[38] Truth and the Present Moment – with Andrew Holecek
1:04AM Dec 21, +0000
Speakers:
Andrew Holecek
Alyssa
Keywords:
present moment
meditation
question
practice
deep
hidden
mind
buddha
point
deconstruct
world
space
fundamentally
levels
thoughts
ego
reading
constructs
run
absolutely
What I want to do today for those of you who may be new to these Monday gatherings, we started doing this a number of months ago as a way to work in a kind of contemplative meditative way, with practices that are designed not only to support the meditative nocturnal journey of lucid dreaming, Dream Yoga, sleep yoga and the like. But really, obviously equal importance to work with the mind and heart during the day during your lives. And so what I did was I, I spent, I've been spending the last couple of weeks months just as I come across these really remarkable quotes I shared one a couple weeks ago from Trungpa Rinpoche I have a bunch more that I that I thought would be really fun to share with you over the upcoming weeks when I'm with you kind of like the seed seed statements, seminal statements from scholars and scientists and mystics and you name it philosophers that are, I think, some of the most seminal pith instructions for what meditation is about what it does, and why bother. And so after I just make a few kind of opening comments, and then we practice for a few minutes together, my kind of presentations today will be riffing on one or two of these that I think you may hit Find of some interest. And some of these will actually like the ones today, I'm going to actually pose I'm going to read that the statement and then I'm going to pose it as a brief discussion point for us. So asking for your responses to one of the questions as intimated with the statement that I'm going to share with you. One of the things that they're really reading more about these days again, and again, in a number of different wisdom traditions, that warrants restating the essence of spiritual practices remembrance.
And so what I've been reading
recently from the span dichotic as this is an amazing collection and Kashmir Shaivism there are five main schools in the spine, the doctrine the doctrine on pulsation and vibration has really captured my attention recently, and diving into it in a pretty big way. It's really profound stuff. In the world, one of the things I was just reading, quite recently that reminded me yet again, when I'm reading again, and the Jewish mystical tradition, the Buddhist tradition, virtually every deep contemplative track that I've ever discovered is the extraordinary importance of the grounding of ethics and morality and meditation. And the reason I say this is because as a meditation instructor for decades at this point, one of the single biggest issues it's also similar. Interestingly enough, one of the biggest issues in the world of nocturnal practice is stability, and so called success in practice and
this infrastructure of
ethics and morality and the Buddhist approach, I pinned on this a number of months ago, but I'm going to say just a few words about it briefly before we practice together for a few minutes. This is TypeId tart approach of Sheila's Samadhi and prajna and Sheila, si la STS, a word which basically means morality, ethics. That absolutely positively is foundational for the fruition of meditation, which which are these absorptions in Samadhi, which then leads to insight. Pause No, and so you're not gonna have insight you're not gonna have stability. If you don't have a foundation in your life that's based on integrity and goodness, and decency and honest, you can't be a drug dealer and a meditator. You can cultivate powers of attention, you can cultivate powers of concentration, but you cannot cultivate powers of mindfulness because mindfulness is a wholesome mental factor and always runs. It's like a an instrument and a symphony of other factors that are absolutely foundational for success in meditation, and so
taking a good look at your life,
seeing how important is meditation to you how important it is achieving states of meditative blockchain that lead to insight into the nature of mind, reality. You have to have this foundation of decency, integrity, honesty, and the like. Because otherwise you're just kidding yourself and it's so interesting. I see this alive. As an MIT meditation instructor how often Westerners feel like they can somehow be the exception to these foundational strategies you could say for solid, authentic legitimate meditation practice. And so I invite you to simply just take a good look at your own life. If you're really interested in working with this meditative thing. Then this foundation of how you actually live your life is really important. At the highest levels, especially when you go from with a Buddhist, the Tibetan Buddhist approach is the transition from that teravainen hidden IANA kind of a narrow vehicle into the Mahayana every time you ramp up the tradition, this charter of not only being good, but also being a benefit to others becomes more and more and more important. And so I just wanted to throw that out there again, because we
forget, I mean, be included.
That's why we have to just constantly be reminded over and over and over again again and again. About these foundations at least if we want to have some success in the meditative journey. And so, again, if you're new, what we do is we practice we practice for a few minutes together.
