Ready. Hey everybody, welcome to our Thursday gathering which What number is this handy, everybody has to turn on their geeky camera and do a geeky wave. This is a 5454 Oh my gosh, wow, that's really starting to get up there. Okay, hi everybody this cool thing about the, this session is all my European friends. I think I have only have two. All my European friends can join in because we make it a little bit more available. Hi Europe. Yeah, cool. So what we do. If you're new to this little show what we do here is, it's mostly a gathering where we just chat hang out do q&a Sometimes I make an initial comment or two sometimes they don't. And today I don't really have anything to say. So, what I do want to mention is just a couple things we have coming up. Like announcements we started, my dear friend Joe parent started doing this thing on Tuesday, yeah Tuesday on his really wonderful book. What is it a walk in the woods, I think I have it here somewhere.
Oh, here it is.
This is a really great book. So, this is what we're doing on Tuesday nights. A Walk in the Woods meditations on mindfulness within a bear in a zoo, it's just the sweetest little book, and it's a really wonderful book on mindfulness meditation, that the Joe and his sister, Nina, Nancy are reading through and writing commentary, so we just started that on Tuesday, and that's a wonderful kind of augmentation of what we've been doing on Monday with our meditation thing. So come join us for that. It's a freebie things great for kids. And it's great for the kid with us, it's an adult book written for kids. So it's a really fun Rob that we're doing with him. I did a recording with cold read I think you guys in fact heard that last week when I was offline, that's about to be posted. And I really I had a really great time with her, she's an amazing gal, neurologists I read your Vedic practitioners, and also Siddha Medicine, she has some really interesting things to say about the power of sound and mantra. So that will be released, I'm interviewing Claire Johnson tomorrow. I think I did her a couple of years ago, she just published recently a wonderful book. I think the art of transforming nightmares or something is really really good. So we're going to be talking, she calls it her nightmare book. So we're going to be talking about a really skillful way to work with nightmare. Nightmare principle. And then, Ian Baker, who's really one of the leading experts on what to call these hidden lands, they all in Tibetan. He's a really interesting guy, great, great fellow I met him in London, a number of years ago, actually I've been here boulder as well. And he's written quite a number of books. And so he agreed to come on next week and we're going to do something on hidden lands and how they're connected to pure lands, and stuff like that. So some of the things that are kind of on deck, but I thought today, since there's some really cool questions that came in, we'll just go right into those and then, for those of you who want to ask something, now's the time. Here's the place to do that. So that's what we do on these Thursday gigs so the first one is from a couple written ones and then if you have something you want to come in live on. And by the way, if, if the person who asked the question is here, and wants to follow up. Just raise your hand and we'll bring you on board. It's always a little bit better when I can have a little bit of exchange, because otherwise it's, you know, just kind of bullet point question bullet point answer. So the first one is from Patricia 95% of our life is lived out of the unconscious mind yeah so this is this data that I've been riffing on for a while 95 to 99% of what we do is dictated by these unconscious processes. That's a pretty humbling assertion. So how can we utilize the 5% remaining to create sanity and accomplish the work necessary to integrate the shadow. Yeah, well, the, the most important thing really is, is to use that 5% One to 5% to bring the other 95 to 99% into the lightest consciousness. That's the patch. That really is the path is to, to really transform all of these unconscious processes into the light of conscious awareness that, that's really what constitutes the Path of Awakening, because until we do that, our lives will be buffeted around by the contents of the unconscious mind. So really the best way to use that 5% is to work to bring the 95% into our awareness and of course how do we do that well, a number of ways, inner work, Because when you're working with the unconscious mind you're working with inner processes so you know inner work through psychology therapeutic processing Shadow Work. Meditation spirituality, the whole spectrum there's so many different skillful means along the spectrum of pious skillful means available to us. And so when you're talking about integrating the shadow, this is the term, you know, of course, made famous by Carl Jung, people tend to usually associate the shadow with negative elements. And obviously that's true but there's also what are called Golden shadows. And so, as as often said we spend most of our lives either shadow boxing or shadow hugging. And so we're always projecting
and the shadows are both the so called good and negative aspects that we unwittingly just compute are gonna have compute impute confer throw upon the world. And so until we do that, you know, we're not considered awake until we do that we're asleep and apparent theoretically, this is in fact why we literally sleep, because we have unconscious mind. This is why the awakened ones, literally don't sleep, they don't dream, because there's nothing to see the dream, everything has been transformed into the light of consciousness, and they maintain a 24 Seven awareness. So the way to accomplish the work necessary to integrate the shadow is, is to just do all the psychological, spiritual work to bring these processes into the light of awareness and that that takes real effort that takes real perseverance, it takes time. It's taken a while to download all this stuff into our unconscious body and mind. Therefore it's going to take a little bit of time to bring it in until the light of awareness. And by the way, the most esoteric levels, you know where is the subconscious mind well it's your body. Candace pert the neuroscientist says you know your body is your unconscious mind, literally. And so at the highest highest levels just to show you how far this goes that when you completely bring all aspects of the unconscious mind into light of consciousness you no longer need a body, literally. And this is what happens with really advanced practitioners when they die they is a rageous as it may seem, the body literally goes up and rainbow light, literally, not a metaphor. They don't leave a body behind, because they you know they don't really need one anymore, so that's a slight sidebar But Patricia that's kind of what you do, use the 5% to bring the other 95 into the letters of awareness. Okay from David. Yeah, so this is a comment from the, from the DR Chaudhary kobiet interview very provocative, not certain how much I feel it can be relied on is I am so embedded in Tibetan versions of things, is taking the ego out of the multi theistic perspective of India. That said, some Indian techniques have literally saved my life. In times I needed to take extreme control of my body so it did not die, including not succumbing to cold or drowning or more. Oh, that's, that's good. Okay so and have questions so oh here it is. So is it correct that Andrew agrees with a mantra perspective of the speaker COVID Yeah for sure David I absolutely, I completely grooved on what she had to say it's why I reached out to interview her because I thought her rendering, this comes from her book, too. Oh yeah, I have it here. So this is the book that inspired me it's called Sound medicine, how to use the ancient science of sound, to heal the body of the mind. The reason I reached out to her is because I part of the pot and I resonated with her work a lot, and we always have to remember David that the Tibetan version arose from India, right. Obviously there are some differences for sure. But, you know especially Buddhist Tantra. It was a massive debt of gratitude to the Indian traditions. And so I could I agree that there isn't anything she said I didn't agree with. I found her work on this to be one of the most articulate renderings of mantra that I've actually come across. In fact, I didn't get as much time as I would have liked with her she's super busy, but she agreed to come back on, because even though I think we got into some cool stuff in the hour so that we talked to so much more than to say she has a lot more to offer. So I'm going to try to bring her back on if you are here, David, and you are listening I'm actually would be curious to see what didn't speak to you, what didn't land with you. You mentioned here something about the multi year polytheistic perspective of India. Yeah, that is one of the differences Buddhism as non theistic in there is a bit of polytheism in India. But, you know, the processes, the practices the teachings, especially in the Vedanta, if I didn't know how to and then chemistry Shavers point of view, I resonate with a lot of this stuff I think is just spot on. So there's not a lot out there as overt as her book is on the power sound and the power of mantra.
