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Q+A w/Andrew | 82 | September 8th, 2022 | Otter.ai

Q+A w/Andrew | 82 | September 8th, 2022

Night Club56min

Andrew Holecek

00:00

That's all that matters, right? So. So if you're new to this event, we've been doing this ever since COVID. Started, I think we just get together and hang out. People send me some really interesting questions. I respond to them. And then if you have a question give me really about anything, at least related to this kind of business so to speak. You can put it in the chat column. Better yet, raise your hand and the reactions bar down there. And we can always come online and talk about something live so to speak. In terms of announcements, not a ton right now this is a little bit of a quiet season for me which is great. We are releasing the Bernardo kastrup interviews part one and two. I just sent that out to our tech team today. So the first one the first part hour and a half should be done released within the next day. And then part two not too long after that. And also this coming Monday. This is kind of cool. I'm going to be interviewing, they reached out to me, which is really fun. Suddenly Rinpoche who's an amazing guy, one of my teachers, so it's a real honor. And Dan Goleman of emotional intelligence fame, they could just call authored a book on meditation. And so I'm going to be interviewing them both, at least if we can get a Rinpoche on line on Monday, so that's exciting. I'm really geared for that the book is really it's really a lovely romp. And so yeah, that's it. So I suppose to pause now Alyssa. No, no need to pause. Okay. All right. I have to do all my support people tell me to do so. I'm gonna start with the questions that were sent in. And then again, if you have something you want to ping out, let me know and we can talk about stuff. So there's different Joe. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are many ways to purify karma. Correct. But in listening to your interview, so Delson Armstrong. Yeah, there's two of them. Right? It sounded like he says the only way to eliminate purify the karma you are born with is to experience it. And how you deal with it determines if it is purified, diminished or adds to your karma. Okay, that I understand him correctly. I don't remember Joe exactly what he said around that because again, we had like what five hours of chatting with him, but I can tell you my understanding, and then I'd have to re listen to it to see exactly what he said. I just don't recall. Do you understand that I understand that correctly. So I can't answer that without re listening it listening to it. Do you think you can purify karma through various practices like bows yourself at pujas so feast and the like? absolutely, positively. Absolutely. So that's the most important thing.

Andrew Holecek

02:50

So in this respect, again, I can't say if that's for sure what Dustin said. That's one of the great gifts of these types of meditations. You can purify these habitual patterns, because most of our karma is right habit patterns. It's not like some cast iron deterministic thing. You have to go through this or you're never going to experience it. And don't think it works that way. It's just habit. So you can purify these habit patterns these experiences by all the methods that you talked about, you can absolutely positively do it in Dream Yoga. That's that's one main benefit of doing dream practices. You can purify karma in your chain. But the most important thing really that I'm picking out of this is how you deal with it. Here's the second part of your question here or statement how you deal with it determines if it is purified to administer ads. That to me is the important thing. Because when you're on the spiritual path is I've come to understand that you're breaking your opening and breaking things loose. All this stuff is going to come up all the stuff in your unconscious mind all the psychological habits and whatnot. And then also in your unconscious mind is all these these karmic predispositions, these deeper lifetime habits, archetypal habits, they're also going to come up. That's part of the that's part of the deal. That's part of the contract. And that's why if you're doing really deep practice, and you're no longer just window shopping, real meditation, real spiritual practice is a blast furnace. It's no day at the beach. I mean, that's why I wrote my book, power in pain, which I experienced when I was doing a really long retreat. And I felt like I was at a detox center. And so the point here that I'm taking where you are sharing here that lands with me, Joe is how you relate to it. It's what is important. So in other words, you don't need meditation. And by the way, cosmologically This is a very brief cosmological interjection in the in the Buddhist cosmological schema of world systems. If you believe in this stuff, we we live in what's called jumbo depot, which is a particular dimension of the human realm, very cosmological. And One unique feature of jumbo depot allegedly, is that you have the unique capacity in this dimension to purify karma very quickly. In other words, you don't have to wait for a future incarnation to burn it off. So that may be good or bad news, depending on the kind of karma that you accumulate, right? But it's apparently this is Dumbo deep was a very fortuitous place to purify a lot of karma. But the issue is when you're doing your practices and your mind is opening, remember Rinpoche Trungpa Rinpoche meditation is not a sedative, it's a laxative genius. stuff has kind of come up and has to, because it's stuff that stuff's on your subtle body. It's stuff in your unconscious mind. It's got to come up. So then the question like you're asking here is what are you going to do with it? How are you going to relate to it? If you push it away, repress it, reject it. You're just kind of do it cosmic recycling process, you're gonna throw it back into your unconscious mind. And there's kind of a large ad infinitum. If you relate to it properly, you can purify it, and that proper relationship is what the path is all about, not repressing that indulging, just allowing, like Delphi, John said, The American sage, the fire must have its way. So this is why understanding the view that when you're doing really deep practice and things are falling apart, I mean, Pema children has made a career out of this right starting, not starting, but her classic book when things fall apart. Well things fall apart and you have the right view again to remember a chaos should be regarded as extremely good news. That means the karma is ripening. You get sick, you get disease, you get all kinds of psychological upheavals. People think bad. I my life was kind of together till I started this deep meditation thing. So you have to have the right view comes up, you hold it properly, you relate to it properly, you accelerate it with these especially tantric practices. And things start to really clean up I mean, one personal experience, decades, decades ago when I was doing was called ninja Pro. You know, literally, no exaggeration had not had to do it. But I did 100,000 Peer 111,000 prostrations, which is standard fare. And I expected the maybe I'd have some psychological upheavals breaking loose with all this. I was quite taken aback when like I had all this physical stuff happen. And it was like wait a second, wait a second. Spirituality is supposed to be spiritual. It's supposed to be about my mind. Here it was my body was coming apart. That was a very powerful lesson showing me that you got to include the body. So if you're doing this real deep stuff this deep work, make sure you get your spiritual lawyer, look at the fine print and realize you're asking for it. Okay, so great question Joe. If you want to say more about it, more than welcome Okay. All right. Here's one from Katie.

