Good Morning Vietnam. Alright, so welcome to our ongoing webinar series. Those of you who may be new to it, we try to do one of these a month. And what we're doing this time is starting with Stage Five, Dream Yoga continuing this track on the stages of Dream Yoga. But what I thought it would do is I'm going to read, we got one question slash comment that came in that applies to remember the homework assignment last month when we're working with stage four, I'm very curious so we can take a few minutes at the beginning. I will read this one little contribution that came in. Then if there's anybody out there that wants to take a minute and making some offerings, in terms of what they may have experimented with an experience with stage four, that would be great to share with the rest of the group. And so this is the one I want to share with you that yeah, it's definitely worth a read so so when I read this is from Karen so when I read Monday that the next Dream Yoga webinars today, I was not happy. So far, I had always managed to do my homework and practice the respective level in a lucid dream. This time it didn't seem to work. But then I actually had a lucid dream yesterday. See, that's why I gave you that extra day because I knew it was going to happen. I wondered how I could work it in with fear. I then imagined that I would go around the next corner. I was in an apartment and encounters something weird there. It was getting darker, and I was getting a little queasy. The next moment a cartoon character look like Super Mario came running towards me with Lance. I still thought come on Mario ran through me like a shadow and I would wake up again. I could have been it could have been more scary. But done the homework. That's awesome. That's really great. Thank you for sharing that Karen supermario Yeah, yeah, you know what you don't want supermario chasing you around the dreamscape. But if there's anybody that has that has anything that they want to share at the outset like any, any successes or again in the world of Dream Yoga, right. So called failures can be seen as success, especially as we start going into the kind of the more advanced deeper stages, that's where we're heading. There's a reason they're more advanced, they do get a little bit trickier. And so if you didn't have any so called success with this, don't worry about it. It just takes a little bit of familiarity time proficiency, and especially those of you who are doing the deep dive weekend things. I'm going to say a little bit more about how the next stage that what are we going to work with today connects to the generation stage practices that we started in the first weekend of that program. But I'm going to pause for just a second to see if there's anybody who wants to share an event from a lucid dream. If you didn't have anything around this. That's cool. If there's anything else you want to share about a lucid dream all together. We can take a minute or two for the rest of the group to I mean, I think part of what makes this fun is the camaraderie the sense of sangha community around doing these sorts of things. So if anybody wants to say something, again, offering about what they did, or didn't experience over the last month, we can pause for a second to see if in fact, there's something that people want to hang on. Otherwise, what I'll do is I'll just pause for a second and then start on my roof. So anybody have anything they want to share any hand up? Okay Eris, there we go. All right.
Hi.
Um, yeah, I just found that like, you know, stage four of the Dream Yoga is really interesting. And I I had to lucid dreams, like wondering I wanted to face my fears. But what it was not going according to plan. So, I can say that I wanted to face the fears of, of sometimes feeling like I know I cannot deal with certain things or are afraid of it. So I just wanted to face the fear of the insecurities or price not trusting so I went to the dream state and it was just all in black. And then I'm just just like, gasping for air. And, and then I just called out for my for my Black Panther to join me.
Oh, nice. So let me let me ask you with quick questionnaires before we continue so when you say everything was was black you mean that it literally was just like a black out like looking into the night sky or whatever appeared was colored black. What do you mean by that? When you said everything was black?
The night sky everything was black. Okay, okay. And I was like, walking but I couldn't see where I was walking to. And then I felt a little bit more secure with my band around. But then I just felt like my feet was just going through something and then I just went into the swamp and I just just fell down into the swamp and I was like, Oh my God. It is just like no ground. Nothing. Rice, rice. And then I was in the water and then it just in the water was this alligator and I was getting up on top of the alligator. Okay. And then I was like, oh, yeah, I just wanted to face the guilt and the blame and then all of a sudden, just something hit me and then I just fell over into the water. And then I was getting out and then I couldn't not handle it anymore. And then I asked my eagle to get me out. And then I just on the back on the eagle I was just moving out and and then I thought I didn't ask the right question. Because I want to face fears, but I don't want to face them anymore. I need to embrace them.
Yeah. Can I ask you a couple of questions. So you mentioned you felt guilt and blame so what what was the guilt and blame about where is that coming from? Are you feeling guilty?
I think it's more like a learned behavior. Okay. And the guilt if I'm doing certain things for myself or Yeah, and it's just so ingrained it's not mine. But it's so engrained that when I was in that swamp, I could feel it hitting me really literally. So it was showing me how much influence it has on my life. Yeah,
yeah. Well, I mean, how interesting this is, so this was a lucid dream, but it was sounds like a witnessing lucid dream. In other words, it doesn't from what I'm hearing from you. It doesn't sound like you were like volitionally directing it, but you are more like lucid. You were witnessing it. You were aware that you were dreaming, but you weren't really changing but typography so to speak, is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
And so what so was the feeling tone when you woke up from that dream? Was it an unsettled feeling or a sense of curiosity from the dream? I'm curious what the hangover was from it. I mean, what feeling tone where you left with after the dream
I think is just visualize it. How was feeling like sometimes if if you're in the blame game, how it hits you? Yeah. And if you don't trust how it feels like a swamp, yeah. All those kinds of things. It's just like visualize and I didn't ask the right question. Yeah, to face instead of to embrace. So I also realized that so I was just laughing.
So if you were to go back here next time, so this is something you can consider. You can sometimes reignite a dream, you know, you can have dreams and continuous nights. So one thing that you could consider doing sometimes even like after you wake up from a dream, you can do a wiki initiated lucid dream, go back into it. We scripted a little bit and say, Hey, this time, I do want to ask the right questions. So you can either do that, but after you wake up from that same evening, or sometimes you can try to incubate it and do it the next night. So in fact, what what would be the right questions that so when you're looking like going back in, what would constitute the right questions, what would you like to ask next time? Is this a little bit like rescripting? Yeah. Anyway, I'll pause for a second but what what questions would you ask?
