is no body literally emptiness nothing there's no thingness, but then they manifest the foreign body and the, the subtle body and the gross body and so that's one way to talk about it. Maybe I'll leave it at that because the other way is is is pretty esoteric, it has to do with what's called self appearance versus other appearance that the from the outside, we would we could look at a Buddha and we'll see a body like we see each other, but from their side of anyone happening from their side, they don't have a body. So they have to lose. I don't want to go there, that's probably a little bit too much but, please continue. Was there something else,
you're muted. There we go. Yeah,
so. Okay, so a basic mindfulness practice is mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of breathing, but then they say, Okay, do that for a while until you relax and then let go of that. And then we're into emptiness, so quite that fast
but yeah, I would hope so. Not quite that fast but I get the drift, yeah. So yeah so what you do here, here's the deal, you use the body while you have it so mindfulness of body first foundation of the four foundations, super important. And in fact, you know, so much of the spiritual path is really embodiment, but that doesn't necessarily mean exclusively physical embodiment see that's the key. So this is where you have to be very careful and your questions denote that kind of granularity is that yes, mindfulness of body is very important but you know if that's all it is, then what do you do you actually reify that body. So this is where it's helpful this is Tera Vaada and approach in the Yana, super powerful to tame and train the mind, bring it back to the present moment the body, which is always already forever only in the present moment that's super powerful. But the near enemy there's their enemies everywhere. The near enemy of that is suddenly reifying that Daddy, oh I'm coming back to my body. That's where the Mahayana comes in and says, Well, okay, you know this transitions into the second part of your question, There are more subtle dimensions of body within below the gross, and so on fact then you become more mindful of the subtle body. That's what all the inner yoga is about the whole array of inner yoga practices are about transferring identity from the gross outer to the subtle inner. But then what happens, same thing people tend to reify even that. That's why there's one more step to go so that's why you can't just go from levels of body to emptiness, you got to go through this intermediate bandwidth. But eventually, tying into the evolution, evolution thing, eventually you even shed that skin you even dropped the subtle body, And then you rest in this no body body isn't a fantastic, no body body, that would be a great song, but no body body, I like that. And so is over there of course that's emptiness, so you know these are really good questions. But in terms of body, you know, we start with what we have with growth out of body we land in the present moment. Eventually we're going to disintegrate not only the body but even look at the illusion of the present moment, the present moment doesn't even exist. That's an illusion. It's a construct, but the present moment is a gateway to the fourth moment which is beyond time. So everything is this kind of, you know, continued journey of refinements sophistication, going from confusion to wisdom into increased more formless dimensions of wisdom. So, something like that. Does that help.
Yeah, that's a start but I think this could be a long process. No,
here's what I would recommend here I'm recommending to several people. The work of Reggie Ray around this stuff Reggie's done some really good work around this he's written four books I read them all, And they're pretty darn good. It's all about the beauty and the elegance of somatic descent somatic embodied meditation the power of that. And because he's a tantric practitioner, he also goes through these gradations, you know that that I've been alluding to here. So just to give some doctrinal footing, And something that you can actually refer to, I recommend that all four of his books, they're really, they're really quite okay. They'll just give you a deeper appreciation of the body. It's great gifts and also its its limitations. So it's, as you suggest, it's a really deep, profound topic, I mean 1/3 of all tantric practices about the inner yogas. The other two thirds are about the other two bodies so this is, this is another one of these really beautiful big rich topics. So, something like that for starters. Okay, thanks. Thank
you very much.
You're welcome. Okay, got to start closing it up. Maybe the two more hands one and then the written ones we'll start with. When I come back, because I got I have to do hard stops on these every hour and a half, or every hour and a half so
just, just keen insane. Okay.
And then we'll get we'll get to Peter and Charles the next time
you just add a couple of quick comments on,
you got a haircut.
Not a haircut just letting it grow.
Oh, okay.