You have to dig a little bit deeper to find things like the spot the comic is that particular is part of the, what's called the Treecko lineage of Kashmir Shaivism, so that's this is some of what I want to talk to her about, we didn't get into this at all the teachings on vibration. Despite the Karakas, which is, which underlies everything that she talked about we didn't get there and she doesn't mention this in her book so I'm not sure how, how much traffic she's had with his Chrome, but it really goes to the core, how the world is actually made of sound and light the vibratory principle is represented in mantra, I'm reading a little bit about this now in the trigger lineage as well, so stay tuned bringing her, bring her back and talk more, but if you are on David, if you want to say something about what didn't land with you I'd be curious to see what didn't land. Yeah. David is here. Oh, yeah. Fire away.
Hi. Well, I think it's a lot of it is
that I've, I've, I've been very. I've never really connected so much with traditional connection with Montra as being pure sound, expressing the unexpressible. It's,
it's never resonated so much but the but the main thing is the language is the eye language. Yeah. And we got that again, and the film that we watched a few weeks ago, was rom Das. Okay, now, Like so many of us I'm eternally grateful to Rahm das for bringing so many of his students over to Trungpa Rinpoche Shea, who when they saw Trump for MP Shea, they stay with Trump Grampy Shea
and 74 and 75.
At when ropa started. Yep. And so, and I've read be here now and of all sorts of friends who are students of Leary and
ROM Das. But, for instance, ROM das had, as that short movie kept saying, I am loving awareness. Right. And so the I am portion of it Yeah, right. Yeah, really. I mean why not I, You know
why I embody this action of loving awareness, rather than I am, because the I am kind of seems Eagle language. Yeah, and as skillful as say, embodying compassionate action.
I aspire to compassionate action. Okay, yeah, no, that's helpful and on that level, I completely agree with you and I think maybe what it would be interesting to press rom das hard to do not because he's on the Bartos, but even cool read that when they're talking about I hear, you know, are they in fact talking about AI in terms of self small assets, self big yes, because if you're talking about AI is big ass. It's the same. And I completely agree one book that you may want to look at David to really flesh this out a little bit for you is David Boies wonderful book on non duality in Buddhism and beyond. He has a really, really elegant rendering there about how the phenomenology of ins in the Hindu tradition, the self is absolutely equivalent to no self in the Buddhist tradition and I buy it. That makes complete sense to me. So I think when they're using the languaging is always trickier, isn't it, and I would with an open question to me and you have to press them a little bit about this is it when they start using a language, are they talking about a small answer i Big Yes, because if they're talking about big gas, then that's completely resonant with no s, with no self I completely. I have no issue with that. But for sure, small Si, yeah, if you're throwing an ego, then that's a different thing. But I'm not sure they are and, again, I can't say with authority. I can't speak for them, but that languaging has to be, I think unpacked, to have a really accurate assessment of what they're really saying, but with that said, I get what you're where you're coming from, led sure tricky for Buddhists as well. Isn't that yeah I mean the online thing you know, What do you need online, there is no online. Well with outline it I mean it's interesting if you look at in our languaging. If you look at Armand Bron right Brahman, I'm on. Yes, on mine would be child luminosity, Brahman would be mother luminosity. So can you make those kind of equations, I think you can but you just have to be careful we don't want to put things in their mouths, I can't say for sure, but I do think that, especially after reading David's work David Loise work on this, that again phenomenologically big ass, and no ass, it's the same thing, at least in my world. But anyway, appreciate it, amigo. Thank you. Take care. Okay so from Sean Paul also from the cool read interview, why did they ask you to do, which Montreux can induce deep relaxation. I know Andrew talks about how important relaxation is to our practice. Yeah. Well on that note relaxation is everything, both kind of colloquial relaxation in other words, just kind of chilling out. And then also, absolute relaxation, which means the, the general initial kind of query essence that I think you're referring to the Shemitah aspect. That's an entry level on that I will give you some modules you can do, do work with that. But this notion of relaxation goes I think even farther than you may be suggesting shantala In many ways, the ultimate irreducible instruction I often say this in relation to both spirituality. And in actually Bardo teachings what constitutes good death is ultimate relaxation where the only thing you have to do is just open relax into the nature of your mind. And so with that said, there's so many different monitors here, but just to keep it really simple, I would rely on what are called the Beija mantra is Big A, meaning seed monitors these are seed syllable mantras that again these are where do these mantras come from, they you know they come from reality there is, she talks about as Hillary talked about there. They're basically the vibrant bunches of basically tuning into the vibratory code of reality. You know these the people who come up with these mantras are fundamentally Siddha as I call them sit as of silence. People that are so silent, so quiet that they can, they can decode this vibratory code and so the mantras are actually the sounds of the awakened mind their sounds of the natural of nature their sounds of reality so people do not make up mantras, people tune into monitors nobody makes these things up. And so the people who have the authority to