Then I will
offer these the first one or two are these somewhat remarkable statements that I will then unpack, we'll have a little conversation around that. And then if you have questions or comments, you can either write them in the chat column, you can always raise your hand using the reactions bar at the bottom and we can have this as an opportunity to talk about virtually anything related to this topic. But because this is different from the other things that we do and the nightclub track, we're going to start with just a few minutes of practice. I'm not going to guide you through the structure of this meditation altogether. We've done that another numerous number of occasions, going all the way back to the very start of this series. But I might run just some spontaneous commentary. If something comes to mind. I always practice with my eyes open but because I'm facing a screen, I always find it a little bit easier for myself to close my eyes so I can just be a little bit more kind of centered and so for the next few minutes,
we can
work with this foundational practice of
shamatha almost
associated synonymously with mindfulness but not quite subtle nuances there. And even though we're all in different locations, around the states and somewhat from even around the world, on one level as you all know, space and time doesn't really exist spaced on time or constructs,
based time and causality are all constructs.
And so even though we're scattered all over the place on one level, when we practice like this, we are connecting at this deep kind of silent level. So for the next few minutes, we'll just work with body and breath as a way to enter the space together. And then I'll ping out the statements.
The one thing that is definitely worth reiterating is that
thoughts
or any other form of mental content are
never the enemy.
Having thoughts and meditations never the problem
that's just what the mind does. Thanks plays shines don't try to stop
that play
the issue is not the arising of thought is one's relationship to thought the stickiness the grasping the aversion.
You cannot really muscle down and control the display of your mind sure you
can do a temporarily you intensify focus and concentration but in meditation that is not the point.
Relax allow your mind to express itself but the practice is not to grasp that it gets sucked into or pulled away
which is precisely the same process that happens with every single non lucid dream
allow the thoughts
to come put a welcome mat on your mind
then allow
them to go put an exit sign on your mind.
Thoughts become utterly completely harmless.
So I'm going to read this first statement from my friend the Jewish mistaken scholar excuse me is V Shalom. I'm going to read it to you it's very short. And then we're going to transition into a brief kind of contemplation practice where because it is so short, I'm going to read it several times.
And then I'm going to invite some responses from you all some discussion, some participation and then I'll run my commentary but I think it might be of some interest benefits to reflect on this. So I'll read it once or twice so you can think about it and then I'll ask you to fearlessly raise your hands and
offer your understanding of this statement. So from
ZSZ vi if we are able to immerse ourselves completely
in the present moment
and transformation is guaranteed. So the question for you the contemplation the reflection is why
why is this true?
You are able to immerse yourself completely in the present moment and transformation is guaranteed why?
If you're able to immerse yourself completely in the present moment when transformation is guaranteed
why? Why is this true?
So we're here if you have a sense want to venture forward. Fearlessly raise your hand and make an offering and your own experiences to the veracity of this proclamation. Please do so.
Otherwise, I'm gonna have to call on you
you do have a volunteer let's see here
Hey, Steven. Um, I think when the mind is unified in dwelling in the place of pure observation, there is no space for reaction, there is only patience for response. And when there is no reaction and you dwell on that patience and you observe, then you have the ability to patiently respond instead. Of just purely reacting, which is then a place of which you can accumulate more and more information until you have enough to make that appropriate determination. And then that is the core of transformation. That's great.
That's really good. That's really good in my languaging if I can just riff on that a little bit that spot on. Is there what this practice does? And that's one reason I want to spend some time in the upcoming weeks with you to strengthen our view of why we should bother with this meditation because it's disarmingly simple and exceedingly profound. And understanding the profundity embodied in the simplicity is colossal because then it inspires us to do this practice, and so I completely agree with you that yes, if you can rest in the present moment, then reactivity, which is fundamentally no relationship at all. So I talked earlier about the importance of meditation in conjunction with relationship. One of the ways to rephrase what you said here, Steven, is that a meditation allows you to relate to your mind instead of from it. Yes, and relating from it is no relationship at all right? That's our usual reactive, habitually comically propelled way of running through life just one constant reaction after the next Yeah, very autonomic. No. Absolutely completely autonomic. In fact, is automaticity thing is what I was going to offer as part of my responses. I'll say a little bit more about later, but we learned how to relate to our mind instead of from it and therefore we can replace exactly like you're saying reactivity, which is born from a contracted mind where there's no space to responsive mind. One that is based and like you said, a clear observation perception of what's actually really happening because when when we relate to things from a reactive point of view, we're usually just completely plastering the moment whatever is happening with our histories with our languaging there's some scars, these proto thoughts and that's what creates the endless, relentless, brutal Wheel of Karma. So to actually rust in the present moment, guarantees transformation because it guarantees the arrest of the accumulation of karma. So just by sitting in a nonreactive way in meditation, we're starting to purify karma. So that's fantastic. That's really good. Kimberly.
Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. So I'm reading a book as the courage to be disliked, and it talks about etiology until your teleology, which is etiologies kind of who we are in this present moment is a karmic kind of chain of cause and effect and tell your teleology, if I'm saying it right, is just letting all that go. And just be staying in the moment exactly that the past does not define who you are, and abiding in this moment. And it actually I find that if you really abide in this moment, and you let go of past self, you become free of ego and ego constraints and the the narrative and the story of who you think you are, and that opens you up to more awareness, more empathy. So you can actually you know, when your mind is free of self, you can actually become every self. And so you're able to experience everybody's kind of experiences as purely as you can from their perception. And therefore, again, using the reaction that you're talking about react in a way that's not from self and past kind of conditioning, but from the pure awareness and you know, the intention of the Bodhisattva and, yeah, so that's what I'm kind of where I went with that.
Just makes me smile totally spot on. And again, to just run a little commentary and your commentary is that we discover, literally dis cover uncover through this practice of resting in the present moment, and the transformation guaranteed in that that this thing called ego self is nothing but a story. That's all it is. It exists merely as a storyline. And so I'm connected to what Stephen was saying. The storyline is generated with such lightning fast automaticity and rapidity we were running on automatic ignorance, referring as you're talking about Kimberly, everything to the very sense of self generating these endless storylines that really maintain, sustain and propagate this fallacious sense of self which is therefore generative of all our suffering. And so this is really important because when we're sitting in the present moment, and this is one reason the practice is actually
frustrating
because by design, we are frustrating this construction process. It's so fascinating to me. It's like ego has the world's fastest construction company in tow, it's a multi viably rapid works overtime. There's never any unemployment. Here. Instantly, is lightning spat fast speeds creates the sense of self and therefore by immediate implication that sense of other duality is generated. And by sitting there for meditation, literally the act of transformation is guaranteed because you're frustrating. The storyline you're deconstructing the storyline. And therefore your fundament essentially going to deconstruct this very sense of self. So what you're saying is absolutely positively positively spied on and therefore helps us understand exactly like you're saying it develops empathy. And tolerance. Because we realize that's wild well the nature of all of us is the same. The essence is the same the storylines are definitely different. And if we can understand the the fundamental commonality of the human condition and not get lost in these constantly fabric, fabricated fake news storylines. Then we develop a really wonderful sense of like you mentioned body self activity, understanding empathy and compassion, born from the understanding empathy in comparison that we have the journey towards ourselves the practice of metta maitri, in order to even do this practice, and so just by merely sitting down and meditation, like, like we're doing, where we are absolutely positively cultivating the quality of metta or maitri, and even though his other presenters, including myself have talked about over the previous months, there are formal practices to cultivate mytreat loving kindness towards oneself. This practice in and of itself, cultivates that the only way you can sit in meditation is in fact by being extraordinarily kind towards yourself and then what we generate towards ourselves. We then express spontaneously to others. So this is this is I think, really worth putting exclamation point, because therefore it helps us understand when we engage in practice, especially if it's more than just a few minutes. If we're no longer just window shopping, we actually started to do it. It's not easy. We're actually undergoing a type of withdrawal detoxification, from this narrative from this ongoing narrative structure of what ego actually is, it's just a story with a really bad ending, right? It's poorly scripted, and it has a horrible ending called death. And like I often say death is only the end if you think the story is about you. So by deconstructing the story, then you actually can deconstruct this thing called death itself. So that's really fabulous, wonderful, Wendy.
Time just answering from the experience today just perfect, which is just that it felt like a portal was open into and bounded light where nothing was solid, and the field becomes what's predominant. And thoughts come by, but they're just specks. They're nothing they just zap through. Like dust. Yeah. And All there is is light. That's changing.
