[17] Insights on Spiritual Growth, Merit, and Letting Go

1:00AM Apr 12, 2024

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Alyssa

James F

Michael

Keywords:

death

life

body

mind

merit

die

level

talk

book

samsara

teachings

practice

bardo

love

people

cool

experience

means

created

tradition

when you die, nothing. He just didn't want to go there. Right. My mom was a different story. I could have really cool conversations with my mom. So I gave her some of your refugees book which she was so sweet. She underlined it. She What are all these notes? It was just the sweetest thing possible. My dad couldn't care less and hey, that's just the way they are all right. He just didn't want to go there. I remember so well. In those instances, we just have to let it go. At least that's my estimation, right? But I have tried it with others. When it did work. They asked for a book. We're about other ways to learn about around about death, right. Ernest Becker's book by the way that Denial of Death 50 year anniversary this year Pulitzer Prize winner. That's a that's a masterpiece. whoo boy. There's a reason to win the Pulitzer Prize. David Moyes book, lack and transcendence. I mean, there's some really good ones out there that deal with this topic. People are often influenced the most by the way, the way other people live their lives. The maxim that actions speak louder than words remains a good one. Our actions are our only true belongings. Set a good example by the way you prepare, tell them about your preparation, if it seems appropriate and leave it at that.

on a spiritual level, we have touched on the power of merits which we'll return to in detail later. So this is the other thing parenthetically the pure lands are all about. Pure lands are the place where merit is discussed a exhaustively, because merit is what creates the pure lands, especially the cumulative sukawati. The one with the easiest, these access merit was created by that so I've been super interesting because I've been told from day one, you know, we're on the path of accumulation, whether we know it or not, there are five paths in this Buddhist tradition. Basically, five stages of one path. We're all whether we know it or not, we're all on the path of accumulation. What we're doing is accumulating wisdom in merit. And so we're doing it but we're on a path of accumulation, whether we know it or not. So understanding and I really worked hard on this because the standard descriptions of merit, they never really landed with me like are they like Girl Scout Boy Scout badges, you know, it's just like, what are we doing here? So I got some pretty deep insights on this when I started studying quantum field theory, quantum entanglement. Really cool things about the field of connected intersubjectivity drawing on these philosophical scientific traditions to talk about the connective tissue of reality and how it is that Mary can really work if you understand these descriptions of reality. And so this is the other thing that peatlands are really cool to explore. When if most of what we're doing is actually whether we know it or not. cumulating merit I think it's helpful to know what that is what what we're doing, and what is the fruition of that is kind of important. A proper dedication of merit benefits, others discreetly MERIT has particular force after someone has died. Why because they're no longer locked into the constraints of the Space Time Matrix to continue on causality, space and time no longer apply. For people like that they've opened into wider dimensions of being and we therefore have greater capacities to help them and then if they're in that dimension, and they're awake, they have capacities to help us through things like blessings and transfer of merit and really kind of magical, wondrous things. Perhaps the best way to help others before they die, is to love them unconditionally. Yeah, like when in doubt, man, that's it right? When in doubt, accept them for who they are. Help them live their lives to the fullest. And unless there is an invitation, keep your views about death to yourself. And so this is a really interesting thing from developmental schools, structuralism, developmental psychology and the like. Is it one of the best things you can do to affect transformation is not to try to seduce somebody up into a higher altitude that you think you may be living at. Could be true, but one of the best things you can do is help them live their fullest at the altitude that they're at because sooner or later, they will exhaust that particular dimension. And so basically, just let them exhaust whatever level they're at. This is what Ken Wilber talks about this translation you're, he has this wonderful image of development is moving up these floors and that's skyscraper in most of us we spend our lives moving furniture around living on a particular floor, that's the translation level of things, but eventually through a number of reasons, you know, we either get bored and we realize the limitations of it. Then when that particular limitation becomes apparent often with that type of crisis and midlife crisis, some level of impermanence, some rip in the fabric of the comfort plan of that particular stage of development. Then transformation has the opportunity to enter the picture. So just help them translate