discover these monitors are ones who are so quiet. They actually tune in and you can you can do this even in the, for those of you who are Buddhist you can do a type of toggle practice where you completely muffle your ears, you know, literally, jam your fingernail in your fingernail your fingernails jam your fingers into your ears completely cover your ears. And you may notice an underlying vibration hum. Neurologists will probably say oh there's just no neurological noise, maybe. But according to the contemplative traditions your, you could actually be tuning in to this fundamental, I would say overtone but undertone that that underlies all of manifest reality and so there are tons of mantras for all kinds of different purposes but the deep relaxation mantras are the simplest ones the Beija mantras the see mantras, and there are there are fundamentally three of these and Tibetan Buddhists will relate to these. Probably the most famous and accessible of all is all em, just all almost every mantra actually starts with a BG mantra. So that would be that in and of itself just simply reciting that om m or n feeling into it feeling what it does, it's kind of depth charge was them. That's a very powerful, relaxation, sound. The other one, there's two more. The other one is, ah, these are put on a second. These are each associated with a chakra, by the way these are designed, you know, this is maxima penetrating the vital point. These are like a target in my in my conversation we'll call read I talked about these as audible acupuncture needles you know the sounds that are designed to penetrate the chakras, to open them to release the energy to relax so the second one would be, ah, and again just so you can just see which one, or the pod resonates with you, just repeat that one over and over and see what that does for you. And then the last one of course is home, hm, home it's a little bit more, it's a semi raffle mantra, and just recite that like when in the tradition that David was referring to Chopra which is tradition. He wrote this model of monumental practice called the sadhana Mahamudra, where the core mantra is what's called the triple Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. That is that that's actually the sound of the awakened mind. And so that's another one, so there's more but just for simplicity's sake, I would probably number one prescription would be all on. These are designed to penetrate the monitors of the head chakra throat chakra and Heart Chakra respectively. And so I recommend you play with, with those and just see which literally resonates with you, but of all of all of those, I would probably recommend the first one the most recited over and over charge you with, you know, quality of the speaks to you of devotion receptivity, that kind of emotional affective component supercharges the mantras, the sound in itself has inherently curative opening capacities, but if you infuse it with a kind of a devotional component again. What is devotion. Devotion itself is a quality of opening. So, if that relates to you, all our home. And what I did, you know, when I did my really long retreat every single morning, we did what's called the yoga of awakening. So every morning when we got up for half an hour we did this thing. And part of it involves what's called a mental recitation of exactly this module. In this case it was all three syllables or my home or my home. So play with those and just see where it lands with you, and keep it simple, keep it simple and, you know, get back to me, let me know how these work for you. Okay. All right, um, Harold. Would you say that this last year of COVID isolation is a liminal period of great change as well as opportunity. Oh absolutely, positively 100% And Harold I talked about this because I couldn't agree with you more. I talked about this quite a bit. When the whole thing started to come apart. Last year I did a three part thing for tri cycle magazine I think it's still available on their sites a freebie, which was exactly the same how to use this liminal space, as an opportunity. I also came back and talked about it in a pretty big way, on my platform with the 10 week program I did the Bardot's in Everyday Life series. And so, I'm going to refer you to those if you want more info because I riff on this a lot, because that is in fact, part of the gift
that was offered and it's a little bit like what I'm going to be talking about with Claire Johnson tomorrow, parenthetically because she has a wonderful phrase about nightmares, how basically nightmares are gifts with ugly wrapping paper. I like that. And so, you know, again, we don't want to be dismissive and basyl Me too, spiritual about it but, but this whole COVID thing is a gift and really ugly wrapping paper, as in fact is any obstacle, you know, obstacles or opportunities in disguise. And so, yes, if we relate to what happened, and is to a certain extent is continuing to happen in a proper way. It's a tremendous opportunity, but only if we relate to it as such. Otherwise, the default is regressive not progressive, so with your permission of my friends, the tri cycle places a good place to hear me riff a lot more on this, or the platform. Bartles and everyday, everyday life. Okay, so this next one is from. Is it, Lilo or lie low. If you are here, I'm going to ask you to come on, because I didn't understand your question. What I can glean is English is not your primary language, and I mean I'm sure you speak English, a lot better than the language here Andrew oh she's there if you're here and you can come on, please ask me your question because what you wrote to me just didn't quite click, so if you're here. Please come on and ask your question live. Okay. Well,
I think it's me we talked yesterday. Remember, yes,
I did my short name for you is about the dream. When I go to sleep, sleep and I'm just going into a different space with dreaming. Yes, okay. Well, it's like, you know, I've had lucid dreams, but not so often, but since quite a while, and I didn't follow it up of several reasons that don't play a role now for this question, but since several years I when I close my eyes, I just go to a different space, And it's like I'm dreaming, it's not like I'm thinking about something and visualizing of Future Past or anything, but it's like I'm really like I'm dreaming, there are people I don't know their landscapes, cities, and it's like dreaming patterns, totally awake. Right. And it's not even that I'm gliding into dreams it's happens eventually, but it's goes long like that and weird things happen, and I, yeah, I just wanted to know, I have listened, a bit since then and use, probably it's what you call it call it hypnagogic state. And I just wanted to know what you can do with it what I now. Occasionally, is that I try not to be so much just watching it, but, like, touching something like the bark of a tree and get it into 3d and participate and get it a bit into a lucid dream like thing, but maybe you have some ideas.