Andrew Holecek

07:51

Have I understood correctly the one who recognizes realizes clearer light and the death process is liberated from the impulsive rebirth? So there's two parts to this question. Yes or no? Katie depends on the degree of recognition if the degree is that the recognition is complete, and we have what's called the mother and child reunion, Mother and Child luminosity is recognizing each other. Yes, and that's liberation in one life. They call it that and then you're free from any impulsive rebirth. Then if you want to recycle or take rebirth you do so voluntarily. So everything here depends on the degree of the recognition if it's just a glimpse, no, it's not strong enough. There's not enough stability. If the stability is really there. You just hit a grand slam, you're good. That's a bit rare, but it's not unheard of. That's why we want to cultivate as much as you can in this life. The development the maturation, it was called the child luminosity, exactly what we talked about two weeks ago, during the gala Mountain Center Program. Part of the question are the persons who recognize clear light and the deep sleep or tantric black practices then already liberated? No. for exactly the same reason, I should say yes and no for exactly the same reason. Because if they recognize clear light, like if they have 24/7 awareness, they recognize this. There's black clear light all the way through the light then yes, they're liberated. They're already awakened. For sure. But if they had like a fleeting glimpse, and there's a little recognition and it fades a little recognition as they know the stability isn't there. And so that's why okay. Oh, yeah. This ties into the next part, have I understood correctly that the liberation from impulsive rebirth doesn't mean automatically Buddhahood? Correct. Because there are many Bodhisattva levels before yeah, there's at least 10 of them depending on the system but 10 buoys The 10 Grounds. So yes, that's correct. Liberation from impulsive rebirth, doesn't automatically mean Buddhahood because for one thing, you know, Bodhisattva levels and then all the levels of enlightenment, enlightenment is this multi veil a term that has degrees it rarely, rarely, rarely, I mean, virtually never. Does someone just suddenly pop and they they achieve a complete 100% irreversible, non retrogressive awakening doesn't work that we generally why because again, there's no stability, habit patterns hadn't been purified. So therefore the stability is everything here. So in this case, if you're referring to the Bodhisattva levels, it was a 10 movies. Yeah. You still have, you know, 10 major levels to achieve before you achieve this. It's interesting to say achieving this is a little tricky term because it means just parenthetically that somehow we have to achieve gain something that's other and that's why this notion of achievement is actually quite tricky. It's more the notion of recognition that you're talking about, you're actually attaining levels, you're discovering them. Okay, again, from Part Three from Katie do the clashes, emotional upheavals, conflicting emotions, that's what that term means and sounds good to the clashes manifest is that's that's the subtle body. Yeah, you betcha. Absolutely. I mean, if you were to take I often use this analogy taking x ray fMRI, CAT scan of a confused sentient being like me. You would find a subtle body system full of knots and twists and crinkles and all kinds of thing. So that yes, indeed, the subtle body has there's a subtle body correlate to these emotional upheaval states, the collections. And so therefore, you can use your body to work with your mind you can use your mind to work with your body. That's the great gift of the tantric approach is bi directional. thing all together. My riff is why not use both right? Okay, here's another one from Joe, this is a quick one do you need? Do you need a lot less sleep? If you do several hours of meditation a day, does meditation serve as a substitute for sleep and meet the needs for our physical body? For sleep? It depends again. So if you have really deep meditation, and you can rest in the high formless jhanas states, deep Delta, yeah. And in fact, you don't you don't need to sleep at all. Now that doesn't mean you stay up all night playing video games, right? That means the mind just goes from gross to subtle to very subtle. can you maintain a 24/7 level of awareness? And the state there's a lot of studies on this, anecdotally is the same as well.