translate in the sense of exhaust whatever level of development they're at. And then eventually, with any level of sensitivity. They'll be open to like, hey, Jesus, is there anything more mean wasn't isn't that really when you look at your own experience? Wasn't there some analog experience like that that guy you went to the so called spiritual business? You try the whole materialism thing. What's how does the saying go? I love it. You climb to the top of the ladder, only to realize it's up against the wrong wall. I really liked that one right there in a crisis. Crisis. Well, then what do you do? Do you try to slap Humpty Dumpty back together again, give it another college try. Already let Humpty Dumpty just go splat and reconstruct and reconfigure him and a different kind of higher frequency domain. This is the basis by the way of dissipative structures. In chaos theory, the work of Ilya Piguet Chang who wrote who wrote who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, like 25 years ago. Okay, hey, geez, look at that. We got through a couple of pages what to do for yourself as you die. Oh, yeah, this great quote, oh my gosh, from Rob Brynden. Earth to Gore, the Bengali poet. I love this one, right. The Earth is not extinguishing the light. It is only putting out the lamp because Dawn has come when that's amazing. I often say Well, here's the kicker. Dawn only comes for those who wake up early enough to see it. So what this means is this light will only be a really reveal to you if you wake up early enough in life to see this dawn right. And then took you to remember che when the last hour is at hand you will stand at a crossroad if you have prepared an advanced you will be ready to move on with great ease and confidence like an eagle soaring into the sky. That's nice. That's really cool. Like an eagle soaring into the sky. Actually, I live in a neighborhood called Eagle's Nest which I think is somewhat cool right? So I'm preparing to fly like an eagle. All those actually the verses that the verse? Is that what it says? What's the verse of that fly like an eagle? Who knows that song? I can't remember if somebody can dig up the verse to that. You get top of the line in the queue for questions today. Okay, if you're prepared when death arrives, simply relax. That's it. It's the only thing you have to do. It's so simple. So simple but simple doesn't mean easy. The only thing you have to do we could close the book. We could all go home. You could continue to watch the masters like I'm watching. That's my favorite golf tournament of the year. I could go back up and distract myself all weekend by watching the Masters you could go drink your beer, whatever. The only thing you have to do to have a good death. Open and relax. Close the book courses over CNX life but it's too steep. It's too simple. It's so whenever I say this, which I say a lot. People often say yes, but I call that the big butt. Yes. But if you say yes, but that's the big but then that means Okay, well we get this thing it's called the path. Right and then where does the path take you? Just like TS Eliot said in the Four Quartets to where you were to where you started, but you see it as it for the first time. It's a path that basically takes you back to here and now nowhere now here. All you have to do open to relax and you have confidence in your preparation and that your good karma your merit. That's what merit is good karma will take care of you. Remember that death is a natural part of life, and that you're not the only one dying right? Billions of people have died throughout history, vastly more than are currently alive Life is but a tiny speck floating on an ocean of death. demographer Carl Hobb I remember this is cool. Using 50,000 BCE as a starting point, estimated calculated then including the 7 billion people now alive around 108 billion people have walked on this planet. That's interesting. That's kind of an interesting number. Somewhat sacred number I'm sure he doesn't know about that kind of numerology thing, but that's kind of interesting. This point is probably 109 billion. This means that over 100 billion people have already died, let alone all animals right. Counts vary but between 156 and 250,000 people die every day. I've done this math. I've done the math on this doesn't take much being that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, human human. One day you're just gonna be a finger snap. And that's why I told her and he said, the universe will not blink when you die. That's he's such a great one liner. This guy the universe will not blink when you die. This doesn't include the untold numbers of animals, insects and unseen forms of sentience life. About 383,000 People are born each day 140 million a year. In addition to these numbers, there are countless beings trans migrating through the 27 states of samsaric existence. So this is the other thing that's talked about exhaustively in the puroland tradition, so cool things, both merit and the 27 realms of samsara are talked about extensively in the puroland traditions in the where the Pure Land situate they're trying samsara they're not Nirvana, but they're outside the domain of samsara. So it's, they're, they're not included in the 27 states. They're in our God realms. They're different. But the peon tradition goes big into these dates.