Yes, absolutely. Um, it's interesting you say that because if I was gonna say something today it was gonna be a little bit on this topic because I think the last time. Two weeks ago when I came on, I think I started talking a little bit about some stuff I was writing on liminal dreaming. So, what you're talking about is there's a term these days, Jennifer Doom pair kind of coined it. And by the way if you want more on this I interviewed her over a year ago, the Jennifer de un PE RT she's on my website. We did a conversation about her book called liminal dreaming. So those are two resources that you can look at both her book and my interview with her, but you're talking about the liminal dreaming phenomena which is an older term, which is completely applicables is still what you're mentioning the hypnagogic space. And so this is a super interesting space there and there's a ton, you can do here. It's a really interesting thing to explore, both from a witnessing witnessing perspective like what you're referring to, so you can do it as it and as observer and also as a participant and so let me tell you both those tracks as an observer. It's a really fascinating space to watch this kind of plasma of mind right where you're you're not awake. You're not asleep. You're you're in this kind of hybridized space that you're talking about and there are some reasonably reproducible articulate ingredients to that certain, you know, people go through this phase of seeing lights and images nature scenes faces. Then the most interesting one is the thought image amalgamation phase where thoughts starting to bleed into images, you know, instead of thinking you're imaging, and then eventually that more sense of the second to the fourth stage, which would be these really short brief like micro dream let's where it's, you know, thought thought Image, Image dream. And so you can watch that process that in itself is super interesting, especially if you look at it from the lens of how the narrative structure starts to come apart. This is what makes this space. In some ways, just as viable as lucid dreaming because you're at that you're at that kind of transitional point where the ego is actually coming undone in this liminal space, and you start to see the gaps in the narrative, you start to see the holes in your storyline, and you don't see that so much in the dream states because the dream. When you come back up in the dream, then that the egoic narrative is actually still back online, it comes back online. So in that liminal space you can see how pages are being ripped out of this narrative of the relative sense of self sense and you can observe that you can say oh this is interesting, look how I'm kind of falling apart here. And then, in addition to that, that's the kind of the, the more passive observing observing role, a more active role is to then actually start to see, you know, the transition and by this what I mean is what you can do instead of just passively watching things, this is a little bit more refined. With your mindfulness and took them took over and he writes about this. You can very gently hold mindfulness onto a particular thought image, you can actually then watch that particular thought inflate. You know, first of all it morphs into an image, then it inflates into an image then it inflates into a little brief Dreamland and so it's a very interesting way to almost incubate these micro lucid dreams and to actually then engage actually can see these really short dreams, they don't last very long one to 510 seconds maybe we have to get really good, you can use it as a form of Wake initiated lucid dreaming, where you can actually take us fully into a dream space. But until that happens, it's just a very interesting thing to work with and either of those kind of vectors one is just observing this process of deconstruction, and the other is to actually participate ever so gently by watching thoughts holding on to them very gently and then watching how the inner winds actually inflate them into a brief lucid dream, so something like that.
Well, I just wanted to say I don't think, Willie in this state. I don't think verbally or in, it's just the images
to use exactly it's called Auto symbolic thinking so you're not thinking, you're thinking, you know the images or replacing the thinking, yeah,
yeah, yeah, when should happen to me first when I was in a meditation, meditation retreat, and I almost fell asleep, and then this started, and now I don't have to go so deep and it happens. Yeah.
Yeah, so this happens to everybody. It's just a matter of how aware are lucid to where we are and so it's really kind of cool that you're more aware of that. The other thing that you can look at here if you want to go even deeper is read Evan Thompson's masterpiece of a book waking, dreaming being. He's a very sensitive philosopher I also interviewed him about a year and a half ago, that this whole book is is about this particular topic how the self sense transitions from all these different states so if you want to go even a step further, I'd recommend Evans book. Okay, yeah it's really interesting stuff and it will absolutely positively kind of grease the skids the whole thing also doubles as a form of what's called lucid sleep onset, where you're basically eating a thread of lucidity, As you're falling asleep, so good for you. Very cool.
Thank you. Just could you write, Andy maybe the the interview I have access to the interviews. You mentioned you did an interview at just can't
get he can do that. Just Jennifer Jean pair. Evan Thompson, and then Evans book waking, dreaming being
okay thank you very much.
Yeah, welcome, welcome. Okay so from Rhonda Hi, Andrew. In one of your teachings you described the dissolution stages during dying like descending slowly down in water to the bottom of the pool. The description included descending all the way down through the subtle body to the central channel through this journey one becomes more insulated from the activity of life at the surface, you suggested this may be how, monks are able to set themselves on fire and who is there somewhere you describe this most completely your teaching of that has been one of the most comforting visions I've ever heard to help those who of us who are sitting with a dying. What looks challenging on the surface may be open and spacious for the day. Can you share more points to where I may hear or read more about this description, extremely helpful for those working at the bedside of the night. Oh cool, I'm glad, Ron I'm glad that's helpful for you. Yes. Well, I'll tell you where you can find more about that I'll say a little bit now. I write about this in some detail in my book, preparing to die. I don't remember which chapter, one of the earlier chapters I riff on this. I also, or else like riff on it. Most of the programs by Bartel dying, that I have presented us I'm trying to remember if I have anything online, specifically on that.