I like it. When Bob Thurman comes on, he's always he's no more nosy than I am, you know. Anyway, sorry to cut you off but,
oh no, no problem. Yeah, I just had a few comments something that I've been thinking about in the lines of evolution. Yeah. And so, a couple of things just came to mind one just nobody is everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was just gonna say. So the way I've been thinking about this idea of the way you said evolution, evolution is potential versus actual, and more so been reading. So from the infinite potential like the infinity to, to a limited being which is an expressed potential an expressed idea or archetype. And this, I'm, I've been contemplating this more in the Sufi tradition and a quote comes to mind which I heard recently from jumps the breeze was the teacher of Rumi, and somebody kind of asked him, What is that I can offer to to God or the infinite, what do I have that I can offer. And shump said, you can offer God, your need. Your need your need, need me, you can offer God your need. And so I've been contemplating that that that need is, is sacred in the sense because it is only through the limited being that that need gets expressed towards the divine. And so of course I maybe this is an endless contemplation, but where I'm feeling it takes me is empowerment of the individuality to express it in the in this realm as something something sacred and something not to be escaped but it is in fact, it is in fact the very self, and it can only express itself, the way it is in this dimension, so it is a form of self expression that is only possible here. And so hence it becomes becomes empowered and sacred but the last point I would make is that evolution and involution inform each other is in evolution is not really possible fully full expression is never possible till it's reconnected, back to source to nothingness. And once you could, what I'm experiencing this, this kind of arc that you're mentioning in the in the journey the second arc, which seems simultaneously you keep going back and forth, is that the more I died, the more I want to be a life. And, and live life in this dimension.
Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think that what first of all thank you beautiful. I love that the Sufi references. Well, I mean the only thing I might add, just as a kind of a slight caveat with the evolution, evolution thing as powerful as it is. It's still suddenly cosmologically duel. And this is why I tried briefly paying the iterative quality that is actually happening, like right now between every thought. So this is this is one of the problems with these types of maps in language in the unfolding. This is a heuristic, a teaching tool and it's a really powerful one. But one limitation of the evolution, evolution thing is that it's still the notes some set some implied sense of separation that you know, the rubber band has been stretched. Here I am, here's, here's the source. Oh well on relative level that's you could say that's true, but on an absolute level that's absolutely not true. I mean absolute level, you are the source. So on an absolute level that there's no stretching on an absolute level is just literally there's no journey, there's just a matter of recognition. And so, this is important to me because it, it kind of demands or invites. Again, like I like to talk a lot about these days the immediacy of the awakened thing but you actually don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to return to the source because he never left it. So that's the, that's the problem with this type of map oh I've got to do this whole evolutionary thing. Well, on one level, yes, relatively true but on another level. No, you just have to recognize, you're already in the source you never left the source you already are the Buddha you just forgot. So you know, complementarity. I work with both the relative is really helpful because we live in the world of the relative. It helps us understand the mechanisms of expression. life birth, death, the whole shebang fundamentally. But, you know, tied into that map is with any map is this causal causal, logical dualism thing that you're somehow separate from the source you never separate from the source.
Right, no, absolutely and I feel like that. The relative itself is transformed. Surprisingly by that connection with the non duality and I think a lot of the conversations we have around that is we're trying to reconnect with the source and that doesn't escape the relativity, but at the same time it transforms it.
Yeah I mean here trauma which I said this fantastic thing is a great place to end, it's one of the most I've studied this thing over and over in his introduction to The Tibetan Book of the Dead Eye it's just stunning brilliance, he said. The absolute experience, the complete absolute experience of the relative is the absolute eye it's just stunning statements. The complete absolute experience of the relative is the absolute. I'll just leave it at that nothing could be said more powerfully than that, it's not. I mean, there it is, to talk about the union of the absolute relative. That's it right there. I mean that's Trungpa Rinpoche J's genius state, amazing, amazing. So thank you everybody the questions that came in that I didn't get to. You'll be in queue next time for sure. I got to end these things that the hour and a half mark but always fun to hang with you. If I don't come back next week, it means I either got swept up in an avalanche or I decided to just run away. But otherwise, see you in a little bit everybody stay healthy, happy to whatever extent that means something to us let's dedicate our merit for the benefit of not all human beings but all sentient beings life forms animals, this world, and just you know before we get pissed off right before we get angry, let's hit the save button, dedicate the merit to all beings, nice to spend time with you. See you in a couple of weeks. Ciao.