As we approach death, we are about to experience what cow lists means have already experienced. Not only that, we have already experienced death countless times remind yourself I'm not the only one traveling on this road. This is not the road less traveled this is the road everybody has to travel. M Scott Peck needs to write a new bestseller that runs for another six years on the New York Times bestseller list, right? Actually, it was a pretty good book 10 years ago. Remind yourself I'm not the only one traveling this road all beings of the past have died. All those alive will die and all those who come in the future will die. No one escapes death. The play of birth and death, life and death takes tea is taking place at a scale we can't even imagine. This doesn't include I mean goodness knows you know how many trillions of other life and have any planets there are in jest this universal system? And if you believe not, in the Everett, multi world interpretation, that's baloney. But if you believe in multiverses then I mean, there are trillions upon trillions of universes where this this play of life and death are just taking place. And let's that's just what mine does. This is where reality does. And now it's time to enter this play once again. And then the idea is keep it a play. Don't turn it into a drama or tragedy. It's no big deal. I mean, even with the right view, I mean, like Karmapa has holiness come up right just before he died, said so beautifully so cryptically to one of his senior students. Nothing happens. So for someone like that, who's done all the work, has died before he died made all this unconscious processes conscious that no longer exists, death just exist in the world the form doesn't mean the play ends just means you're no longer conscripted into the play and voluntarily means then you engage in this recycling process. As an actor endlessly on these endless Shakespearean plays voluntarily to help others wake up from their dramas. There are three levels of practitioner for the Bardot's each one is based on proper vision and perspective, right? Do those have the highest level look forward to death because they realize it's the greatest opportunity for awakening? Why because it's such a fluid environment. Emptiness is extraordinarily fluid. This is where you're gonna go and you're going to die into the waters of emptiness. And so if you know how to swim, boy, you know you can really cruise if you don't, you're gonna drown. So it's the fluidity that creates the opportunity, the promise and conversely, the peril. If you don't know how to swim and groundlessness and emptiness you drown, if you do, greatest opportunities because everything is so liquid, so free, so flowing you can you can form your shape and shape your mind into any direction, rapid, psychospiritual process of evolution, so much you can do in the liquidity of the Bartel states if in fact you know how to swim because they realize it is the literally I love this once in a lifetime opportunity they're no they know they're heading for enlightenment. Those of the middling level have no fear. Why? Because they understand the process fear synonymous with ignorance. We're afraid of what we don't know. You transform the darkness of ignorance. Enter the light of wisdom, right? There's nothing to fear. Those are the lowest level have no regrets. Why because they live their life with a gasp fully turned on. When they've done their best to prepare if we elevate and improve our vision, we can enter any of these levels and die with grace and ease. Open your mind. That's it open open. Open meditation is a situation to openness. Openness is a synonym for emptiness. Openness is another way to talk about love. This is where you're going to go when you die. You're going to fall into the primordial lap of the awakened mother personal paramita you're going to return to this feminine embrace. When you fall in drop dead at the end of life, you're going to drop into love. That's kind of cool, because reality is made of life. Life well that's good. Reality is made of love and the mind falls into itself at death, deep meditation, dreams and the light. It's fundamentally falling into love. That's the nature it's a fabric of reality. And so if you understand this deeply, this is like the ultimate holding environment. I mean, you have this holding environment that you're embraced by this beneficent, loving kind universe. You realize it when you're going to die, you're just going to dissolve back to this loving embrace. You don't think that's going to change the way you relate to the end of your life teaches everything. You're a whole lot more likely to let go. That's all I have to do and have a good day. If you know when you let go and fall you're gonna fall into this primordial matrix of love. I like that sure does make sense to me. This is important because otherwise this whole emptiness thing right in be so cold and cerebral like idealism, right? I'm into idealism these days. Studying the German philosophers starting from continental Schopenhauer, Hegel, shake the filling in the lake. idealism is great. It's just terrific is a big antidote to materialism. But the difference between idealism and pantheism, which is what this tradition is, is there's no effect there's no there's no warmth to the idealistic schools. I haven't seen it. So this is what trance This is what makes the difference between the classic idealism, traditions and philosophy with pantheism, which is the big term for what these traditions represent. Is the warm, fuzzy, loving quality of this reality. Yes, it's made of mine, but it's also made of heart and spirit. And the pain of the idealistic traditions don't roll there. They just don't they don't really subscribe to that. Too bad for them. I tried to change their views. But it's like me coming to a dinner party reminding, you know, speaking before reminders, it just doesn't work. So I've given up right. It's bad for the reputation. God forbid, even though there isn't one God forbid if they were to subscribe to the view that reality is made of love. Oh my God, how could I be seen as a scientist? How could I be seen as objective? If I subscribe to the world made of love? You get thrown into the New Age dustbin and just kicked out of the academy. It's true. Really. Skepticism is fashionable. Doubt is fashionable. Why? Because it seems to intimate a sense of intelligence and objectivity. I mean, what a bunch of bunk. It's just ridiculous. Except death is nature's way of recycling spirit into infinite new forms. Yeah. You're just returning to the Return to Sender that wonderful song right Return to Sender that's all it's happening. Letting go Okay, here we go. Yeah, here we go. Letting Go. The painful part of dying is painful. Why? Because it hurts to let go. But now's the time when we have to, or at least we're invited to write like go now or let go later die now or die later on. You're titrated negotiable terms around deaths, uncompromising non negotiable terms. One either way, the one or the other. You have to let go. Either way, you know you lead to liberation. And that's why I like to talk about death as a forceful method of liberation. That's what death is. It's a forceful, wrathful form of liberation. Why? Because it's uncompromising and non negotiable. You have no choice at that point. But now you do. Now you can drip it. I like this notion. You can drip death. Right Jerry is like an IV. Put an IV of sanity into your system. Gail, you know, my physician friends listening, put an IV and drip depth. I like some of these images that come up. Those are kind of cool drip death titrate it so that when you enter the big D at the end of life, it's just like you'll say like the come up, nothing happens. Why? Because you're already dead. You've already done the work to let go. And the painful battle just becomes the Bardo of dying. There's no more pain because you've already done the letting go and that does hurt. It just heard you quietly because we're just so stuck on ourselves. We're so grasping, we stick out ourselves. We stick to everything. Sometimes our fingers have to be pried open, right? That hurts. Letting go is just a euphemism for death. That's why the pain path is death and slow motion. Spiritual Path is death in slow motion. In releasing our grip is what transforms the painful Bardo dying into simply the Bardo, dying to be like an eagle soaring in the sky. We have to cut the fetters of everything that holds us down. So your Rinpoche says, slowly it dawns on us that all the heartache we have been through from grasping at the ungraspable will was in the deepest sense, unnecessary. At the beginning, this may be this too may be painful to accept. Because it seems so unfamiliar. What's what's meditation Gong, what does it mean to become familiar with? Hello?