Andrew Holecek

12:32

People who do just a ton of meditation absolutely, positively sleep less and less and less. Because on one level, there's, you know, it's metaphorical and it's it's literal, that if they're distracted last analog to search, an analog to biological sleep. You don't need to physically sleep as much and so again, in the mind of an awakened one, they literally do not sleep literally not metaphorically. And I've asked a ton of meditation masters about this and every single one of them says absolutely, positively. It may seem incredulous, unbelievable, but it's absolutely positively the case. And they can put some of these people in the lab sleep labs and they can maintain I mean, they maintain awareness. It's pretty interesting stuff. So to say that meditation serve as a substitute for sleep. If it's deep enough, it can. Absolutely absolutely. TM started studying this. Like 4050 years ago, even the whole TM people. I'm pretty sure way back when I've got it somewhere in my old dusty library. reading some data about TM In fact, I remember when I did my TM instruction, they roughed out this like, I can't remember exactly don't quote me on this. If you do your your 20 minutes of TM it has the equivalent of a couple hours of sleep. I can't guarantee that that's exactly what they said. But it was definitely something like so that's for sure. Okay. Okay, from Jason and this one if Jason's here this would be really great if he came on because the questions a little opaque to me and I need some clarification. Why do reality checks that the assumption is that you are dreaming? Well, what I need to know Jason is what dream Are you referring to? Are you referring to the second the double delusion example dream but the nighttime dream or are you referring about to the primary real dream this? And so it really depends on what type of dream you're referring to. Right? Yeah, so the reason just to paraphrase the reason we do these reality checks is that we are under the assumption not that we're dreaming but that we're awake. And that's why we do state checks reality checks in the electoral arena, to chest state checks to test the veracity of what state of consciousness we're in. But the kicker is here in this dimension. You know, the very criteria that we use to determine that we're asleep and the nocturnal dream are the very criteria that are used to determine that you're still asleep and the primary dream and that's where the things get really interesting. So dream signs work the same narrative applies to both types of dream. But the relationship to those dream science is radically different. Right? So Jason, it really depends. Everything depends on what type of dream are you talking about. So if you hear a lot of Come on, that would be great. Here's one from Tim. Okay, in one of your meditation videos, if you asked the members the question, Where does the anger come from? When it arises? A few members answered the question. And you said their responses were close to the right answer, but not quite. My answer to the question would be that the anger arises manifests from nothing and that is ultimately the same place where it dissolves. Is this correct or not? I'm wondering if you can tell me the right answer, or point me in the direction where I can find it. Okay, Tim. So it doesn't arise from nothing. It arise from no thingness. That's a big difference. So this is this question. Can be addressed both in a relative and absolute way. From an absolute perspective, everything arises from rigpa Dharma Datu, Dharmakaya, Dharma, Thai, whatever term you want to use, from the nature of mind, in reality, everything comes from that from a relative perspective. Then this kind of column is somewhat connected to the other question about the clashes, this can come from the basis of the relative expression of samsara reality which is the eighth consciousness. Then you can also say it comes from the Latin your subtle body so once you enter the realm of the relative, you can answer this question in a number of different ways depending on the school that you're referring to, right. So it definitely doesn't arise from nothing. in an absolute sense, it arises from no thingness the emptiness luminosity of ranked by the nature of mind. So that's one it's a little bit more absolute. The relative answer, there are many, many different answers to where the anger comes from. And then you have to bring in the psychological agendas as well. Understanding also oops, wait a second, they just disappeared. On my screen just went did something weird. You heard us

Andrew Holecek

17:31

then they have little relative perspective thing, right? But to me, it sounds like you're asking more where it comes from on an absolute level. Tell us from rigpa if you want to understand this, both relative and absolute probably the yoga Chara tradition, the work of Carl balloon Halsall. He has written a ton on this so anything tam that deals with a yoga Chara. You've heard me use that term a lot the consciousnesses and then the professor nine to mine nine consciousness that answers this question to your total satisfaction. Okay, I'm glad in your recent conversation with Delson oh cool, people are listening to that I really liked this guy. We're gonna bring it we I'm gonna bring it back and we're going to continue our romp through the 12 Madonna's dependent origination because that's kind of his big thing and he is really on that one. Okay, in my conversation with Dell sun, he indicated that awareness slash raypak Wrecked remains through deep sleep he didn't use a word Ric GPA, because that's not that's not a terrible I didn't approach I interjected that. But anyway, the indicator the awareness remains through deep sleep. And if memory serves me that he doesn't really dream anymore, are these indicators for enlightenment again, I'll just stop there for a second. Depends on what you mean by enlightenment right? So we have this catch all phrase enlightenment, for a ton of granularity. So what type of enlightened are you talking about? All of us. Ah, all of us have either Leo who's written a number of curious interesting books. He shows a story about when people ask him, you know, something about his enlightenment, you know, can you talk to us about your enlightenment experience his common responses, which one? So, it depends, are these indicators for light but it depends, depends on which stage are you talking about? Are Hotbird are you talking about Buddhahood? Are you talking about one of the Bodhisattva levels? Are you talking about one of the stages of a Maha Mudra this isn't just arm sharing. This is actually a granularity that we can bring to our understanding of what is usually just a catch all term enlightenment globe, like, what is that exactly right. Used to be a magazine by that title by Andrew Cohen called what is enlightenment? is not an easy answer. Not an easy thing to address. By understanding back to the land my understanding is that enlightenment can be defined by being locked into rigpa. I guess you could use that term without interruption. I guess that's a Is that how you might define enlightenment? I learned you know, here's the thing about enlightenment. I just when you come to these sorts of things, glad I kind of get to the prasad Gigaba Jamocha approach the via the non affirming negation. The basically enlightenment is best defined by what it is not. Because the minute you assert it, you can deconstruct it and so therefore, anything you can like Korzybski the some anthesis even said this, and again, this is not sophistry. This is really the real deal. Whatever you say it is it isn't. And so this is precisely why the Prasanna Gigaba Jamocha people in the garden, chatty karaoke and all these Budo Paulo and all these others came along, to basically say, you can't say anything about it. You can intimate it, you can point at it, you can make some suggestions, but really the best way to discover what enlightenment is, is in fact, just that. Just remove the via negativa apophatic way just remove Remove, cut, cut, cut, and then you'll know how you define it. I mean, locked into Rigby without interruption is one good way. If you brought out that, under that assertion to Nagarjuna he would shred it. You could say it's the stabilized recognition, realization of luminosity and emptiness. If he brought that to Nagarjuna he would shred it. So this whole notion of what enlightenment is, again, geez. Not so easy to say. It's one way I think you could say provisionally conventionally if you put everything in quotation marks, that it's a state of uninterrupted, non dual awareness. Slash Reaper. Yes, I think you can say that. Okay.