Yeah, that's beautiful. It's like It's like these harmless neutrinos. That are just racing through us constantly. Because fundamentally, from a, from a neutrinos perspective, we're so spacious, I mean, really, that we're 99 point at 13 nines and then a percent maybe 9.9 And then another 913 of those puppies percent space. That's really what we are. And so egos afraid of the space ego clamped down around it, because there's no place for personal identity in the space. And therefore when we actually open relax allow our minds to breathe. Then we become
as spacious
as the neutrino as our body is to an actual neutrino and then exactly like you're saying, then whatever arises just courses through us. So can you say a little bit more if you don't mind Wendy about about your experience of light is this is this a kind of a literal experiences are
very, very visual and very literal. We're what I'm looking at, loses its solidity and turns into light and then everything in the room slowly turns into at first I can still see that they're the coach and author or whatever, but that's that but it's glowing and then begins to become not solid and turn into Light.
Yeah, exactly. And it's I mean, it's, again, it's so beautiful by changing the way you think about things. Or by changing the way you think period, you change the way you see them, quite literally. And so this is actually really often a revelatory discovery for meditators, where often they think it's either hyperbolic or metaphoric, that they're learning how to change the way you see things. Well, what you're sharing is actually you're relating that it's actually very literal, that you literally change the way you perceive things that that this again, is the genius of this practice, considering it's just so unbelievably simple. By starting to deconstruct the narrative structure of ourselves building a little bit on Kimberleys contribution. What you're saying here, I hinted at this, but let's unpack this a little bit. By ungluing deconstructing the interiority, again, by immediate implication, you do that to the so called external world to the point where fundamentally, there is no external world. And so what you're saying is, is really quite compelling, right? So you start to look at things you first see them in these seemingly dualistic solid reified way and then by altering the way you perceive, changing the your own structure internally, immediately, you start to alter the way you perceive the so called external world. It becomes more fluid more permeable. Still there something still there, but it's not what we previously computed it to be projected it to be reified it to be. And so this is a it's like a twofer. It's a two for one practice by saying through our thoughts, seeing through the reified states of mind. We eventually like you're alluding to, we start to see through the illusion of externality, the illusion of solidity, the illusion of independence. And if we really hang with it long enough, you can in fact, deconstruct appearances back to their matrix, which is this quality of light, and even the physicists will tell you this, this is not only I mean, I was like I told you I was reading, reading a lot about spunda tradition, the doctrine of vibration and one of the key tenants of this little shaman Tantra school is how in fact, reality is made of this light, completely resonant with the deeper teachings in Tibetan Buddhism. And so when we start to really work with the mind in this way, we have initially these temporary experiences that Yom right classic Nam, lift, clarity and that thought are the three big ones. And the Yom or the temporary experience of clarity can sometimes actually be see halos around objects, you see light, you see things luminous
and it's it's
it's potentially a really wonderful portal right into the nature of reality altogether. So let me ask you one other question when you when you've had this experience previously, when you're still there, did you ever experience any type of anxiety or even fear around it or has this experience always been associated with the quality of
peace and stillness, always here? Yeah. And I want to say that it happens every time I meditate with this group, really consistently. Not every time I meditate, but I know there's something going on with this group or with you and it happens really dependably and quickly. So there's an element of the group energy, everybody that's gathered, and stillness it's hard to maintain that if by moving for
That's fabulous. I actually had a thought and maybe some 18 years ago to create a kind of subdivision of nightclub that I never really quite got around to doing which which I was playfully going to call light club. Work with a double entendre that that we can work with these practices within the capacity of the daytime, hence the light club. And also, as you're talking about here, a deeper rendering of that kind of luminosity that we can share amongst ourselves to quite literally see the luminous nature of things. So anyway, that's really awesomely cool. That's fantastic. Like,
it's surprising. I mean, we're not together, we're not physically together at all. Well, other meditation groups, this doesn't necessarily happen. With
you know, I mean, who's to say what that's about, but really, I suggest something like this at the very outset that that in fact, this is one of the things I'm going to be talking to Swamiji about. Because he often talks about when you enter the realm of relative reality, that's when not only is the narrative self structure generated, but also what we call the axioms that given space time, and causality itself. Those are not inherent in absolute reality. Those are actually constructs themselves. And so when we deconstruct take this even deeper, when we deconstruct this can be done really rather quickly. It doesn't have to be brought about by these extended deconstruction periods. The stability yes, that may take some of that. But we can tap into these pre temporal pre spatial deconstructed domains with with some ease actually, and so therefore, this kind of wireless truly wireless communication system right, extends between all of us as practitioners. I've noticed this also over the last two years since COVID stock and I started doing so much more online things that they're especially deeper diver conversations. The ability to actually connect at these levels is really quite elegant, quite beautiful. So thank you for sharing that.