That as we reflect slowly our hearts and minds go through through a gradual trance, transformation of familiarity. That's what we're doing with these teachings. We're becoming familiar with this process at the level of the map. That's the installation of the GPS. Then we download it into our system through contemplation, digesting it, then we metabolize it through the meditations. And then the territory. The map becomes a territory and we have direct experiences of these deathless qualities of our being. Back to him letting go begins to feel more natural becomes easier and easier. It may take a long time for the extent of our foolishness to sink in. But the more we reflect the more we develop the view of letting go. It is then that a complete shift takes place on our way of looking at everything. Yeah, that's really well said. Isn't that amazing? For you to what did Kris Kristofferson say made famous by Janis Joplin Freedom's just another word? For nothing left to lose nothing left to let go of main spot on high five Chris You got it man. Let go Let go Let go create a nonstick mine. So I'm big into this. I like these goofy words. You know, I'm a Gemini somebody told me Geminis like to play with words. I definitely like to play with words. So we want to develop this nonstick mind, right? We want to go from velcro to Teflon. Right now. We're like, we're velcro everything sticks to us. We want to go with the Teflon and so thinking about this not that long ago, you know if you don't have Teflon used to you know, spray your PAM remember you'd spray it with with Pam or whatever or some other thing. Well, I thought about this for a second I said what you really want to do, really to create a nonstick mind is you want to spray your mind with space. I like that image spray your mind with space so that nothing sticks. Your mind becomes full of holes, your mind becomes holy and nothing can stick. Spray your mind with space. This is where you're going to go on your die. Space is the Buddhist version of God and another one liner from Trungpa Rinpoche that's a good one. Space is the Buddhist version of God. That's where you're going to dissolve when you die. You're going to dissolve into infinite open space of the luminous loving caring mind. That's it. You'll fall into this love Can you handle that much love? That's the key. How much love Can you handle how much light reality truth can you handle? If you can't handle being so open and so much in love? If you can't handle being simultaneously nothing in everything? What are you going to do? You're going to whiplash as he collide with infinity. That Whiplash is going to contract you back into form that very form is going to freeze the space creating that the illusion that there's a self that right there is the phenomenology of rebirth right there. The whole shebang death and slow motion. So if we travel our path genuinely death is but a graceful exit from a path well traveled. We can choose to let go now and die before we die using our transition. That's the whole point. If you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die. We can wait live in ignorance and denial basically distracting ourselves onto death. That's what most of us do. Isn't it so true? Isn't it so true? We basically just distract ourselves onto death. Just like taxes. There's some truth here. And when our later comes calling can't get away from mine I deal with it now. Die now live your life more fully. You understand all this now and then you live with utter complete fearless gusto. Because you realize as it says probably eight times in the Tibetan Book of the Dead emptiness cannot harm emptiness space cannot harm space. So when you dissolve into the space like nature, then you live fearlessly on behalf of reality acting with utter fearless gusto. Because you realize nothing can hurt you. Nothing can touch you. Feel things more? But they hurt you less. Okay, Nathan heartspace. Reputation says letting go was initially unfamiliar to us, which is why it hurts but meditation is precisely about becoming familiar with that's what it means. Letting Go and therefore easing all the transitions in life. And death. Oh yeah. So here's the thing that Karmapa if you want to see this this comes from this beautiful film lion's roar still available. If you haven't seen it, it's it's really beautiful film, life and death of His Holiness 16th Karmapa highly recommend it's great film. So this comes from that flip from that movie. The Saints can come up an enlightened being said that nothing