I think I would do two questions to embrace the blame and the guilt and shame no, that kind of thought, and to transform into something higher.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So here's something you can do during the day. Try try this and just see how a rolls with you. This is a very powerful thing to do. It's not particularly easy, but it's really interesting. And if you start to work with it in the daytime, you may learn some very interesting things about yourself. So one thing you could try to do errors during the day, is either the next time you feel guilty or if you don't have the so called opportunity to feel guilty. bring about a memory or some situation that evokes a quality of guilt. And then what you what I invite you to try to do is try to be as guilty as you possibly can. In other words, by that what I mean is feel into that texture, that feeling tone of what you label as guilt, and try to be with that is clearly fully and purely as you can. So you can develop a more heightened nuanced relationship for this feeling tome that we append the label guilt to, it's a very interesting thing to do, because it will first of all help you understand the kind of energetic quality of this emotion that we label as guilt. And secondly, you can actually start to deconstruct the power of this emotion to control you. And so it's it actually works as a kind of a reverse meditation practice that I personally I do this a lot. If I'm like really wrestling with any emotional issue we're worrying about sometimes something instead of our usual distraction therapy, or whatever I do to get away from it. I do the complete opposite. It's like okay, I want to go into this feeling that I labeled this that I then deem as unwanted. Again, these are all your constructions, right? So if you go into it with this intentionality, you can actually deconstruct, strip away all these kinds of negative. We're called adventitious defilements on this fundamentally neutral feeling. And one way to do it, it's really worth playing with. So this is your homework assignment for the month is next time you feel a quality of guilt. Literally, pause go away, do a little kind of meditation, close your eyes, and try to feel as guilty as you possibly can. And by that what I need is not in a self flagellating, exacerbating way what I mean by that is, I feel the energy of whatever that quality is as fully and as purely as you can you see what I'm saying? It's different than like indulging it and making it worse. It's more like, what exactly is this feeling? And can I affect feel it purely without conception as cleanly as embodied? And when you do this, by the way, you will find that what it does is it invites you fully into your body, because that's where the sensation was felt. And you'll notice a little propensity to like, shoot out from that somatic sensation into your thinking head. That's where all the labeling of the so called negativity comes from. But you may discover that that the fundamental quality of energy is itself neutral. And if you can go down into it, stay with it. You can actually deconstruct all the negative history that you've appended on to this fundamental neutral feeling. So this is where this stuff gets really cool, because yeah, you're working with it in a somewhat contrived, artificial way. But this is this will start to actually deconstruct the negative aspects of these fundamentally neutral energetics that makes sense.
So you mean by like fully feeling the guilt but not the stories of it.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Cut the storylines and stay directly with the feeling. It's not easy because the storylines are so powerful. So even that becomes a practice and then by literally just trying to be with it, staying with it as purely as you can, you can start to deconstruct it in a really interesting way. So give it a crack. Let me know how it goes. These are really horrible practices that can completely alter your relationship to the so called unwanted experiences. Okay. Yes, I'm
going to do that. Yeah.
Thank you. Very true. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing it. Okay. Hey, Wendy.
There we go. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Um, I only had one lucid dream, but it was a very short but all month I had nightmares. And I really haven't had nightmares in years. So I wasn't very happy with you.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
But my nightmares didn't have you know, some what my nightmare is most of them involved. I'd left my husband. I didn't live in my beautiful house. I lived in a single room in a basement with no window or under construction. It was like going back to my college. year my nightmares were you know, so how do I dealt dealt with that was just like, well, still people are much worse off than I am. You know, I have a place to live. It may be a little basement room, but it's, you know, I'm okay. I'm safe. But that was about all I could resolve. I found your interest very interested in your conversation with a woman right before me. What Yeah, what feelings were there that I can explore, you know?
Exactly. Yeah. So So let me ask you this. Wendy. So when you had these nightmares? Were you able to wake yourself up out of the nightmare or how did the nightmare and to resolve it? Did you pop out of the nightmare?
Yeah, I would wake up and be really relieved. It was a dream. But there
was some there was one moment there was a moment in the dream where you there was a recognition that you were having a nightmare and you popped out is that kind of what happened? Yeah. Okay. So here's what here's the here's your homework assignment. Okay. So let's make the aspiration that these nightmares will continue.
No,
just kidding. Here's what I want you to do. You can start to, again, consciously incubator work and rehearse this, right? That when we wake ourselves up, this is a very interesting thing when we wake ourselves up out of a nightmare. That's actually a moment of lucidity. In other words, you're you're in the dream, right? Something's gonna say, hey, wait a second. This is a nightmare. This is a really crappy dream, right? Man because the feeling is so unwanted. And because we're so habituated to just FedExing out of that space, we just wake right up out of it and say, Oh, my God, thank God. Oh, it's just a bad dream. Oh, I'm awake. So the limitation now is try to condition yourself as you're going to sleep say, Okay, if I have another nightmare, there will be a moment of recognition that's going to say, Wait a second. This is a nightmare. Wow. Instead of kicking out somewhat connected heiresses thing stay in, because that's a moment of lucidity. Something is cluing you in to the fact that it's a dream, but because we're so habituated to hit the jackpot, and we usually just kick right back out. Stage four is to say, hey, wait a second. This is actually a moment of lucidity. I'm gonna stay with this thing. I'm gonna actually go back into it and if you find yourself rejecting out is really hitting like the jet pilot ejack button. You can also go back in you can wake up, you go oh, okay, I just missed this really interesting opportunity. Close your eyes. Turn the lens of your mind the end and awake initiated lucid dream trying to go back into the dream from the waking state. You may find yourself in a very interesting liminal space where sometimes yes, you can actually be kind of sucked back into it, which would be awesome. may not feel all that great, right? It's like oh, geez, I don't want to go into that. Crap. Ah, that's why stage four is more advanced. But you may also find kind of a liminal situation where you're not really awake. You're not fully in the nightmare. You're kind of hovering in between those two. And you can just really explore how your mind relates to that. Both that liminal space and your willingness or lack thereof to actually go back into an unwanted dream. And so this will give you an increased set skill set, you know, no new tools that you can use, if in fact, these types of things arise again. So that's your homework for this next time, okay.