Oh yes, you will find it in. I did a six week course or try cycle a couple years ago on navigating the Bardot's. So you'll find a riff on it there, but the deepest longest rift is is in my book preparing to die. And yeah, I also find it really compelling because it's comforting in the sense that it describes what's actually taking place, that when a person is dying, they're just transitioning their identity from gross outer levels the body gross body to subtle inner levels, the subtle body, and then eventually to the most subtle of all levels, the indestructible, what's called continuum, the indestructible innermost body. And so, I'm pausing here a little bit because I also now that I'm thinking about it, I talked about it in. In the course I just mentioned above, the 10 week course on Bartels in everyday life, I just remembered I talked about it in that quite a bit as well. I just remembered. So it's a really helpful way to understand the whole dyeing process and how this transition is actually was taking place, and therefore is we substan the outer body in transition inwardly. What happens to the outer body no longer actually affects us. That's why these monks can do what they do, they can enter these subtle indestructible dimensions, and it just doesn't matter, a wit, doesn't matter a bit. What happens on the surface, just doesn't matter, it's called the changeless untouched nature. And so understanding this not only is it very descriptive but it is comforting, because it's showing you that it's only the outer Grace levels that are dying. The true you, the Ulis you the selfless self doesn't die. And that's exactly what we want to do is transition our identity from exclusive identification with form that's what ego is exclusively identification with form by our body position that identity to a subtle inner body and then transition that even further to this interval subtle body. By the way this journey is recapitulated every night when we sleep and dream so Sleep and Dream Yoga also creates an opportunity to explore this journey, dying the Bardo teachings, just explore this in a more overt way, but it's I find it extremely helpful as well, not only in terms of being around dying, but also around what quite certainly will take place when I go through the process of death. And it happens on a third level in deeply deep meditation. And in the Buddhist arena is one of the great gifts of Tibetan Buddhism. There are a host of meditations designed to work with all these bodies, and therefore, it helped make this transition so briefly, what are called the inner yogas. Dream Yoga isn't any yoga is included in this family, what are called Generation stage practices are included in this inner yoga practice, a whole array of meditations for you to practice to actually experience this. And then that makes the transition from outer to inner from inner to innermost. Then there's another set of practices that work with that, that's the genius of the boundary of Tibetan Buddhism, really super subtle practices Mahamudra Dogen if those terms mean anything to the fully formless meditations. So that's what's so cool about these, these teachings and practices is that they provide the map, and then the vehicle, the meditations, where you can make the map your territory, and therefore what now just can seem somewhat theoretical to us that resonates with us because it's true. This is the description of reality. But the most important thing is, you know, you read about it, and then eventually you practice it you experience it, and that's the dealmaker because then when things happen like you know these monks self emulating to conduct the great Vietnamese monk who did this. He and others can do this because they realized you know fire can't burn space, that there's a part of them that's completely untouched. And so if you can identify with that before you die. Really the death no longer really has any meaning. It only definitely applies to the world form. That which is formless that which does not that which is not. Oh, here's the way David boy said it,
see if I can remember exactly. If we can discover now that the something I'm paraphrasing here that the relative self sense does not exist, the problem of life and death to solve. Such is the Buddhist goal, to discover that which cannot die, because it was never born. So this, this particular dimension is is undying because it's a more. It's actually literally called the changeless nature. And this is in many ways the summation of both living and dying practices to make this fundamental transition into identity, that in a certain sense is the whole shebang, so I'm glad it works for you, that's cool. Okay, from Kara, I just got a mindful mind folder these really cool black muffs, I have one somewhere down here. Your super effective little eye shades. I'm wondering, the best way to start a dark practice I usually practice with my eyes open and interested in doing that in the dark. Are there other times you recommend wearing it. Yeah, you know, There's two ways to do dark retreat practice the sutra way and the tantra way. I don't talk about the tantric way, but I do talk about the sutra way the over the counter approach. And this is actually this is a cool thing to do, literally, my teacher can probably share it recommended, we do it I started doing it is, you literally he recommend going into your closet, or going into your bathroom where you can completely shut out all light, which is hard to do actually light is very powerful, it's hard to completely zip it up, and that's where these little eye muffs really help. The way I recommend this is literally putting your IQ mindful on practicing with your eyes open in a dark room wearing these things, so all light is is removed, but your eyes are open. And literally, to start it is just go in for 20 minutes and just see what it's like, just be curious, it's like wow I wonder, you know, what am I going to see what am I going to feel, how does my mind express itself in this level of visual sensory deprivation is really that simple. And then as that becomes more comfortable if it speaks to you, you know, it's like well this is kind of cool. Then you can do it a little bit longer, Do it for 40 minutes do it for an hour. I recommend going really slow being very playful being very relaxed about this, definitely do not try to do too much. But if you start really short, kind of titrate your experience, you can start to learn a little bit about yourself, you can start to learn about the way your mind works, and also how addicted we are to vision to light. So in the simplest way I would recommend that go into your closet go someplace that's dark, where these eye muffs, start for 20 minutes. That's that feels okay to you extend it to maybe 45 minutes or an hour, and then just be curious literally just be curious, how does my mind work under the situation of intense, or actually total visual sensory deprivation, it's really interesting I highly I actually highly recommend it. And your car is here for Oh totally, absolutely. Come on, come on board.
Okay. Hi.
Hi.
Thank you. Um, yeah because you spoke about something, I think it was in one of the interviews, maybe with, I don't remember, but I had been noticing and open eyed meditation these little jerks that might the muscles of my eyes were making. I was wondering if those were contractions like actual contractions that my eyes were making so I'm really curious about what will happen when I can't do that like, Are my eyes still gonna like, do that in the dark, which will be interesting.
Well even if they do, you will, it won't affect you because you won't see anything so this is actually quite interesting and this is why studying vision is such a super interesting thing to do so much to say here but here's one thing specifically it's very interesting that I read, quite recently that if a fly is sitting in front of a frog, you know, allegedly frogs feed on flies right. If a fly is sitting in front of the frog, the frog. The fly is invisible to the frog. It's only when the frog moves when the fly moves that the frog detects the fly in slow in a very real way. We don't have to wait for the world to move because we engage in that same type of process by exactly what you're referring to these very subtle jerky movements of the eyes where it's called micro saccadic or micro nystagmus motion where the eyes are involved in a very subtle ocular flutter. And that very subtle ocular flutter works to figure eight using Gestalt language to bring a figure out from ground if we didn't have that, that movement, we would not enact or bring forth the world and so what I recommend here is two things. I recommend, and this is one reason, it's interesting to do this like what the Zen people do is take your glasses off. Sit in the day, up against the wall, a white wall with your eyes wide open. And again, somebody can see what happens at night, just simply watch what happens to your visual field. When your eyes become extremely still. You may notice that your world kind of fuzzes out and even disappears and you can have your eyes wide open and you won't see you're like the frog. In this case it's not because the world is stopped, in this case is because your eyes have stopped moving. So, other, if you want references on this I recommend the work of Donald Hoffman, what's it called, I have it up here. Visual Intelligence, I recommend you read that and also a book by Richard Gregory called the psychology of saying, they talk about these really interesting aspects of visual perception, and how you can then use this. Even metaphorically and illogically to realize how it is that consciousness to actually figure eights brings forth an actual world by consciousness itself actually moving in this case it's the movement of the wings of the mind that does it so I like you, I'm super interested in vision, how the eyes work to bring forth a world, how we don't represent the world we co constructed, and one of the ways we do that is actually with this, this very subtle ocular movement.