happens at death. This was a cryptic statement left open for interpretation. One of you would be that for someone who has completely let go during life. Nothing happens at death because there's nothing left to release Bardot's only exist in samsara. There is no Bardo, in the mind of a Buddha only in samsara. samsara is defined by grasping and attachment for someone like to come up but there is no Bardo. And again, this is where it's interesting to throw into the mix. You know, there's all this thing but I gotta get out of samsara. I gotta get out of samsara. I gotta get to Nirvana, I gotta get to Nirvana. Well wearing tell me somebody in this listening all the wonderful postage stamps out there, and then I'm looking at tell me precisely where is this thing called samsara. It's a state of mind. It's not a state in reality. So when you say get out of samsara gotta get us I'm sorry, I gotta get I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here. You got to FedEx my consciousness to whatever. What are you really doing? Life is a journey of the mind. Death is a journey of the mind. There is only the mind heartstopper that's all there is. And a story just like a dream. I want to get out of some sorrow. Okay, well tell me where are you gonna go? Wherever you go, there you are. Jon Kabat Zinn is famous book. You can't get away from yourself. samsara is a state of mind, not a state and reality. Nirvana is a state of mind, not a state. In reality. This is Uber important. Because it really empowers the immediacy of nirvana. You're already in it, man. This is this is it. There's all kinds of cool things related to pure lands here. You're already in this pure land. You're already in Nirvana. It's hiding in plain sight. The path is perceptual, not actual. Let me say that again. The path is perceptual, not actual, you're going nowhere. And in fact, this is a marvelous contemplation I do this a lot. As a thought experiment, look back over your life and reflect on the very strong possibility that you have actually never gone anywhere. I've been to 60 different countries. I've traveled the world right how does that sound go? Everybody's locked in for some fun, right? Traveling the world and the seven seas. Everybody's locked in for something. I'm really into cultural memes these days and the wisdom that comes to the power of imagination. These are transmission things right. So Annie Lennox was on to something here. Everybody's looking for something. What are they looking for? What they're looking for, they already have. They're looking for the nature of their own minds and hearts. And if they don't realize that, they engage like Ernest Becker talks about in the denial of death, they engage in immortality project substitute gratifications. Little do they know that everything they want, they already have, they only have to dis cover it. That's ultimate puroland principle. That's purity. Principle, emptiness, emptiness. That's purity principle. And so you remove, you know, rest in that state. That's it. samsara is just partial or no recognition of nirvana. There's only nirvana. There's only rigpa there's on whatever term you want to append. to it. That's all there is. And when we append the label of samsara to was either partial or no recognition of that, one, open, infinite space, that's all there is. So the only thing you have to do is what? Open relax. That's it. hardstyle done. Exactly what's gonna happen when you die. Death is the big grand opening heart. Stop talking about heart stop. We want to make it a soft stop. At the end of life, this is where you're going is the grand opening into love for someone like to come up, there is no Bardo. Even though you may have practiced well, don't turn your death into a performance. I'm going to I actually I'm not going to I don't agree with this. I'm going to set up some YouTube video live cameras and I'm going to go up in a rainbow body and I'm going to have it documented and shot. Oh my god, what a pathetic notion that would be right. Somebody's going to do it right. I won't name names, but I know some people who are probably getting all set up. They're gonna get the camera crews ready, and they're gonna go up in a blazing rainbow body. Honestly, if somebody could do that, I would pay to watch that. That would be pretty cool. Rainbow body is not so easy to see. Allegedly Christ according to my friend father, Francis Tiso, Catholic priest, who knows more about Tibetan Buddhism than most Tibetan Buddhists. read his book death what's it called? Resurrection?