You have so much more control than I do. I am playing in the liminal states more these days, but it doesn't seem like I have any control there at all. It's just images. And so you know,
here's this a little bit different. So the luminal space is one of the hardest spaces to actually control. So what I would recommend with liminal dreaming, as opposed to what we're doing here, with lucid dreaming during yoga, where we're trying to implement more control in the liminal phase, my general instruction is to is to enter a witnessing stance because because if you try to control too much, it backfires. It just doesn't work. So the best way to work with liminality, especially at first until you get really familiar with the way your mind transitions in this kind of plasma is to simply kind of witness awareness back off and just simply try to watch for in a really curious kind of ways, like oh my gosh, look at what my mind's doing. I'm coming on done in this way. And so the control there is really not so much about trying to go in and alter the contents. That's hard to do in the liminal space. That's more what you would do in lucid dreaming during yoga. In the liminal space, the control is actually this distancing. You see what I'm saying? So yeah, then stand back witness it. And Peled acidity is another term where you're just watching your mind unfold in this way and then when you become more facile familiar with that, then you can kind of tiptoe in and try to gain a little bit more control in terms of wick initiated lucid dreams. So don't worry too much about the controller liminality now, that's actually one of the harder dimensions to really control it at the beginning. Yes, this stuff is so bloody interesting to me as well. It's just so much going on here. And again, our so called failures are indicative, they're revelatory, they can lead to success of insight. And therefore, just the fact that we're doing this itself is I think really beneficial, and not to get too disheartened about our ability or inability to actually take control or or even accomplish these kinds of stuff. I
haven't last very long. I had a really quick lucid dream where I was looking at an egg and I could see the pores and the thing of the egg split open and I knew Oh, I'm listening. And I had the thought, Oh, the entire universe is in this egg. And my consciousness went into it and then expanded. And then then I was done. You know, I wasn't that I woke up I was just I was expanded
into a totally. Yeah, that's great.
Wonderful. Better than the nightmares.
Nightmares. Awesome.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome so much. So we'll we'll come back to some more opportunity. For a discussion in a second. But I wanted to introduce what I think is one of the richest stages here, which is stage five. This one has been along with stage four. Stage four and stage five to me have been just massive. They continue to be really big deal stages for me. And so I'm going to really take my time with this one. If I don't get through it all in this one webinar. That's fine, but this one is so rich, and also for those of you who are doing the deep dive weekend thing and remember for naked members, this is a real deal. You can still join us for that we pick up the second weekend. Next weekend, not this one, but the one after stage five here, you'll see is intimately connected with the practice of generation stage, which is what we've been introducing in the deep dive program. So I'm gonna say a little bit more about that. This will add even extra, hopefully inspiration for you to explore the stage in the lucid dreaming arena. Because this is where you can take generation stage practices. And again, I'll define those if you were taking the weekend to a whole new level. So basically what we do here with stage five, and again, remember these are my kind of mappings my cartography of these stages, is you you work with changing your identity in a dream, and there's a number of ways to do it. We're going to start with a more elevated way, the classic way in the texts. And then probably in the next webinar, I'll introduce another dimension that is not in the texts that I started playing with, but I find to be also really important which is arising in alternate identities kind of liminal appearances, even in a more conventional sense, but I'm going to start with a more classic textual approach here with the with the meditation texts talk about and then kind of retrofit this other one. So what you want to do here again, we set the aspiration right. So tonight, I'm going to have a lucid dream. So that I can arise as a deity and or if a deity doesn't mean anything to you, whatever tradition you come from, if there's some kind of sacred image that has some meaning to you.
Whether it's Christ or Muhammad or Mother Mary or or whatever, on one level, it really doesn't matter. The practice here is to arise. See yourself in that form in the dream arena. And this is there's so many things here that is so bloody interesting. One is that we may think that we have a dream body in the dream, but we don't. We don't. It's and this is so interesting, because this is allegedly, exactly the same type of phenomenology that the traditions assert will take place after you die the dream at the end of time. And so this particular stage will really help you in the Bardot's according to the Tibetans. So everything I'm talking about here relationship to the nocturnal dream, has direct applicability, to some monumental opportunities that can arise for you and the dream at the end of time when you're in the Bardo is after death. And so, the idea here is that the Power of Habit is what really controls both the nocturnal dream and the dream at the end of time if we don't take control over the dream, what does what even now what controls your dream experience if you don't, your habits, and it's a little bit like a trunk club, which is famous response to the classic question, what is it that reincarnates many of you know he said, your bad habits. So your habits your karma, decides for you, chooses for you. And so depending on that again, this is another reason why the moniker for Dream Yoga is the measure of the path. This will reveal to you what habits are really kind of running and often ruining your life. And so, we may think that we have a body and a dream. We may think in an unexamined way that oh, I'm experiencing this dream. I'm seeing all this stuff in the dream. I'm feeling tasting, touching whatever in the dream. That's not what's happening. That's an illusion. Seems that way just because of the power habit, there is no body in there. What's actually there. I'm going to defer that to stage eight, nine, because that's a little bit that's graduate school, Dream Yoga. What is it that's actually there for perceiving we're going to come back to that it's an even deeper dive. But for now, the really, really compelling thing is there is no dream body in your dream. You don't have one. It may seem like you do in an unexamined way in exactly the same way. When you're in the Bardot's. You'll be dreaming. It's like, oh, I'm having this dream experience. Well, really. And so this this particular stage reveals just a ton of stuff. That's why the stage is so rich. And so one of the refs that I've been pinging on it around here, around this one lately is a slight critique of Carlos Kuzma, Neda's classic out of the greens instruction were one way to work with lucidity agreement, shaded, lucid dream is