Yeah, last question is Are either of those Bardo courses available to buy online.
Yeah they are. They are so if you go on like, like my stuff is all, all available on my site so the 10 week course, we posted that about two months ago, the tri cycle course you can get that through shorter cycle. That's still up and available through them. But yeah, the, the courses I mentioning, they're definitely up on my site for sure. Okay. Yeah, love your glasses, by the way, very cool. Okay, I got two more live one, or I should do more written one and if somebody has a live one, we can turn to you. So this is from Tim. I think I remember Andrew saying that he was able to have a lucid dream for up to an hour. Correct. If it is, how do you account for such amazing longevity, on the lucid state. I'm averaging about one to two lucid dreams. That's actually well well above average tunes have been for you, they only seem to last a minute or two, that's it that's actually really good. I would love to be able to increase their length and frequency so I would have more time to work with them for sure. Absolutely. Well, you know. Yeah, it's because I've been doing this for decades, and it's, it's because I work with meditations that allow me to work and stabilize these capacities of mind during the day so you know it's kind of you to say that it's amazing but it's not to me it's like playing the piano right I'm a pianist. I mean, I said that I listened to someone like Vladimir Horowitz, are some absolute virtue also and it's jaw dropping what they can do. Part of it is yeah they have some talents, but mostly it's because they work their butts off, they've just put a ton of time into doing this sort of stuff. And so I put a ton of time into doing the sort of stuff. And so I share this because, yeah, there's some magic involved, but it's mostly mechanics, really it's mostly just cause ality cause and effect. So to achieve this type of longevity, you know, work with your mind, because what What are dreams made up, they're made up your mind. This is why the moniker of Dream Yoga is the measure of the path. You know it's good, bad and ugly and in a certain sense, it will reveal your stability, clarity lucidity, or lack thereof, and so is your mind becomes more stable clear and lucid during the day. With meditation, well guess what happens, that reveals itself at night, your dreams become more clear and lucid and constant and so eventually of course, this reaches such fruition levels Tim where you know the minds of the meditation masters, all their dreams are lucid, there's no such thing as a lucid dream, every dream is said. So, yeah, it's, it may seem a little bit amazing it's actually not amazing if you do the work I've done the work. Do I have these every night. No, I don't have them every night. but, especially when I go into retreat. Absolutely is a direct correlation between my amount of involvement with this stuff, how much energy I put into it. And then this is just a natural consequence of that kind of effort. Okay. All right from Mariana. one of my two friends in Europe. Idea. A question why and more important, how do dreams symbols archetypes and fairy tales, speak to us, to which part of us do they speak. Why do they have such a big impact on us. Are there any studies on how this works. Okay, great questions. So dream symbols archetypes and fairy tales. I don't have a lot to say about fairy tales, But I can't say something about archetypes and symbols. How and why do they speak to us to which well, they only speak to us if we listen. Otherwise, they're not speaking at all, because we're not listening. We don't interpret these things they have no impact right so, for one thing the fact that you mentioned this
that they have such an impact means that you're open receptive to them that you're a good conversationalist, so to speak, in other words, you're a good listener. And therefore they speak to what to which part of us do they speak, they speak to that part of us who's willing to listen. And so the fact that you mentioned this is really wonderful for you that you are listening, and may have an impact directly proportional to your ability to be so open to their messages, and to receive that impact, so they haven't this is something you know should you should pat yourself on the back. Why do they have such a big impact on us. Well they don't for most people, they do for people that are receptive enough, every once in a while. Yes, a person can have an archetypal dream that will kind of barge in and kind of command attention. But most people, the, you know, who are interested in the stuff they just, you know, they write that off as an anomalous freaky experience and they miss an amazing opportunity they don't really realize it for what it is. So, are there any studies on how this works. studies, studies on this one. Nothing comes to mind. Sometimes I have to reflect on these and something will pop up. This is more in the domain, this is a question I could actually ask Claire tomorrow, because this is more in the arena of non lucidity and again not a dismissive comment at all it's a super valuable way to work with dreams, but I don't scour the dream literature for non lucid stuff, partly because it doesn't interest me as much, and partly because there's just so much out there, so I'm not that up on all the data studies on how this works, that's not my cup of tea. One place you may look. Interestingly enough, is I was just recently interviewed by a gentleman David Gordon. He writes a little bit about this. He wrote a book called mindful dreaming, you might want to look at that, that that is exactly this kind of alley, and in fact he interviewed me because he's doing a follow up book on this topic. So David Gordon he's a PhD psychologist. He wrote this book called mindful dreaming it's on this topic and he's a long term Buddhist student. When I talked with him, I was impressed with him so you may want to go to that book I did a speed read of it. And he, he riffs on this in that book. So unless there's something else Mariana if you want to come on and say a follow up or something around this weekend batted around a little bit, but you know this stuff is, again, I'm not in any way, dismissing it. Not in the slightest. It's just the lucidity doesn't really work so much with this sort of thing because it's a little bit like the relationship between therapy and meditation, where, and again these are all extremely valuable they have bandwidth of applicability I'm not dismissing it at all. But you know when you're working in therapy you are interested in symbols and archetypes and narratives and structures of that like, for sure. it's part of what that's about, in meditation, you're not interested in any of that, you're not interested in contact in content, you're interested in transforming your relationship to content. Same thing with dreams there's, you know, the vast majority of dream work is in fact along the psychological lines which again is super valuable. But lucid dreaming Dream Yoga does not concern itself with this stuff, it's not interested in dream content. It's interested in transforming relationships to dream content. So with that said, there is there is tremendous validity to what you're talking about, it's just not something I spend a ton of a ton of time with, because I'm just more interested in lucid dreaming Dream Yoga as disciplines but I would recommend David's book. And if you want to come on and share something along those lines, I'm happy to bet it around with you. Okay. All right, Marilyn. There are times when a small part of what I am looking at seems like a pinwheel spinning. What is that,