Thank you, and thank everybody in the group, because I definitely think it's a group experience.
Or Sure. You know, that particular heart always says recently, he says the Sangha is the next Buddha. The community is the next Buddha and this is often a challenge for people because especially especially in the Buddhist tradition, when you become a card carrying Buddhist you take refuge in the Buddha, the teacher, the Dharma, the teachings on the Sangha, the community, and most people don't have too much trouble taking refuge on the Buddha and the Dharma but they really wrestle with taking refuge in the Sangha, you know, like why you want me to take refuge in them. Right, but you can't get in light without others. And absolutely, I think a monumental aspect of maturation in one's path is actually having the courage to work in especially intimate environments to share to reveal to learn respectively. So thanks for sharing that that's really terrific. Any other offerings or questions around this before I transition into my next I'm going to well, people are saying if there's anything else, I'm just gonna take a real quick look here. And
I was gonna tell you to look in the chat. There was quite a few that came in through there. Okay,
let me look at those.
Yeah, the present moment is from Tim the present moment is eternal beyond time and space, our true essence. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even Wittgenstein said this right? If by eternity is understood, not endless temporal duration. But timelessness and he or she who abides in the present moment abides eternally. So you want to discover the elixir of immortality for us than the present moment, well said my friend. Yeah, the present moment is new and eternal being in that I am transformed right and the present moment is always continually being stillborn in both senses, arising abiding, arising abiding, ceasing, in a micro instance. So if you actually spend from our persona, you actually spend our time immersed in each person moment, so it is bound to be transformative. Yeah, I think this is one of the reasons we often run around, feeling overtly or covertly that something is missing. Well, what you discover with these meditations is the only thing that's missing is you your awareness. Your attention, there's nothing missing. back you'll notice this even colloquially when you're having a whopping spanking good time. absolutely, positively take a close look. And one of the central characteristics of that is an absolute saturation in the present moment, when you're fully involved in the present moment and just becomes really compelling. When you have the wherewithal to actually stay present, and so called unwanted circumstances where you can actually find a transformation taking place by being fully present in suffering and pain and hardship. That's no small thing. But spending are immersed in each present moment. This is what's sometimes called what that sometimes it's called the Great perfection. like Uber Maci famously said, There's no such thing as an underdeveloped moment, no matter how so called unwanted it is there's no such thing as an imperfect or underdeveloped moment. And when you take full refuge in the present moment you discover this for yourself. From Katie resting in the present moment these are great. illuminates it there are actually no solid lasting and independent forms spot on. Therefore in the present moment, trans formation and spice is always available to be witnessed and experienced. Yeah, isn't it amazing? It's so simple. It's so simple, but simple does not mean easy. Why? Simply because we have the habit pattern of not doing that. And one of the reasons that this is why he asked when do you um if you had any fear or anxiety or sense of fear, or anxiety. So when you rest fully in the present moment, 100% You're not even there. Hmm? The ego narrative itself is deconstructed. That's one of the reasons it actually feels so good. You may not be able to define it, but it's because the temporary the ego has been temporarily suspended. And so in that very instant, resting in that deeper dive into the present moment is a deconstruction of the very sense of self altogether. From Kathy and no past no future. Absolutely. Virginia, I've heard Pema children say that actually there is no present moment. What do you suppose her point? wasn't saying that? Oh, yes. Okay, here we go. This is a good one there. Actually there is I wasn't I didn't want to say that. Because I just got back from my trip and I wanted to be really nice to everybody. But this is really true. There actually is no present moment. And so yeah, so let's take a look a little we have a few minutes. Let's take a little look at this. This is a big deal.
If we are actually saying that the time is a construct and it is and again even Einstein said this, this is not just metaphysical, spiritual, philosophical mumbo jumbo.