to look at your hand and a dream. I don't know how many of you have done this. I have, especially after I read custody of stuff. I said, Oh, this is pretty cool. So I actually did a lot of lucid dreaming, confirmation. Stay checks by looking at my hand in a dream. But what Carlos does not talk about least I sure as heck don't remember him riffing about it. And I didn't really think about it for a long time, is that there's actually no hand to look at. He just he axiomatically just says oh, just look at your hand. Well, there's no hand in there. You actually generate that hand in the act of looking. And that in itself is a big mindbenders. Like what? And again, you can see this for yourself. There is no hand in your dream there is no body in the dream, literally nobody in both senses. There are no eyes in the dream. But yet appearances still arise, things are still perceived and that and that type of perception. We're going to get into a little bit later. It's a little bit deeper than where I want to go now. But the way this ties into generation stage practices, and this also, I guess, there's so much to say here. One thing that comes to mind immediately that I don't want to forget
is generation stage practices, purified birth. And this literally means birth from life to life. If you believe in that sort of thing. But it also means purifying birth moment to moment. And so we're going to be working with this purification as it takes place, moment to moment. And so the idea here is is that in generation stage, practice what you're doing, you're literally generating a form when you're doing classic generation stage meditations for those of you who have been doing the deeper dive weekends. The invitation there is to imagine to visualize to generate the historical Buddha in this golden form in front of you. That's a type of generations you're sitting there doing meditation, you're visualizing the clouds the lion throne, all the things that are in that liturgy, and you're and you're creating this image. That's what's called a front generation or a front visualization. It's a very powerful way to work to form your mind. And so the reason is, it's connected to purifying birth is that it actually purifies involuntary birth. It allows you to shape to form to give birth to your formless mind in an intentional form. So this is exactly what you want to do after you die. So the stage is really deep. When you die exactly in the dream. You want to be able to have the power to generate an image in the dream that will then that MindScape will become landscape that that form can actually then become ontological it can become so called real and so by working with a mind and generating these forms, during the day through generation stage practice, in the night through this stage of Dream Yoga, you're actually exercising this kind of cognitive muscle that a tradition say has tremendous power in your ability to voluntarily shape your mind and therefore literally shape an entire life. So what's going on at this particular stage has a ton of really deep implications and so two things can take place here. This is the homework assignment for this month, and then I'm gonna pack as much as I can today. There we go. We got a little bit of time, and then we'll probably come back to it next month because there's I mean, there's so much to say here so the invitation for today for this month between now and when we meet. So the aspiration that I'm going to attain lucidity, my dream so that I can arise in a sacred form. Whether it's a deity, whether it's whatever, it doesn't really matter. The idea is to work with generating this particular type of image this is what's called a self generation stages self visualization you're working to actually arise in this type of form.
The other thing you can do in conjunction with this is what's called the front visualizations. So this is where, in addition to you arising as a pure form, you can imagine you can tweet, generate whatever arises in the dream also in that form. So if there are this is somewhat connected to what we're doing a couple stages earlier, remember where you're trying to changing the contents of your dream. So I think there's a stage two and three right? Now we're just trying to take that up even an extra level. So what this means is that instead of changing apples and oranges or trees into chariots, or whatever, like we did in earliest ages, now what you want to do is whatever object appears in the dream, you want to change that object into the deity. So you're working with both principles, you're going to change yourself into this form if you can. And if you find it easier, it's interesting to see which one may be easier or harder, try to change any external object out there, so to speak, into this image and so what makes this stage a little bit different from the other ones? Is this is the first time we're working in the in the Dream Yoga stages with changing interiority, changing the so called sense of self, all the previous ages up until that one through four had been working with so called external and again, whether there's something external in there, that's something we'll discuss later because that also was an illusion. There is nothing external. This is where the stuff gets so profound. So once you for we've been working with changing stuff out there now for the first time, we're changing our so called sense of self and and so doing and even trying to do it. We will learn a lot about how it is that we generate this illusory sense of self all the time. So here's a classic statement from Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. So there there are a number of classic tracks or lineages of Dream Yoga. In the Buddhist tradition, I was trained in both of these, the one I'd spend most of my time with, is in what's called the six yogas of Naropa. The six Dharma is on a roll, but this is a Kagyu presentation of Dream Yoga, but Padma Sun bhava, who represents the NEMA tradition? So these are two of the four lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, so the oldest one is nema. Then there's Kagyu then there's sokkia, then there's game loop. So these are the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. And oh, those four to the Newman Akagi workers specifically, we're doing yoga. And so Padma Sun bhava, who works from the Nima and in his teachings on the six Bardot's and you can read on this so there's two classic commentaries on this are quite good. If you want more information, one is pulled up, which is quite lovely book mine beyond death, where he goes through the six Bartos using padmasambhavas liturgy or text and then another book called natural liberation, with a commentary, big gap terminology. So these are two books that unfold the kind of Naima track of Dream Yoga. So if you're interested in exploring those, I highly recommend it. So this is a very powerful lineage that I've worked with but most of my training was actually making the Highview six years approach. But anyway, I say this because I want to contextualize it in Guruji teachings and Dream Yoga. This is what he says about the stage while apprehending the dream state so that's lucidity apprehending the dream state recognizing the dream could be a dream stage one, lucid dreaming. Consider, since this is now a dream body, it can be transformed in any way. Whatever arises in the dream, do they demonic apparitions, monkeys, people, dogs, and so on. meditatively transform them into your chosen deity.