Andrew Holecek

21:58

Now what did that means Delson is enlightened? Who knows I'm not gonna go there. I have no idea. I really liked the guy. He's a beautiful human being I find him very humble, very genuine. And I have to say I'm usually super skeptical. When I first heard about him like, I don't know when a couple of years ago I was like, oh, go here we go. Another guy. The other westerner who has attained enlightenment, right? I've seen so many of these and then they go crashing and burning. It's like, Give me a break. But Delson, I was really attracted to what I heard about him. I saw some of those clips. I have friends who were friends of yours. So this is a cool guy. So can I say he's enlightened? I have no idea. But he has a wonderful heart. A wonderful mind. Hey, that's good enough for me. Right? I'll take I'll take that. Okay, so if anybody has a I'm going to scroll through and see if I missed anything. If anybody has a live question or something in the chat, I can pull that up real quick.

Unknown Speaker

22:55

We can run with something or not your Deborah

Andrew Holecek

23:02

and Chris anything Hey, Debra.

Speaker 1

23:03

Hi. Andrew, wonderful to be with you and see you. I have kind of a little bit of context I want to share which has two questions in it. So I became a student of Adi Da in 1986. And then was involved with Samuel bonders work for many years. Right and through learning about you through the integral world. Last year I read preparing to die and have been been opened into so many streams of wisdom through you and I've taken many virtual courses with you not yet one in person, but I look forward to that. And one of the tributaries has led me to Dan Brown's work through Dustin diperoleh You know, just you know that you pass reason I do. Right? And, um, I am curious of your thoughts about Dan's work or his rendition or, you know, translation or compilation of what he's put together. And but the question for me personally, is about breath and breathing because I tend to be a kind of anxious perfectionistic compulsive person, and with instruction about breathing, I tend to get I guess, what Dan calls tangled up in breath like, just the more I watch it, the less I breathe and the more complicated I become, and, and yet in doing that practice, you know, there's no substituting some other object at least that I know yet. So I'm just wondering, with the practice of shamatha, how important is it to use the breath? Yeah, this changing voluntary involuntary process, which for me, is very problematic.

Andrew Holecek

25:10

So let's just say a little bit more about why it is problematic. Sort of what you just said, is it just you kind of implode around it or tell me a little bit more about Yeah, I

Speaker 1

25:19

start thinking very much rather than directly perceiving the breath. Yeah. And my chest gets constricted and I breathe less and I try to breathe in a certain it's just like,