I don't know
if you're on, if you're here and can come on, maybe you can tell me a little bit more about what you're experiencing. Well, what I can say is, I can't speak just precisely why it would appear as a kind of a pinwheel spinning, and again if you were on here I could ask you some questions that might help. But one thing that comes to mind around what you're saying is that, when, when we slow it down and start to take a closer look at things so when it came to the earlier question about vision. We start to see things actually quite differently. In fact, one other thing to do with your eyes, that's a really interesting practice. This is not, not looking even at a white wall is and I started talking about this somewhat recently because I'm doing it more and more myself is to actually just gently hold your gaze on an object is is constantly and steadily as you can relax your vision. Focus your gaze on whatever object is in front of you without, like, you know, being super concentrated. I know tense on one garbage a doesn't really interesting practices where you know, he basically says Do not close your eyes do not blink. I don't care how many, how much your eyes are burning or how many tears are streaming. It's a kind of a little bit more, I wouldn't say extreme but a little bit more heightened way of working with this more gentle approach of just simply allowing your gaze to abide, I wouldn't say fixate, but to abide on a particular object and let it rest there. Notice, if you do that, how your perception of that object changes. I'm not going to tell you exactly how it's going to change because it's different for different people. But it's largely because our visual gaze is so fleeting so I'm kind of skiddy so flighty across objects that we don't actually see things properly at all. And so when we slow down and stop and hold our gaze visually steadily, you will start to notice things like halos appearing. Sometimes lights will appear, you'll start to see movements, and you'll in a certain way, slowly start to deconstruct your usual way of saying, this happens spontaneously through meditation practice this is just a little practice that can kind of heighten that. And then what that does, it's actually really quite compelling, is it starts to, in a healthy way. D stabilize deconstruct the way we normally see the world. And so I might recommend as an exercise that you try that as a general thing and I do it, it's a really fascinating thing to do, and what can arise, you know is really interesting there. There's also a study if you can find it. I looked it up. It was done in the 50s by the AI psychologist, Arthur diamond. He did a very interesting set of studies in the 60s I think, where he somewhere along these lines, he would people bring people into these dimly lit rooms, David Lloyd writes about this apparent theoretically in his book non duality, and he would, he would invite them to look at this blue bars, and then using some instruction somebody can't do what I'm saying here. People would be doing this for extended periods of time, and their relationship to the blue vows will change, profoundly. So, this sort of thing, you know, when when you simply slow down, start to look at things in a more reflective contemplative way. It not metaphorically it literally changes the way you see things. So Marilyn Exactly,
yes I'm right here.
Hey,
can you hear me,
I can hear you and it looks like you're through a steering wheel.
I am I'm sitting in my car after breakfast. That's awesome shade. It's great. I get to relax on my day off. So I have experienced that like with my meditation teacher when I would be looking at him. His appearance would change. You know he would, it would change, you know, he might look like somebody else or he might have slightly different dimensions, and things like that so I am familiar with that but this thing is has shown up a couple of times and I'm just really curious. It's like if we were to look at a clock, it's, it's usually over like at between two and three o'clock on the clock. And it's just like a certain part of the visual field. It's still visual but it's like a pinwheel, and it's just spinning. I was just curious what the heck it is.
Those are really hard to say and we also cannot rule out what to call them topic visions and actual optimal callback issues in other words, sometimes these have nothing to do
with anything.
Oh, sometimes it's just just just part of your visual system. And therefore, literally, and I have nice relationships with optometrists because I'm interested in this sort of thing and so I'll ask them, and they'll go oh yeah that's a classic blah blah blah. That's a classic blah blah blah. It has nothing to do with psycho spiritual things it's purely physiological and neurological, so you can't rule out that possibility, let me just say something about the teacher thing however, when you introduce that topic that you're looking at a teacher and they start to change, that's a slightly, it's connected but it's also a slightly different thing because sometimes they can do very interesting things and there if you look at some pictures of his holiness 16th Karmapa there, There are some images where, and again, who knows what's happening, where you'll see photographs of him in one in one photograph he's there in the very next photograph, you're seeing like a rainbow image of him. And so like, Is that happening is that a fear of mirror photographic artifact or is something of that happening from the Karmapa on his side where he's messing with you. Right, so I, as you probably know I have been with teachers where they mess with you and this way they they will shapes you and they will take on these appearances and you could do like a double triple take and say WTF is going on here that could very well be playing games with you in a healthy way. So, when you bring the teacher into it, everything changes because, you know, they can do all kinds of really interesting things like even disappear. So, but anyway, that's what comes to mind, it can be so many different things it's hard right, sure, but
seems like it seems like with my teacher, it, it was more like he was emanating part of either his lineage or like he said at one time, he had all of these. I guess you could say teachers show up and he goes, You know what is this, and his teacher said, Well, those are not yours, those are your students. So, yeah, I think, maybe he's just emanating, you know, either. Some of his teachers or some of the wine
knows, who knows. Yeah, usually when it comes to that sort of thing. I just completely surrender and go for the ride. You know something's happening here I can't wrap my mind around it. I usually sit back in amazement, you know, and wonder and say well look at, look at this so yeah that's, that's where that's where, okay, thank
you.
Yeah, welcome. Cool. Okay, it's not spiritual and neuro inseparable.