Practice multiplying them and changing them into anything you like. Unquote. And so again, this ties in to the earlier stages we've been doing where we are talking about changing objects into other objects, multiplying objects, working with that sort of thing. Now we're ramping that up even further. Unless you have this this intimidates you is like, Oh, crap, man. I couldn't even do those earlier stages. How am I supposed to accomplish this? Don't worry about it for a second. This is basically laying out the map of what's possible that you can then stretch into that you can go into so if you can't do it now, do not worry. This just shows you as do the other stages coming up like oh my gosh, look how much is available here. Look how I can train my mind. In this medium. So let it inspire you don't let it intimidate you. There's one reason Dream Yoga is a little bit advanced. You're you're working with really quite refined structures of mind and the malleability and transform, transformative capacity of the mind. So let it inspire you don't let it intimidate you. Instead, so uh, so like, Okay, well, why do I want to do this? Outside of this being like this cool cognitive video game. Why? Why do I want to do this? Well, you want to do this for a number of reasons or you could be invited to do this for a number of reasons. One is by learning to change the way you view yourself and others and the level of the dream. You're going to alter your relationship to the phenomenal world and to your sense of self all together. And by this what I mean is that one of the main practices that but Tibetan world works with is the practice of pure perception, or sacred outlook. And this is in itself is such a really wonderful, rich topic, but the idea is, whether we know it or not, we all subscribe in the Western world, to a kind of profane reductionism where whether we know it or not, we're always reducing ourselves and others into particular, and usually degraded levels of identity. I mean, literally colloquially saying, Oh, you're in or you're full of crap. We're always putting ourselves and others down. We're always seeing ourselves in these kind of degraded ways, these profane ways. We don't even know that we're actually doing it because it's just the default. That's just kind of what we do. And so by working to uplift our sense of identity, visualizing visualizing ourselves as a deity, and then also visualizing the world as is a mandala or full of deities. Yes, totally fake it till you make it kind of thing. What you're actually doing is you're working to replace this unconscious form of profane reductionism born of poverty mentality, with a really classic form of sacred outlook, pure perception or my languaging elevation ism. Instead of reducing everything to dirt, we're going to elevate everything into divinity. Because that's really the way things are. And so this practice is it goes very, very far. It's very profound. And it also works with the kind of plasticity of reality that fundamentally things are not as solid and reified and heavy as we impute them to be. And so remember, this is where it's worth being stating the entire narrative of the train, yoga curriculum. Every one of these stages, perhaps maybe excluding stage one, every one of the stages of Dream Yoga is about an increased understanding refinement of emptiness. As is Buddhism, I mean, everything in Buddhism circum elites, the set core teachings on emptiness, everything exactly the topic we're going to explore in the second weekend of the deep dive coming up. Everything is based on these foundational principles of reality emptiness, exactly what is emptiness and so by working with this stage in particular, you're really starting to work with emptiness which means the malleability, the flexibility, the dreamlike quality, whatever arises that we're not as solid as we think we are. We're not locked into this particular level of form and identity. We can change and so this practice works very directly with this type. of invitation to challenge the kind of degraded profane relationship we have to the world. We reduce ourselves and others into dirt and to basically elevate everything, look at everything and it's more pure, authentic way. And sometimes it's very interesting when when people are invited
to do contemplations like, oh, you know, you're you're, you're a loser, you're pathetic, you can't do anything. Very often people will kind of nod their head and say, Yeah, you know, you're right. This this is the monitor I say all the time. I'm worthless, I'm a loser. It's like this, this incredibly sad level of self esteem that we have in the West that that when His Holiness was first introduced to this topic, there's a famous story in one of the minor life conferences, some psychologist I think it might have been the one on destructive emotions with Dan Goleman, where they were introducing his holiness to this idea of low self esteem, and he couldn't get it. He's really, I've been with you. I've been in his private presence. He's a really smart guy. And he just could not wrap his mind he wouldn't you low self esteem. And so so the psychologist and the scientist, they actually have to spend some time conveying to His Holiness, what low self esteem means and the West and allegedly when he kind of got it he just became actually quite deflated and quite despondent and said almost like you got to be kidding me. People think this way about themselves. So that in itself is really somewhat revelatory that we have in this West. Unfortunately, this really dark poverty mentality way of putting ourselves and others down and so when we recite these countless vile mounters to ourselves, oh, I'm a loser. I can't do this. We pride ourselves and others. Now, for many people on the west. That's a relatively easy thing to do. It's a lot harder to say, no, no, no, I'm not a loser. Finally, I'm a deity I'm actually the Buddha. We don't buy it. We just thought, What do you mean, I'm a Buddha. I'm a loser. And so this this kind of challenge of this narrative in the West, replacing it with more authentic understanding of who we really are, this is no small thing and so the practice of sacred Aldo pure perception is really intimately connected to this stage. And so I want to say one last thing about it that I think is
I personally find extremely helpful. And then I'll pause we can have some discussion about it. And then next month, when we come back, I'm going to say a ton more about this because this one really have all the stages. This one definitely one of the richest ones but the way to work with this again, like Why Why should I do this? Why Why should I rise as a deity? This ties into something I think I introduced it in the deep dive event I honestly can't remember. But this is a particular heuristic or teaching tool that goes back 1000s of years Oh, you'll find intimations of it and the Lankavatara Sutra by the Buddha. You'll find it in Plotinus, the Neoplatonic philosopher with his riffs on efflux reflux, you'll find it in another Coomaraswamy Sree or have been do the most recent big expositors Ken Wilber and this is this really helpful map of evolution evolution and so I want to say just a little bit about this. Because this is a particular model of reality that has so much explanatory power. I refer to it more and more. There is no overt explication of this and the Buddhist tradition. Principally now it comes mostly from what's called the perennial philosophy. But I have found this one to be incredibly helpful in terms of understanding the play of the whole bloody shebang. And so, very briefly, the way this works is imagine an arc and this is going to be a descending arc eventually the arc will be completed in a full circle, but for now, imagine a kind of a descending semilunar arc and imagine as the top of this arc is complete under formlessness at the bottom of the arc, is completely full reified form. And so, one of the ways one of the ways that the perennial philosophy talks about the entire shebang, one map of the entire play of the cosmos that I personally find very helpful. Because not only does it apply, cosmos, the cosmos, it also applies life to life, day to day thought to thought you can hang so much on this particular model. And so for reasons that are beyond what we can explore today for some reason this ineffable emptiness formlessness at the top, which you could say as God you could say as Buddha you could say, I mean 1000 names for that which cannot be named, for some ineffable reason. It has it again, there's everything is in quotations here. It has the kind of itch to manifest to shine to radiate to emanate to express. And so therefore, in in, in a kind of a, it gets tricky to talk about yourself because it's completely down to language. But in its effort to manifest to come into form to materialize, really for no fundamental teleological purpose, in other words, just the play, just just for the heck of it, just to shine. This formless dimension to being starts to come into form it starts to descend. Into what eventually will become matter. And what takes place here is his his colossally rich, oh my gosh, we can talk for weeks on this topic, but what's of real interest to us here is that when this first formless dimension starts to come into form, the very first expressions of that form are sound and light. And this is the sound of light of the mind. Which is not the same as what we know is external sound and light, but neither is it different. And therefore, we can use outer sound and light to gain some information about this inner sound that light is about and so when you think about it, my voice has a particular form, sound wave form, but it's also pretty formless. You can't grab it, but there's still some form. As with lights light has a particular form, but it's also pretty formless. And so sound and light is the first iteration of this formless dimension coming into form and then all the stuff that happens after that when it kind of hangs out into matter and comes back up that that's for a different time. to unpack what's important for us here is that this descent into form is called the process of involution. In evolution, spirit, bind God, whatever you want to call it, the formless becoming involved in and as form involution.