If this is true,
that time is a construct, then that has to include the present and so there's several things to say here. that I think are quite compelling. I often share this little brief examination kind of elec meditation that you can do for yourself to basically show you that what Pam is saying here is absolutely true. And then I'll contextualize what she's saying in the traditional framework. So we all know that the future doesn't exist. That's pretty easy. We all know that the past doesn't exist, it's gone. That's also pretty easy. Well then probably haven't really thought about it, but actually is the present moment. Think about it. It's really just an illusion, an illusory line drawn between two non existence. It actually doesn't exist. And so usually when this is proclaimed like atlases people just get into a real kerfuffle. What what, what what I thought the whole point was to rest in the present moment. Well provisionally, provisionally, because the present moment is actually a conduit into where you really want to go which is called the fourth moment. This is a term coined by again to frame this traditionally this is a term coined by Padma sun. Bhava Guru Rinpoche. The tantric Buddha bought India brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. He talked about the fourth moment which my friend Lama Surya das coined effect I think he wrote a book by this title called Buddha standard time great title, very playful guy. Buddha Standard Time, which is a timeless timezone. And this is a dimension of experience that is actually the true nature of things. So like I mentioned earlier, spacetime, causality are all there in the relative domain. So when you're even dealing with the present moment, you're still dealing with relative reality. It's the best of relative reality. But if you really dive deeply, stay fully immersed in the present moment, then you will discover almost like the rug being pulled out from under your feet. And even that it disappears. And then you're left in this timelessness of exactly what Vidkun Stein was saying, let me just say that when again, if by eternity, there's not understood endless temporal duration, but timelessness and he or she who abides in the present moment abides eternally less because you've dropped through the membrane of space time all together, using the conduit of the present moment into what's called the fourth moment and you can get a feel for this in meditation. Of course, absolutely, positively. That's when you went to these absorption states. But you can also get a colloquial experience of this through things like the zone flow states. Or if you've ever been in an accident, where there's tremendous sensory impact, time literally seems to slow down and you can stop this is a more kind of over the counter experience of this suspension, this this kind of dissolution of the time structure. And so what Pam is saying here is absolutely spot on the fourth moment that is beyond, past, present and future and for those of you who may have heard that little interview I did with Ian Baker, who writes about hidden lands and what to call the bales. I posed this to him and he thought it was right on that the most immediate hidden lands, the hidden lands if you haven't listened to that talk are really fascinating, literal geographic locations. But there's outer inner secret and very secret hidden plans. And one of the renderings of the very secret hidden lander Bale is actually this fourth moment where you go by going through the portal of the present moment, you slide into the hidden Land of the fourth moment, which is this timeless spaceless dimension of your actual true nature. And so, see, look at me one hour ago, we started with pretty standard over the counter meditation in less than an hour we got to death lessness and immortality in absolute tune. That's not too bad for one hours worth of work. So any other questions or comments around this or anything else? I mean, this is a pretty good one. I'll hear something you can see when can you say more? About the hidden lands? Okay. Here's a conversation with yes even so check out the chat I did with my friend Ian Baker. He's a really wonderful guy.
He there's not much out there on these bail BYU Well, hidden lands a little bit but not a ton. And so he wrote this book some six, seven years ago, eight years maybe called the heart of the world. And it's it's a really, National Geographic just praises it to the hilt where it's a really compelling story of his multiple trips into Pamlico, which is this literal hidden land, a place that was geographically kind of stamped by again Padmasambhava these are these are our hidden lands or physical places. That you go to that or at a certain point in space, that time they were they were kind of, so to speak, hidden, to be revealed at times of refuge where people could go to sustain maintain their spiritual practices. And so, Evan is he and writes about this beautifully in this book or the world. It's a really delightful row. I highly recommend it. And there's so much to say here, but the idea is that these hidden lands are especially at the secret and very senior levels. are basically hidden by bills of perception. So on a provisional level, you go to hidden lands, actual geographic locations, somebody can do what you do in pilgrimage, but a little bit more tantric spirit. But fundamentally, when you understand the bay or principle, the hidden land principle, it's it's really designed to help you realize that the path like my friends, see he's the guy whose code I started with says that the path is more perceptual than actual, you're not going anywhere fundamentally. So even even the bay or principle the hidden land, principle, inner and secret levels. Talk about that if you simply remove the cataracts of confusion, remove the veils of ignorance, the hidden lands reveal themselves, and then he paints all kinds of amazing references including from Gnosticism though it's worth it says the Gnostic Gospel according to St. Thomas, the kingdom of heaven is spread out across the earth, but men do that see it? And so lots to say here, my friend, I recommend you check it out. He's a pretty cool guy. This topic is really fascinating. So hey, Katie, you got something to say? Something to offer.