Well,
on an absolute level they're inseparable. On a no, you know relative workable level they absolutely are. They are separable and this is, you know there are again Julie if you're hearing come on and help me with what you're really asking, they absolutely can't be separated, in the sense that you can have spiritual. In other words phenomenological experiences that have nothing to do with neurology, that are completely independent of neural substrates This connects to what I was talking about earlier, you can absolutely positively have spiritual experiences that have nothing to do with neuroscience, or neurological correlates. But opor more surface levels you can have more surface level, spiritual experiences that absolutely do have neurological correlates. It depends on how far down you go. So at the top at the outermost level of what you're saying is true spiritual and neurological are inseparable. When you start to sub send the neuro part, the spiritual goes deeper. It's no longer limited by neuro, it's no longer limited to physical it's like what I was talking about really has nothing to do with gross and even subtle body. So your question can be answered yes and no, on other levels they're inseparable on deeper levels they totally are separable. Okay one more for Mariana and then I will probably call it for today. How would you explain that to a four year old. Oh, your questions. Okay. My son told me yesterday when I am looking at an object that moves, why is that. Oh, Maryann, these are tricky to say, you know, it's not so easy to say exactly why that's going on, especially with, you know the eyes of a child. Are they in fact seeing things in a pure way. And in fact, noticing the, The kind of movements, that's inherent in objects and what, what comes to mind here is, again, when you look at things in in an open eyed way, a contemplative way and sometimes children have this innate capacity. They can see things in their truest or truer dimensions and so what we look at is static objects are not at all static, we are the ones that impute status onto this for, for a number of different reasons so I can't say for sure why your four year old would be looking at something and seeing an object move that's difficult to say for sure, but it is entirely possible that someone that young is still seeing an object in its more pure manifestation because again if you're looking at things properly. Even in this case at a purely physical level, things are arising in in ceasing from from the zero point energy field. The implicate order all the time there's there is no state status and reality, period, none atomic particles are coming up out of the zero point field they're dropping back into it in a velocity that that happens with so fast that we actually don't see it we perceive puda status on top of that, so I can't tell you for sure why your, your four year old is saying that, but my intuition is that we're for someone that young that he could in fact be in tune with this kind of fluid state of reality, the fact that things are always in this kind of dance of motion and exchange of energy and the like, and it could very well be tuning into it, but these are questions that are really difficult to answer because there's so many factors involved right is that again, like the other question is it purely neurological, is there a psychological component is there a spiritual thing happening there. Is it a blending of all those who's who's to say, I sure as heck can't say. So those are just some of the things that come to mind around that. Okay. I mean, children are cool right beginner's mind right children see things in in a really magical way, I mean you know they have a they have a relative type of your perception. It's not the same as the pure perception of a master. This is what Ken Wilber writes about beautifully is the pre trans fallacy that it's very easy to confuse pre egoic states with trans egoic states, it's not the same. But that's a slightly different topic, so something like that. Okay, one last one from surely.
I like to try one of the nootropics for lucid dreaming, you said you tried Galantamine but I also see there's Huperzine A Yep, would you recommend trying either. If I've only had 1.5 lucid dreams in a year. Absolutely. I would recommend it. And Huperzine A. We're all different, I recommend Galantamine, because this is the one that has been studied the most in fact, in the interview I posted the last interview I posted was with Benjamin bear he's a neuroscientist, out of uC Wisconsin, he's done, he authored he co authored one of these studies, there's a number of them out there and the most recent one was one that he conducted on Galantamine so you can actually look up that study if you're interested in it. I have had the best luck with it, literally, 100% of the time, every single time. Every single time I have taken that to mean I will do some training. But that's not the way it is for everybody. Some people have zero luck with it. Other agents, you can try are like the ones you're referring to. David J. Brown in his book, dream yourself awake. He gives a, I think would be at least one if not two chapters on this topic. It is really quite good. I also interviewed him on the nightclub site, a little over a year ago. There's another book called advanced lucid dreaming by Thomas you shock. He also risked a lot on this sort of thing. I do recommend it. This is using the, you know, neuro phenomenological approach where you're in fact now using neurological agents these nootropics as a way to bring about or invoke invoke a phenomenological experience in this case we'll do some training. So I recommend it I really do. I don't recommend you use it with constancy and frequency, that I don't agree with, because there's a number of reasons not to do that. But to bump things up for a while, absolutely. but so what I recommend is people inform themselves, learn about how these agents work. There are a number of them, see which ones may or may not work for you, but I have changed my tune on these sorts of things I'm a little bit more open minded than I used to be. And when I do my Dream Yoga programs in person. People sign a waiver and we use Galantamine, so I'm a big fan of that one. So yeah, I go for it. I'd go for it. Just be careful, check your motivation don't do too much. Be careful. These agents are relatively harmless, but they're never 100% harmless. So you have to be just a little bit mindful about what you're doing. Okay everybody, so unless there's a last one oh there's the last one racing in here from David. Yes. What is the name of the David Lloyd book on epistemology of Hindu terms that Andrew suggested yeah so that is do I have it up here. Yes. David I have it right here.
There you go.
Non duality and Buddhism and beyond it's David's first book, I think it's a fantastic book. And he has two chapters, actually one on towers and one on Hinduism one on Buddhism. And he writes really beautifully about this sort of thing so I recommend it highly David is are awesome guy. Really cool man. So okay, thanks everybody. Gotta go. See you. Bye. I love these sessions, Bring your questions, we'll do it again next week. Always great to see everybody. Same time, same place next week, I'm saying one good kind of wave goodbye to everybody here before I drift off into my lonely world. Always nice to see everybody really, we've been doing this for over a year. I actually totally groove on it, it's mostly because I get to hang out with really cool people like you. So, what do we got Monday. Just to give you an idea of actually wait Sunday. Wait, what do we have Saturday we have Movie Night irsie. I'm actually going to try to come on for this one it's a really powerful. It's not easy to watch but it's super important film about what we're doing to the oceans. So movie night on Saturday, sees piracy if you haven't seen it, it's really powerful. Sunday book study group. Monday night, meditation group, I'll be there for that one on analytic meditation Tuesday Joseph's he's doing such a great job. I was so jazzed by what he did on Tuesday with his book on mindfulness meditation, highly recommend that one webinar next Wednesday with Dr. David Knight Dr David Dr. Ed, he'll be on, that's our once a month, sleep doctor so you have if you have questions specifically about sleep issues, medical issues, sleep problems. This is the place to bring that question. So anyway, thanks everybody have a great week. Until next time, All the best.