And so, briefly, what happens is at the very bottom of this particular trajectory, then it starts the process of evolution where we can learn a lot from Froy from Darwin then as matter evolving back into one formlessness into spirits. That's the process of evolution as we know it. And so what becomes of tremendous interest for us and then I'll pause so we can talk about this a little bit. Is that the very first forms of evolution and these are not for the deeper divers. These are not yummy on archetypes, first forms literally. These are more platonic Greek archetypes. So this is deeper than the union usage of the term archetype. When meta spirit first comes into play, it manifests in these literally archetypal forms. And so the key for us is the first forms of involution are the last forms of evolution. And so therefore, as we're returning back to the formless dimensions of Godhead, spirit, Brahman, the divine emptiness, whatever you want to call it, we can actually engage in a practice and that is exactly what this does. That is correlative to these first forms of evolution. So we don't see ourselves as a deity. We don't say we see ourselves as perfectly pure, we see ourselves as made of dirty matter. But by engaging in this, practice this fake until you make a practice, you're you're actually engaging a template that's in resonance with reality. And therefore, by visualizing yourself in these purified forms, visualizing the world in this purified forms, you actually this is a form of elevation ism, you're actually working to lift everything back up into its pure divine sacred status. So this is a colossal kind of spiritual technology that has tremendous logic to me and this particular framework. And so when I came across this stuff, I've been doing these practices for almost decades. And I kind of did it because I was supposed to do it and and I learned as much as I could there was like, why am I doing this? So when I finally found this particular heuristic, this this structure all of a sudden, it just completely clicked, that the very first play the very first forms of the play into form are also the very last forms as we return to pure spirit. And so therefore, by engaging in this whether during the day, with generation stage practices, or at night with this age of Dream Yoga, we're really working to lift ourselves up into this status, this dimension, this frequency of reality. That is, in fact, by the way, this is where we're gonna go just before we die. This is where we go in deep sleep, whether we know it or not. With lucidity, we can actually work to elevate the status of our sense of being into this more refined bandwidth of identity. So I know that sorry, I'll pause for a second. So we can talk about this. I wanted to throw this out here to show you just how far this particular stage goes. This is a colossal is right in the middle of the nine stages. And this one is a really big deal stage where, again, there's so much more to say. But I wanted to pause so we can talk about this. See if it makes sense to you. And perhaps he may inspire you to say, well, this is interesting, maybe I'm going to learn a little bit more about these meditations. Maybe I'm going to put a little bit more oomph into my Dream Yoga so that in fact I can advise the deity and then next time I'll share some of my experiences around this, how I've worked with it. Some of the things I've learned because of the nine stages. This is one of the ones that has really had a big impact on me. So I know that's a bit a bit of a heavy crush in the last 15 minutes, but I wanted to pick that out. We can talk about it for a few if you want or anything else. There was one question that came in and so while you're thinking of something to perhaps ask or contribute let me pick this one up.
I'm on he asked for a reference texts on the information for evolution, the evolution process.
Yeah, ah, yeah. So let me think of
the one that I am trying to again there's so much out here. One that I Ken Wilber writes about it. In his first books talking about consciousness. He wrote this thing was 23 years old. It's crazy. The book is actually structured on this evolution evolutionary thing. It is endemic in almost all his books. That is the one the very first book is the one where he launches it in his vocabulary. If something comes to mind, outside of that, like from his literature again, you'll find it in these other sources I mentioned. But Wilbur writes about it in the way that I've gained the most traction out of so try stuck in both consciousness. It's not particularly easy read, but it's pretty profound. And then the other ones if something else comes to mind immediately. I'll let you know in terms of other sources from his work, but that's the one I might start with. Okay. So I'm going to read this question. Oh, this is another one from mirrors. I'm going to I'll read it but then I'm going to come back to this Eris. Next webinar because this is exactly what I'm going to be talking about. So the question is a really interesting stage transforming identity. Have you ever tried transforming yourself into a deity of compassion? Absolutely. As a main PRAK practice of mine, or other being of light? Yes, I did. And I continue to do so I'll share that story next time. What was the like? Super cool, really fun thing to do. And actually, when I share the story was you'll see it was a pretty awesome deal for me. Can you tell a little bit more about sacred outlook? Yeah, so that's a little bit what I was riffing about today. How to Practice that in the dream state. Exactly what I was also riffing about do you feel it in daily living? Yes. But it's an ongoing practice for me because of the power of my history, the power of my karma, my conditioning the habits? I definitely don't see all beings as deities, especially the jerks that whatever. They're not jerks. That's just like jerky relationship to their parents. So I actually positively feel the effects of this practice in my daily life, for sure. It's why I continue to do this practice. That's why it's been so transformative. But because of the power of my inculturation my habits by impure forms of perception, I definitely don't see the world this way all the time. But that's why it's a practice for me. So I'm not sure what else to say about that. For now. I mean, a lot of it already been done. The most important thing is that there's tremendous skill for memes in this particular technology, so to speak. It has just a lot of capability of shape, shifting the way we perceive ourselves and others and just to reinstate, it's not easy at first because it goes so against the grain of the way we see things we don't see the world in this pure way. We've been trained, and largely, unfortunately, supported by so much of science to see the world in a reductionist way. So there's a lot of bad habits that don't work in our favor to perceiving the world this way. That's why this isn't effective practice. Takes a while to perform until it becomes actually spontaneous way of looking at the world. We'll talk about this next week, literally as the transition from impure illusory form into perfectly pure illusory form. So within that framework, which I didn't mention, this particular practice has tremendous status within the transition from impure to perfectly pure, illusory form to see the world in this way, can be radically facilitated by working with this agent. So stay tuned on that. I'll say more about that next, next time around. But any other questions? What I wrote on today at the Mark
Oh, Kathy has her hand up. And then Barry asked a question in the chat.