Andrew Holecek

25:33

Yeah, I got it. Okay. Okay. Well, a couple things. First of all, I was I was a kind of backpedal just a one or two words about it. That free John Oliver Nanda, I mean how many different names and he had a big impact on me way back when actually about the same time he had a big impact on Ken Wilber. I just I read I have a whole shelf all devoted to his work. And he was I mean, this guy was out there, right. I mean, he was radical. He was brilliant. He was iconoclastic. He was nuts in the in the Crazy Wisdom, lineage. And I learned a ton from him. So Dan Brown, he's amazing. I have a lot of respect. Also, Dustin, Dustin is a really really good dear friend. If you go onto my edge, my podcast or nightclub, you know I have an interview with with Dustin. I've heard it. Yeah, we're in a study group together so I hang with him quite a bit. But Dan Brown is really amazing. Tremendous scholar, tremendous intellect. Really big in the world of Maha Mudra. Did some amazing translations. He's created this very skillful, as you know, or both and I do this really skillful. Kind of cultural translation mostly of the Muhammad your tradition that I think is really quite special. And the fact that someone like Dustin is his Dharma heir now is taken the mantle says a lot because Dustin is equally that way. He's also an amazing individual with a heart of gold super smart. And just the real deal so I have no reservations hesitations to endorse neither I dare Dan Brown or Dustin department. These guys are way up there in my world, so good for you. You're in good company. Now the breath thing is a really interesting one, right? It's such a big deal. As you probably know that even the word spirit is derived from a root that means breath. So breath work is huge. Specifically in terms of how to work with it. What you're sharing is not that unusual. And there's several ways to do this, within the context of Shama to proper and then there's also some kind of supplemental types of things you might explore, to help perhaps dislodge this temporary hiccup in relationship to your breath work. I mean, my teacher conference, he talked about like a 25% awareness on the breath, which I thought was quite good, because if we if one becomes to one point of them, then you can get this kind of implosive characteristic, right? So he was very interesting. We we tend to point out shamatha of the partner, but they're never really separate. You can't separate them. We temporarily centrifuge them out for a heuristic purposes for teaching purposes, but they're inextricably connected. And so wherever J taught shamatha he taught me he taught it mixed with the passionate and that's why he was actually quite quite cautious about becoming to one point he wasn't interested in the Java states at all is most Mahamudra devotion people are they could care less about those things. Because there is a potential if you become one point in kind of a locked in way that that can become a little bit too tight. So the 25% then therefore means 75% is environmental awareness. And so if you just shift that allegiance right there that might soften things for you, but the whole point isn't, isn't that just like lockdown on the breathing? Because then if you do, I think what happens is you fall into this too tight syndrome, which is what I'm feeling from you. So the balancing point, right, not too tight, not too loose. This is this is what we do. We take off extremes. And so if you're in that particular level, it's totally completely workable. The other thing is, in addition to the 25 75%, is this is pretty much a somatic felt, exercise with breath. You know, it's really not thinking about it, you're not visualizing it, you're just simply feeling the natural movement of your breathing. And so I think along those lines, that in itself could be very helpful. Also, if you haven't read it, I found Charlie Morley's recent book I interviewed him. In fact, if you look at my second interview with Charlie, you'll find this a nightclub for sure. I'm not sure if it's an edge of mine. But Charlie's a wonderful guy. The second interview I did with him not that long ago was on his most recently released book. And he has some really nice things in there about breath work. This way to work with just softening our relationship to it and you know, doing kind of preparatory breath work before you actually even start meditation. I found it actually quite skillful. I can't remember the title of the book off the top of my head. But if you look if you listen to the interview on nightclub you'll, you'll get it. So I think if you do that, and then also, do you do yoga or any kind of bodywork, do anything like that?

Andrew Holecek

30:35

Hatha Yoga or Stanga or vinyasa? Do you any kind of yoga? Yes, they do. Yeah. And so what happens when you're involved with the yoga you with your asanas and the breathing then breathing problem, right?

Speaker 1

30:47

Yeah, it's natural. It opens because I'm not tightly focusing. Just like you said.

Andrew Holecek

30:53

Exactly. It is because your body is inviting, almost forcing more of an environmental awareness. See? And so, you know, this is why it's helpful to understand the view of shamatha all together. It doesn't matter if you're doing it with yoga doesn't matter if you're doing with a flashlight shouldn't say that. I have to say that quotations the essence of the shutter vector, so to speak, is pacification tranquility. You're just trying to settle the mind settle the mind. And so if you do that, then you realize that yoga can do it. Walking Meditation can do it, and I might invite them some more. Kind of movement based practices, walking meditation, yoga, tai chi. I don't know if you do LU Jiang those sorts of practices. They will help you relate to your breath in a perhaps a more gentle way. The other thing you can do that you can try just for kicks and again to do this to see if it worked. Become your meditation instructor. You can take a break when you feel like you're getting all kind of wound up so to speak. And you can do a nine fold breath purification thing you know, what you do is you if you put your hands thumb at the base of your ring finger, close it over your fist, take a really deep breath. Put it on your knees, hold a deep breath for I don't know 1015 20 seconds and then you do a very powerful exhalation you start slow and then at the end quite forcefully display the fingers out and there's a sense of just blowing out all the center cylinders, all the pores, excellent exhaling through every pore in your body. And you do this slowly so there's no hyperventilation thing, nine times and then notice when you're at the end of that 9/9 repetition, which can take two to three, four or five minutes. Notice how your breath and mind really start to settle and so as an antidote on the spot, so that you can work with this and apply a remedy. You could also explore something like that, but I think within that view, the 25 75% connecting into the feeling you get when you're doing your yoga, how that's not a problem with your breath work, then you might be able to invite that type of panoramic awareness slash but passionate ingredient in concert with your Samata so that you don't become excessively one point because all these practices have their near enemies and definitely one near enemy of shamatha is this kind of radical one pointedness which is somewhat ironic because they like you're saying it backfires. You just You just too tight. Okay.

Unknown Speaker

33:30

Yeah. Welcome. Cool. Was the book called wake up to sleep?

Andrew Holecek

33:37

I think that's it. Yeah. Thanks for pulling that up. Yeah, check it out. Charlie's got some cool things to say about breathing or the other. The other one is Wim Hof. Right. Right. Read read some of his stuff. He's he's he does some very interesting work with breath. Some of his jingles are x rayed, so I won't yell them out over the forum here. But anyway, it's all workable. Okay. Hey, Aaron.