Look at somebody look up the title for me. I have it back here. Oh, what's it called Father Francis TiVo. I can't remember something resurrection, right? Oh, Rainbow body and resurrection, Rainbow body and resurrection. He conjecture he doesn't conject Well, it is a conjecture because it hasn't been proven, but in a really interesting bit of scholarship, controversial but really compelling. He argues that what created the Shroud of Turin was Christ actually going up in a photo fluorescent flash of light just like a rainbow body and that burn the image on the shroud of serotonin just like a like a Xerox camera kind of thing. I don't know that that has some credibility to me. Anyway, I'm not going to do that. That would be a little bit hubristic. Don't compare. Feeling that your death has to measure up to someone else's is the surest way to have a rugged death. While you might sustain the inspiration of the come up, but don't expect to die like him die like yourself, just be yourself. Be yourself fully. yourself. 100% you may find it if you just if you be yourself 100% You may find yourself actually being a Buddha. I think that's what Buddha really is. Be human 100% you may find that being human 100% is being Buddha. Beach, genuine, simple and ordinary, like death itself. If we don't interfere, dying is easy. It's the one thing in life we don't have to do. Just get out of the way. And no matter how much we have studied the Bardot's the experience is always fresh. Yeah, what's it going to be like this time? Right? What's it going to be like this time via curious them cure? Wow, this is kind of like what's it going to be like this time? Our experience is far richer than the best map. So don't let it cramp your territory. That's one problem with the Bartles by the way, that's one problem with the elegance of the Bardo teachings. The teachings are so elegant, so sophisticated, so articulate that they could potentially backfire and constrict the territory right? Oh, good, Lord. What's happening? Stage Five is happening before stage three. Oh my god, I'm so screwed. Well the one thing about the Bardot's is nothing is fixed. That's what makes a burrito a burrito. And that means you prepare you study you do all the stuff and then what do you do you self liberate the antidote? You let go you burn this book. Right? But buy it first. Make sure you buy it, then burn it. Burn this book self liberate all the antidotes. You know, pack your backpack with all these goodies and then let it all go and go for the joyride. Don't expect it to be expectation is premeditated disappointment. Make no appointment. Have no disappointment. Can I'm like a walking bumper sticker man. I should open up a Chinese cookie. You should have all these little cookie. What do you call those things? Fortune Cookies misfortune cookies. I've had this aspiration. What do you think Alyssa? We should do this we should open a Chinese miss fortune cookie company. Where what we do I really think we should do this. Buddhists would love it. And so when people open these Chinese misfortune cookies, they pull out their little things and it says you are going to die. Oh my god, or they open up another cookie and then says something like you know, contemplate the nature of death and impermanence. I mean, I would buy cookies like yep, I would invest in a Chinese miss fortune cookie company. What do you think? Can we raise some funds? Let's do it. I think it's a great idea. That's actually not bad. I'm sure I could find some venture capitalists that would do this right. Chinese miss fortune cookie company. You heard it here. First. I'm going to copyright it intellectual property. Don't steal it. Actually, I'm generous. You can take it. Yes. So get Rinpoche expectation is premeditated disappointment. That's beautiful. Remember that? We are composed of the three bodies as we decompose. This reminds me of a joke you know I bade Beethoven couldn't find Hidin right the baby because he was in his grave decomposing. Oh, my gosh, I shouldn't have had that nitrous before class started tonight. William James, by the way, was really big into nitrous. Did you know that? I love this guy. I'm really a big William James fan. He was really big into nitrous oxide. Some of his greatest insights came from nitrous. That's actually why I want it to my business. So I can start the day with nitrous have a little nitro SIP at lunch and then nitrous at the end of the day. That's what made me who I am. Remember that we are composed