Okay, Hi, Andy. Thanks. Um, I have been, I mean, I'm very new to lucid dreaming the best. I mean, I'm just following you along right now. And I and you know, I've been practicing I've been vasana Shamala practitioner for, you know, years. And so, I am not currently working with Judas simmer Brown, the feminine principle. So we did a bunch of work this during the pandemic white Tara, and I just worked with her for two days this last weekend. On video, we've been doing the sakayan short form, we've now moved into the Ashiana. Truck. chemtron pose is short form, but it is a short form of which of the Waitara Okay, Montra. So that's so I've been focusing in marches that I'm using because I'm focusing on feminine principle. I'm focusing more on that than a buddha image or in the short form I have been doing self visualization. So with the form that you can Trumper uses it now becomes a much more active ah, it's it's scary active, because it has because the white light of manifestation now becomes an activated heartlight that sun moves energy in and out. So I and listening to your talk today it's like okay, this is perfect timing and because my lucid dreaming doesn't really exist my luminous liminal dreaming ah, you know, it can happen. It happens through my naps during the day, and I go in and out of it between four and six o'clock every morning. So, oh, how do I connect those because I have a selfish utilization, the generation and completion depending on the day, I get generation completion because of self visualization that I've been doing for a long time, right? How do I I mean, I almost am asking for a shortcut, which I know is not fair. But because I've been doing this the gender, the creation, the generation completion, and and in January, I'm going to be working with Judas underground for about seven days on Mahamudra in practice in relationship to the feminine principle, so we're working between he or she shall go white Tara, mostly. So certainly. So. Can you comment on how to put that together?
When you say, you say this a little bit more that because you know, you're filling out a ton of really cool things. But I want to make sure I hit your sweet spot. So when you say that What do you mean that is
how I am I'm, I get what I'm doing during the day. Sometimes I have a much better taste of it than other when I'm doing my white car practice and the self visualization and listening to you just talk about stage five. Ah, how do I more connect what I'm doing during my waking digital visualizations, stuff that I'm doing with my practicing? How do I deep deeply connect that with what's happening? nocturnally
Yeah, right. That's the $60,000 question. Okay, so yeah, so what is most important thing is just constantly just keeping it up, and also making perhaps more overt aspirations. You know, Pemba talks a lot about how the power of aspiration itself is not utilized enough. That it's a way of working with intentionality in a really positive way, where you can actually make more overt aspirations that then start to double almost as dream incubations where if you if you soak your mind, because again, when you're working with the dream arena, or whether you're working with your meditations during the day, I mean, really, what are you doing right? You're working with your mind? What is in a waking state, what is in the dream state? And so fundamentally, it's the same mind expressing yourself into different mediums, so to speak. And so therefore, by soaking your mind in this meal, you whatever during the day, you're already starting to grease the skids. Now, what you can do is kind of put the accelerator on a little bit by making more overt aspirations through exactly what you're doing here, becoming more familiar with this particular stage, setting the intention to actually engage in it. And then, fundamentally, just sticking with it, I mean, really, I don't mean to be patronizing in that, but this particular transformation from diurnal to nocturnal. It's not easy, right? I mean, that's why Dream Yoga is especially when we get into the more advanced stages, isn't that considered advanced? It's not easy. But here's the other thing that's really worth knowing. To help you sustain it. That until according to Miller, raitha and Campbell River che and so many others, until we can actually do these practices at night the same way we do during the day our meditations and complete. And so yes, great, bravo, we have proficiency in the waking state. I'm not criticizing that at all fantastic, beautiful, but we're being invited to stretch. This is a mental yoga to stretch the capacities of the mind, lucid qualities, stability and all that into, in fact, this dream arena. And so we start with a proper intentionality with a proper aspiration. With a deep sense of curiosity. We work through these kind of entry level stages, we develop a levels of proficiency and we also realize that this is not a linear affair. It's not going to just strategically, incrementally go step by step, it's going to be like, the tide is gonna go up. It's gonna come down, can I go up, it's gonna come down. And usually what happens is when it comes down, we get down we go, oh, I can't do this. It's not working. It's not worth the trouble. But like the Dalai Lama says you never give up. You just keep going. And then perhaps one day you may discover, oh my gosh, I just roses Waitara in my dream, I mean, how bloody cool is that? So the way to implement it, this will be a really fun conversation to have enough in a month when we come back for our next webinar. How How has your month of nocturnal experience changed if at all by working with this more directly, setting a more overt intentionality and really trying to extend these diurnal generation stage practices into the nocturnal arena. So with that said, what I would say is keep it open ended, set the aspiration, expect but not too much. Try to set a healthy level of anticipation. And then just this kind of indomitable constancy, just like I'm just gonna keep going, I'm gonna keep going. And then eventually, you may discover that you actually wake up under dream. And because of your data proficiency and generation stage, you may you may actually find yourself doing it in the electoral arena. So something like that. Yeah, it takes time. Right. You know, we have so many bad habits. They're they're not that easy. to transplant, or even transcend during the day, let alone at night. And so as we get into these deeper stages, unfortunately, not sure that's the right term. It becomes increasingly more difficult but again, is pointing out the extraordinary capabilities that we have the opportunities that are available to us. Even if we can't actualize them, we realize they're there for us. So I'll pause for a second to see if that's of any benefit, but that's the way I work with this stuff. And do I sit every night and then rise to the Deity my practice every night? Of course not. When there are a lot of times when nothing's happening for me, but I'm cool with that. I just doesn't flap me at all. I'm always doing something and I liminal dreaming for sure. 100%
hypnagogic and hypnopompic types of things I work with whatever I possibly can, and I never get wigged out I never get bummed out. Oh, like nothing happened last night. Oh, I'm a loser. Right. There's that narrative again, right? I can't do this. No, it's like oh, last night, nothing happened. No big deal. I'll try again tomorrow. I'll try again. But next night and read if you haven't read testimonials book, The Tibetan yoga is of dreamless sleep because of the very end of the book. I think it may actually be the last page are really close. He talks about how challenging this stuff is and how it doesn't happen on the first night or the 100th night. You just keep going because the intentionality itself is a benefit. And then eventually through the power of your aspiration intention through the power of good karma. You may start to find some of these things actually popping and happening work with more regularity and frequency. So something like that. That's what comes to mind. Yeah, that's great. Cool. So let's get back in a month and see between
thank you and then we're gonna be focusing on on the second weekend.