Speaker 2

34:06

Hey, Andrew, is good to see you again. To see you growing up. Yes. So I had another dream experience. I don't really have a question, but I guess in a way I just wanted to tell you about it. Perfect. So maybe about a month ago I finally finished your course on the pure lands. Oh, my goodness. It was great. I've never, you know, had been exposed to anything like that. Oh, nice. Cool. So my grandmother passed away. She was the first person I ever known to actually have passed away so it kind of like shook me up. So I woke up from a dream one night, and she was in the dream and I was like, really disturbed and you know, really emotional, more emotional than I kind of have ever been. So I was like, Okay, I want to see if I can have a lucid dream. I heard about people asking for teaching in a dream. I was like, okay, maybe I can ask for a teaching to kind of learn how to deal with this or you know, it kind of made death more real to me now. versus you know, something you just hear about on TV or

Andrew Holecek

35:25

I forget good thing, actually.

Speaker 2

35:27

So I was like, Oh, who am I going to ask? You know, I've had previous experiences where I've called like on par with somebody. I was like, Oh, well, I heard you know, Amitabh was the Buddha of compassion. I was like, I should probably ask someone who's compassionate. So they're so typically, I'll make a dream plan like, you know, farther in advance. This one was really on the fly. Yeah, nice. Okay, you know, I'm gonna have a lucid dream. I'll ask Amitabha for a lesson. So I, you know, do my way back to bed, go to sleep, get lucid. And then when I get there, I start you know, like yelling his name. Nothing really happens. I'll say oh, the mantra I remember. Use the mantra. So I use the mantra there was like a cloud, it kind of shimmered a little bit. And then from often the distance coming towards me were three figures. So there was one in the middle who you know, I'm assuming is Amitabha. There was one on his right, my left, and it actually looked like Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche was he was carrying a yellow notepad and a calculator. And then on the other side was another figure I could not you know, just someone I don't know who so the one on his left walks kind of behind me. Then once it disappears, walks behind me, I can't see it anymore. So I'm just seeing, you know, Tenzin and Amitabha and he's and the first thing he says to me, he's like, You need guidance from a woman. I said, thank you. And I kind of got this feeling that maybe perhaps I did not maybe the way that I asked for him to come was not appropriate. But he did not say anything. So I just didn't say anything either. And I was going to ask for less than from me for me, but in the moment, I said, you know, I don't want to do that. Now that I'm here. I actually am previous to that when I would. Before I manifested him. I manifested my grandmother so I could speak to her a little bit. So I said, you know, my grandmother passed away. It would really mean a lot to me if you could find her and look after her and take care of her. And so him in Tenzin he says, okay, him and Tenzin are speaking to each other. I can't understand the language and I give them her name. They repeat her name many many times. And then they say like Doc key, they keep saying her name doc key, her name key. And I kind of peek over on the paper to see what's on the paper. There's a number written there. Like okay, you know, and they're talking I want to I didn't want to interrupt, but I had to interrupt him like, Hey, I've been in the drink quite a while now. I'm gonna wake up soon, you know, so I'm running low on time. He's, he's like, okay, no problem. He's like, I'm gonna give you a sign. I was like, oh, you know, I didn't even think about the sign. I was just got to ask you and then be done with it. He said, When the light touches the sky, you'll know it's done. I said, Okay, thank you. So as I Okay, well, it's time for me to go normally in my dreams. I know when I'm going to wake up because I can kind of feel my body in the bed to Psalm I. Okay, well, it's gonna happen any moment now. So then I wake up, and but swing my curtains. It's like the sun is just coming into the sky. Awesome. And so, a few you know before all of this happened, I could kind of feel like I could feel her around. Yeah, it's interesting because other people would come into my home and they would kind of get spooked out a little bit. And multiple people brought it to my attention. They're like, I don't know what you're doing in here. They're like, is there something in here living with you? No, I think you're fine. And I didn't want to bring it up. I say you're fine. And so but now I don't feel her anymore and I feel a lot more calm. So that was my experience. I just wanted to see, you know,

Andrew Holecek

39:56

yeah, first of all, thank you for sharing it. I love these kinds of uranium sharing things. This is just rocks. I mean, high five for you, my friend. He's super, super cool. The fact that there's so much to say the fact that people were noticing and you felt as well that there was this presence of her around you then there was because she was she was most certainly attracted to your mind space and taking refuge in your good heart and mind and you are helping her. And so that's a really wonderful thing. And the fact that that at a certain point, you didn't feel her, suggests to me that then either through Amitabha Tenzin Wangyal or whoever that other person was, they could have very well done a type of poll on your behalf. It's called the iron hook of compassion. I mean, I can't say for sure, right. But this is a kind of a standard esoteric, standard esoteric, don't go hand in hand, but you get the idea. The standard kind of tantric transference of consciousness thing that's really advanced. Practitioners, voters and the like, have the capacity to do and for you them to have the wherewithal with you, in the dream, to set the intention to ask this higher agency, whatever it was to actually look out and do something for her. That's an actually an invitation to do the iron hook of compassion. And my guess is the fact that you felt her and then you didn't feel her means that they were somehow able to do that. Find your consciousness, okay. And then who knows where they took her. Maybe they took her just locality, I don't know. So I'm sharing this partly from my own experience. So I had just briefly I had a somewhat similar thing. When my mom died. Some decades ago, I had a really very powerful connection to her. And after she passed, I actually invited her into my practice space. I would call her when I was doing my practices. I would invite her into my face and I would say, you know, certain things if there's any way I can help you by just being here with you, please, please be with me. So I felt her presence a lot. And then I had a really strong connection to triangle Rinpoche at that time. And the day that she passed, I was able to reach out to him through his receptionist secretary who I know really well. And then I gave a little teacher's gift and I said, you know, can you actually can you asked me to do this poll from my mom. And I didn't hear anything back. Like 234 days later. I did my morning practice and someone like you was like, I know I no longer felt her. It was like, Well, jeez, that's interesting. I don't know my feeling Maria. That was her name. I'm not feeling mom anymore. And then my niece, completely I didn't mention anything to her. My niece says something very similar that day. I think it was actually the day of the funeral. She said, You know, it's really interesting. I'm not feeling Maria here anymore. And then later that afternoon, I got an email confirmation from Trump orbit chaise Secretary receptionist that that was the day that he actually did pull up for her. And so what you're sharing sounds very similar to that experience I had with my mom. And so I'm just gonna leave it at that because I don't want to water down with my silly blathering. The beauty of what you shared. It's a fantastic dream. And I was I just want to give you a high five hug man. I mean, just super cool. Yeah, really. Thanks for sharing. That's a wonderful thing.