Hello. Katie, are you there? I'm here.
I I just dropped into the vortex of
AI. I just got crazy wisdom, you know, and Oh, yeah. I wanted to say um, you know, when you were talking about the Padma Sam bhava being the one who talked about the fourth say it again the fourth time fourth moment yes, the moment Yeah. And I thought whoa, you know, big coming together in my head because I just finished reading the book as part of the remake last. And can I just read you this far away, Lily Trungpa Rinpoche saying, Padma Sun bhava is still lives literally. He is not living in South America, but in some remote place on a continent of vampires at a place they're called Sun dock, pillory, or copper colored mountain. He still lives since he is the state of Dharmakaya. The fact of physical bodies dissolving back into nature is not regarded as a big deal. So if we search for him, we might find him but I'm sure you will be very disappointed when you see him.
That's him.
I just thought that is that's what you're talking about. And I just read it so I had to share it with you. Yeah.
Looks like it's trying to call you or either there you have a fire alarm going along. Maybe your house. Well, it's interesting what he said what he says at the very end there, Katie because it reminds me of exactly what Suzuki Roshi said when he said, you know, enlightenment was my biggest disappointment, right? So it's a very similar type of thing. So yeah, that's, that's one of the best books of this 50 that 55 books that are out there. That one Crazy Wisdom is one of my absolute favorites that they ever put together. So good for you that you're studying that with the Rene group.
Thank you.
Okay, any other questions or comments about this or anything else? I'm going to cascade through here to see if there's anything else.
I haven't seen anything else in the chat. Give it another minute.
Okay. Cool, so just give it a second to see if anybody else has anything else. So this what do we have this week? So Thursday, we're back on track for the book study group. I'm doing my interview with Swamiji on Thursday morning, and then like his eyes alluded to earlier, there's some really cool things coming up. I'm a little bit hesitant to say who I've got up my sleeve because every once in a while, something comes up and they have to postpone or cancel or something but I've got some really interesting people on the horizon to talk about. So Kimberly one last thing from you, and then maybe we can close it for today.
Yeah, I wouldn't ask these questions in your free ethical asks. So a lot of what when we talk it's a lot of illusion around our perception, and so the question is, who isn't that creates these illusions, and why? Like, what's the purpose? What's like, what's the purpose of being here and getting to the body set for the enlightenment?
Like,
why Yeah,
it's there's two ways to address that. That this again ties into this notion of teleology, which is are eschatology and religion which which are basically the doctrines of philosophy that teleology is more philosophical eschatology is more religious doctrines of final ends, purposes and that sort of thing. And so this is this can be addressed in two ways. One of which is absolute and the other is relative. So from an absolute perspective, there is no purpose. Everything is just clay. There is no teleology. There is no progress and even some very rigorous thinkers are saying this narrative of progress is itself ridiculous progress to what look at what our notions of progress are doing to the world, but that's a slight sidebar. So from an absolute perspective, there is no teleology, there is no purpose. There was just play. In fact, if you think about the difference between play and like competition, play what makes play is is activity done without purpose, right? You just do it for the heck of it. That's what makes it playful. The Hindus talk about this as Leela. Buddhists talk about it as Rolpa. So there's that from a relative perspective, you could say from a relative perspective. There is purpose and that is to achieve that the absolute that there fundamentally is no purpose. So yeah, that level you could say that the, the alpha, the Omega point, the purpose is to wake up to attain enlightenment. That's the purpose to become a bodhisattva and to serve and be a benefit to others. And so you can address that from a relative and absolute perspective. Now who is doing that? That's a really very interesting question. The way you actually posit the question, Kimberly is sending your mind in the wrong direction.
And
even the Buddha when if he was asked something like this, he did this with some regularity. He would often say the question is wrongly zeroni Asli positive, you're asking the wrong question. Because even the way you asked the question already make some radical assumptions that that are borne out in reality, fundamentally, there is no who. So there's there's simply just levels of my rig by levels of not knowing levels of confusion and ignorance. It's those levels of developmental confusion, that actually create these illusions the illusions are not inherited reality, the illusions are just the kind of various levels of confusion.