Yes, well, that well, the second weekend, right? Not this weekend but the weekend that's what do we do that three days where I yeah, for those of you are taking a that's more about emptiness per se. Yeah. refining our understanding of generations.
Okay, because that I'll check in with you then. And that we can because there'll be great
sounds like a plan. Great for you for working with God. She's a good friend, and she's awesome. So you're lucky.
She's really good. And she's, I've, you know, said, Well, can I substitute this mantra for what I'm doing with Andrew? He said, No, not until you ask Andrew.
So much, but let's say you didn't say anything about that.
Or is that but you know, we've done also we were using the mantra from the last piece that you gave us the visualization of Buddha and in front Oh,
yeah. From from the from the Buddha. Shakyamuni sada. Yeah. Sorry.
The problem that I'm having right now is I'm focusing so much on feminine energy. And I'm focusing so much on self visualization that when it I'm visualizing in front, it is feeling so flat to me. What
what is terror?
I know that the Buddha, there's just one visualization in front. Front visualizations are just feeling flat to me. Because I, I really like the interaction of the self visualization. Right?
Well, so So go with that for a while. Okay. Yeah, because you're because you are already doing a generation SType type practice with a Waitara just stick with that.
Okay, that's okay with you. I mean, that's what he said, No, you need to talk to Andrew and get permission to substitute.
Well, that's very sweet for you something because of what you're doing and what I'm hearing for you. I would just say relax around the front visualization. Just don't even you don't even have to concern yourself with the British document anyone. Just let that go. Okay, that's a trade on your Tara. If that's where you're Damon is now your energy. Now, I would listen to that follow that bliss really work with that. I introduced the principally the the one that I did, because most people don't have an alternative,
right. And so I can't really,
yeah, exactly. I can't do the lungs and all that stuff over a computer. So you're already doing the tower. I would just say focus on that. Okay, great. Cool.
Thank you. Yeah, I
told you. I said, Hi. Okay.
I will Yeah, she was talking about you sweetly.
Yeah, she's a great friend. Awesome. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions?
There was I'll start from earlier, Tim. I just had a comment. He said he had a lucid dream a while ago and remember the dream task of dealing with a fear. I was at a multi level MMA above an indoor courtyard. I was on the fourth or fifth level and thought that because it was a dream, I could jump off and I did and just floated down the four to five levels like a balloon. All fear fight disappeared, and I felt very peaceful and satisfied. It was a good
experience. Five, that's awesome. Love it. Love it.
See? Okay. Oh, not Gary goodness. Bury said any guidance on how to become a deity. Not sure how a deity thinks or how they would see the world of the dream.
Oh, Barry, I love your questions, man. Okay. This is this is almost like something like for Stephen Colbert fodder for a comedy show, right? any guidance on how to become a deity. Okay, my friend. Again, I'm laughing because it's beautiful. What you're asking? Well, two things. One is engage in Deity yoga, right? You can talk to your to your wife about this she I'm sure she's experienced it or not. If she's not then work a little bit more. Well, let's see in your in your situation. Hold on a second here. What if you're working about I'm sorry if you're thinking about more like self actualization stuff. Then what I would do for you, Barry is in fact look at something like what Kathy was talking about, see if you can get away Tara alone, or Manjushri long or something where you can start to work with Self Realization because that's something that I don't have the capacity to do. In this particular format, even on the DPI thing, this is something you need to get a little bit more efficiently but you have the capacity to do that. So that's one way to do it. Secondly, is is just basically so that's an overt practice. We're doing it self visualization through the yoga the other is simply just work with cultivating right view that fundamentally you are the deity you know, it's a one level one we work to become the deity that's a that's a relative provisional track. You're using your effort, you're generating that you're creating the image and all the ways we're talking about 1,000% Dalits super powerful way to go. But another way to go with this, my friend, it's a more absolute approach is you already are the deity and so, the way to work with that is a deeper exploration of deity principle. What is that really about? And the act of recognition that you already are one so you don't have to become one. On that level is one of recognition. And this my friend, also takes a little bit of time because, like I mentioned earlier, we just don't see ourselves that way. We don't see ourselves in this kind of purified way. So I would work to understand what deity principle itself was all about. Why is this such a colossal part and both Hindu and Buddhist Tantra is monumental. Why? Why is it so big? And when you start to work with that, then you realize there's these two ways to actualize it the relative conventional way doing deity yoga, or this danger Dream Yoga. But even deeper than that is more absolute level of recognition. I already am the Buddha. I already am Tara already on budget your guinea chakra some bar a bar show whatever. All these dozens of different deities are all archetypal representations of this fundamental purity that you already are. So on a more absolute level, my friend is one of recognition and that comes to a deeper understanding right view. And so I always recommend people work with both vectors, the more relative conventional practice generation, seeing yourself in this way. And then in parallel to that, this deep sense of relaxation and openness that you know what I really am Tara or Manjushri or whatever, that's who I really am. And so stay stay with us a little bit on this because next time when I come back, these questions don't tie in deeply to what I said at the outset, an hour ago, but how stage five works with malleability of identity altogether. So by doing this practice, we are also deconstructing the very sense of self. So again, there's just so much happening in this one particular stage. So if you want literature on this, you can you have my email where you can pay me I'll give you references to texts that work more overtly with this, but unless you want to come online and ask something else, that's what comes to mind. Okay, but so looks like
you got it all covered. Yeah, I
think I think I just pulled everybody over here with my BS today. So hey, everybody. So we do this totally geeky thing. Wherever you are. If you're a Ford we can turn on your camera. We can all wave hi to each other. We can all wave goodbye to each other. So nice to see you. It's always great to connect some of you are seeing buddy