Speaker 2

43:15

Thank you. Can I have just another smaller question? Sure, far away. Um, so another practice that I have done and I actually did it before my grandmother passed even after her passing, and is not from Buddhism, at least I don't think so. But there's an African spirituality called E FF, ah, and it's heavy into ancestor veneration. And I know like I'm asking you about two different things, but I'm not sure if there are such types of practices in Buddhism. But I was wondering like when people pray to their ancestors or leave offerings for the ancestors. I have trouble understanding kind of what is going going considering things like reincarnation, like where are those offerings going to? If the person is you know, I'm like, so what's what's exactly going on?

Andrew Holecek

44:17

It's really that's a really difficult question to answer because it's different for the cultures, right? I can't speak to this particular African tradition and what they're doing but this whole notion is called filial piety. This is very common in Asian countries period, I'm sure in many indigenous cultures, so I can't speak with any authority about what they're actually doing. I can only tell you from my side my understanding that what takes place anytime there's this type of ancestral, you know, sometimes worship is used in the Buddhist tradition. They don't really use that type of terminology. But there is this recognition of of connectivity to karmic minds James You know, they have their own languaging for this thing. So it within a Buddhist framework, oh, when you making these offerings and whatnot. What's actually being offered is a particular quality of mind the material offerings, they're inconsequential. The material offerings are just the skin round for the mind and heart that's cultivated by making that offering. And then a universe that's not made of matter of the universe is made of heart mind spirit, then these types of dedications of marriage and whatnot can actually benefit for sure. So I'm cautious to dip into these toes because I'm not a cultural cultural anthropologist. I can't speak at all to what other cultures do when they engage in these notions of ancestor worship and filial piety. But in the Buddhist tradition, there is some connection, at least in the relationship that I just mentioned. Okay. Yeah. Nice.

Unknown Speaker

45:48

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Andrew Holecek

45:50

Take care. Hi, Anita. Fire away if you have a question. Oh, yeah, Queen Elizabeth passed away.

Unknown Speaker

45:57

That's right. Hello. Yeah, I can hear you. Hi.

Speaker 3

46:03

Yeah. I have a question. I don't know if this is the place, but I been in nightclubs for a long time, but I'm not many times I don't have time to, to have to you to have the same night club offers me. But lately I've been trying to get into the interviews and it doesn't let me I mean, I got into the Charlie's wonderful, the interview about the trauma and grieving I mean there's not a second that you have to lose in that interview again with gay Shannon says not ready yet or something like that.

Unknown Speaker

46:44

So you're having some technical problems,

Unknown Speaker

46:47

mainly many interviews I just can get.

Andrew Holecek

46:51

Well, that's really important for me to hear because then I just that all can be fixed. I just need to know about it. So you can send it there should be a place you can send it everywhere down arrow halachik.com You can just send me an email. I'll forward it to my tech people, and they'll get on it right away. Because this is the kind of stuff we need to know about. I mean, if there's something that's not functioning, we need to know about it. Because the website is getting bigger, there's more plugins, it sometimes things collapse that way and so thank you for bringing it to our attention. So send me an email.

Speaker 3

47:26

Okay, okay. And if you can put me DNA there, because so much nightclub can offer me and when I have the time and say, Okay, I'm going to listen to something and it just can get there. I don't know if it's my fault. Yeah.

Andrew Holecek

47:44

Yeah, we can we can help you with that for sure. That's why I have my tech people, but we need to know.

Speaker 3

47:49

I have. I have another comment. Somebody gave me this watch that says how I am dreaming.

Andrew Holecek

47:57

Oh, yeah, like Yeah, exactly. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Speaker 3

48:00

Amnesia is changed because often I wake up like at four in the morning, I don't move and meditate without moving. I just can't do the breathing is the same problem as they were I can. I just focus in the heart, and I made it cheap and it's really easy to get very, very calm but then in the morning, I read what this software says. And the time I know I'm awake and meditating. It says deep sleep.