And so therefore,
the who is itself we were talking about earlier, but the who the notion of I mean, is who whatever, that is already an illusion itself. So I'll pause for a second to see if that's of any, any help for you. But this is obviously a kind of a deeper dive question. So I will make sure I'm addressing it in the way in which you were intending it.
Yes. So I get that I've asked the question wrongly. And sort of supposedly, if I ask it from perspective, that selfish generating, there's a primordial self which resides within I am a part of that. Not to say I don't necessarily mean narrative me. I just meant like, what is it that there's a primordial generator that's somehow creating the confusions that are experienced?
Actually, no, no. No, you're on one level? No, I mean, first of all, I wouldn't say you're bringing you a little bit of Hindu language. Just for clarification. There is no primordial self. There is no Atman. So that's, that's a Hindu proclamation. And the Buddha contested that saying, No, there isn't one. So what's actually generating is this is a deep question. It's somewhat connected to what what he was talking about earlier. The actual generator is awareness itself, in the form of light and space. And this is the light and space of the mind, not just physical light and space. And so to really answer these questions, I strongly encourage you to bark up this tree. Because this again, Rama Maharshi, right, the great Advaita Vedanta master, he fundamentally crafted an entire path and then attempt to answer this question. Who am I? Who is it that is doing these creations? So the Buddha talked about that this can be answered in really in so many different ways, depending depending on the school that attempts to answer it. So if you're trying to answer from a Tera Vaada any other point of view, he would say the five skandhas if you're dealing with it from a Mahayana point of view, you would say but in nature, if you talk about it from a tantric point of view, you would say luminosity and emptiness. And so, these are obviously enormously deep questions that that are really difficult to ping. Quick, facile, soundbite answers to because they, they're just really deep so I can simply encourage you to continue to try to answer this question for yourself as deeply as you possibly can. Because in so doing, you will, you will find yourself heading into truth. So
from what I just Yeah, I just got from you that it's a very you have to it's an experiential answer. You can't just turn to an answer by labeling. No.
Exactly. That's why you go through that classic Indic pedagogical approach, which is common, both in Hinduism and Buddhism, hearing contemplating meditating. So you listen to hear a contemplate to contemplate it. The answer can only be discovered in meditation. And at that point, then you know Gnostic Lee then you know, in the deepest possible way, because otherwise, even the most refined philosophies can only get so close. Even the deep mystical teachings only get so close but the answer really can only be known to what's called yogic direct valid cognition. When you come to see the these are answers directly for yourself through your inner eye through your opening through your practice, okay? Yes,
thank you so much. Thank you.
Okay. Okay. So let me just pin quickly through these last comments. And then Yes, happy holidays to everybody. Thanks for the kind comments. Nice to hang with my friends again. Yeah, so great. Um, nice to be back. Nice to see everybody. We're starting to enter you know, it's very interesting tomorrow, I think is the solstice, right. So, very auspicious time. This is where, by the way, in terms of Christianity, those of you who are interested in our neck club members, if you haven't heard it already, when I interviewed the shalom, so the Jewish Kabbalistic scholar, whose quote we wrote down today, I interviewed him two years ago, right around this time, and we had a lovely discussion about Christmas and about lights and the whole Christmas light thing and all that sort. So if you're interested in a deeper rendering of the Christmas principle, nobody really knows when Christ was born. They just associated this with this particular time in the world when light is coming back into the world. So check out the interview I did with V A couple years ago. It is referenced on the lights of Christmas is pretty cool. But with all that said, Happy Solstice. If you don't show up on Thursday for our book group, Merry Christmas. There's a there's a line I always remember allegedly when someone came up to Mother Teresa. She this person preface their comment or question with I'm a Christian and then was about to say what they say. And Mother Teresa just cut that person off. Right at that point said already that's a good one, right? already. You're a Christian already. So Christ consciousness is really at these deepest, deepest levels. It's the same Christ consciousness but awareness. chivor They're all the same source as I can tell. So happy Solstice everybody. Great to be back with my Deeps. It's fun to hang out. With everybody again, that really did miss you all. And until next time, stay healthy, be happy and see you around the nightclub community. So everybody we do this totally geeky thing. Everybody amuse themselves. Everybody turns their camera on. We do this totally. Corny love fest.