Andrew Holecek

48:32

Yeah, you probably a delta. So that's a little bit tied to the question earlier about whether you're meditating or getting the rest that you need. So your comment ties into the earlier question. So you're probably in deep meditation, and you're in the Delta phase, and so you're aware. So you're just aware of in Delta, wavelength sleep, so that's a really beautiful thing. I get I can't I can't say for 100% Sure. But that would connect to that possibility. The other thing is, is doctor read or sleep doctor often tells us all these gadgets are there. They're helpful, but they're not always 100% accurate. So I can't speak to the accuracy of what you're actually saying. But I think perhaps a message would be connected to the earlier question about if you do deep meditation, is that the equivalent of sleeping, we could possibly what you're sharing is just a further affirmation that yes, okay.

Speaker 3

49:27

Well, it occurred to me now that when you were talking about sleeping and meditating I just thought that this watch doesn't work. But now it just says that I am in deep sleep. So I don't worry that I'm not sleeping enough because

Andrew Holecek

49:47

if you're rested during the day and you're not, I'm dozing off, then you're getting the rest that you need. Right. So chances are chances are quite good that you're just in a really slow wave pattern. When you're engaged, you

Speaker 3

50:00

know, I could get into data I don't think I'm so skilled, but maybe

Andrew Holecek

50:05

never know. You never know. You never know give yourself more credit giving. You may be dropping into it and don't even know it. So that's pretty cool.

Unknown Speaker

50:16

Thank you. Welcome.

Andrew Holecek

50:19

Okay, so there's something here from Yeah, Queen Elizabeth passed today. Sad. I liked her. I thought she was really cool. So we have to we have to beam beam thoughts of goodness and kindness to the whole royal family and everybody suffering from that loss. She's there. She was pretty cool. So when he plays with that thing, I'm reminded that you have said we can practice and in so doing help those who have passed. Can you talk more about how to do this practice? Sure I can. I talk about a candy just briefly I talked about it a ton in my book preparing to die also tend to tend to privilege a talks about this a ton in his book peaceful death Joyful. Rebirth. So this is a really big topic. There's so many different ways you can help kind of this Bardo midwifery thing. But the most important thing really the simplest thing there's all kinds of esoteric rituals that are write about in the book was called a burnt offering and Sir offering all these practices you can do and they're all wonderful, but they can get a little cultural and they can get a little bit I wouldn't Yeah, possibly complex, but the most important thing you can do, really, is that every time you think of the person who has transitioned, do you think of them with love? Every time you do anything of any value of meditation practice or a donation, any worthy cause you do a dedication of merit and their name. That is the simplest and most powerful thing you can do and all the Tibetans and other wisdom traditions will tell you again, you know, because the world is not made out of matter. The world is made a mind. Listen to the interview with Bernardo that I am about to release. We have a lot more power than we can think you can do Tong Lin for them the practice of sending and taking you can do a central power for them. There's just so much but to keep it really simple every time you think of them. You can think of them with openness and kindness and love. Every time you do anything of any value benefits. Sometimes you can do it overtly. That's called the savings alive practice the we said do it at the Abbey all the time, where people will go down to the wharf and buy all these crabs that were set for the market and take them back out to the ocean and let them go dedicating that for the benefit of beings. So maybe that in conjunction with the references of preparing to die book and then took return to talks about it a ton to Pureline practices, the polar practices there's there's so much you can do but just to keep it simple. That might be enough. Okay, what do we got here? Yeah, there we go. Anybody else before we click off we're close to the hour mark, which is usually when we try to click off at any other last offerings or questions or jokes. Otherwise next week is this week. It's a little bit late next week is really full. We've got money in my

Unknown Speaker

53:22

meditation group. We've got

Andrew Holecek

53:26

a new night for our doctor Ed sleep doctor. I think it's next Tuesday, because we're shifting from Wednesday to Tuesday night. Then we have the book study group. Then we've got dream sharing, and then we're gonna be releasing I think the Bernardo Castro. Interview so that's coming up. And speaking of the pyramids, I actually did forget we don't have we don't have it. listed yet. But I just sent the text off air and you might be interested in this for a deep dive. Pure lands weekend number two in October, I think it's like the second or third weekend. I don't know exactly what it's going to be a three day Deep Dive. Part two of the tour live thing I did forget about that. But that's that's not posted yet. So any last? Last words before we check out for today or are we good for now we're right about the hour mark which is cool. Nothing else coming in. So nice to see everybody we do this you know dedication of merit, if it means anything to you. Anything that we've done of any value, we'd be loud to all sentient beings and maybe particularly to Queen Elizabeth and and all the people that are adversely affected by that transition. But otherwise, if you want you can turn on your camera, unmute yourself and we can do this totally sweet, geeky thing this little group hug in cyberspace, which is kind of cool. Bye bye take care everybody. See you. Bye. Bye. Hi,

Speaker 1

55:06

thank you. I was having trouble with getting the interviews to

Speaker 4

55:14

who said that? Sarika okay. What is going on there? recording stopped. Did you can you hear me namaste Bye.

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