of three bodies the gross physical body, the subtle body and the very subtle body the gross body of flesh and blood is what dies during the outer dissolution. Turn transitions then into the subtle body which is made up of the channels winds and drops chakras right and body property boom do chakra that's what dissolves in the inner dissolution. You know this word is going to come up later. Mind is a body dissolves into mind dualistic mind, mind then dies, dissolves, exhales and dies into wisdom. And this very subtle body which is composed the very subtle prana in mind is what's revealed at the end of the inner distribution which is the point of death. This very subtle body does not die this is the indestructible continuum. Magick the tingly Tibetan means indestructible Bindu people tend to think that the bindi was like some little droplet or soul kind of thing. But Rob Thurman has a great translation for this indestructible continuum. That's what continues in Buddha Mahayana language but in nature and terabyte in language chip that Santa knew the man stream the river of mind. That which never dies because it never came into form. The stream of mind that you're going to dulls it dissolve into that doesn't end because it never started to beyond space and time, deathless because you know, yeah, birthless, deathless. This very subtle body sheds that you outer bodies and continues merrily along its way to infinity. And the next life which begins in the cosmic dressing room of the Bardo becoming this very subtle body will temporarily cover itself yet again, with a new subtle and ghost body only to strip it off. When the next life ends. That's the whole that's what it takes. What's taking place Lama usually says understanding the subtle body and it's the very subtle body helps us to recognize that we have other bodies within us, right? What did Walt Whitman say? I contain multitudes. I don't think he knew about the Takara principle. But we are working. We're multitudinous in nature helps us recognize that we have other bodies within us in addition to our gross physical body, so we don't have to worry too much when a girl's body is degenerating or being uncooperative. It doesn't matter. Do you transition your identity from exclusive identification? Oh, Barry. Oh, look at Barry's already on it. The end is near. And it's all your fault. Oh, that is awesome, bro. Does that mean I'm Barry that somebody already has right the misfortune cookie company or did you somehow slap that together? That is awesome. See? I'm already too late. Oh, bummer. That's great. My friend Barry. Barry's just a rock star. The stuff he pulls up off the net is just amazing. The end is near and it's all your fault. Here's the other one I have this is what I would put up Can you can you see this one? You see it? That's what I would have on there. Right? The end is not near enough. Oh my gosh. Shoe ething funny. That's just awesome. Even during life if we only relate to our gross body, we're going to get into trouble. Have you noticed? This body is the basis of our egoic urges. If our focus stays on the superficial level we will lead a superficial life. The outer body with his externally oriented senses is always directed out and away from who we truly are and what we truly want. We don't know what we want because we don't know who we are. Let me say that again. We don't know what we want because we don't know who we are. Understand who you really are. You understand what you really want and you know what's going to happen. You'll discover when you know who you really are. You don't want anything. You don't need anything because you already have everything. This is an important one. This is going to save you a ton of time trouble and money. We don't know what we want because we don't know who we are. What do we know who we are we no longer want want is a sense of deficiency and lack hence the title of my beautiful friends David Lloyd's book, lack and transcendence. You have to read this book. It's a masterpiece. about death and existentialism and Buddhism masterpiece.

This thought about a little I'd always points us in the wrong direction. The inner yogas which work with us on the body allow us to become familiar with our two inner bodies and therefore our immortality. They point us in the right direction. Reminds me of the the Greek term for a sin hamartia. It's an archery term, which means to miss the mark. Isn't that interesting? Sin is to miss the mark. And we miss the mark. We're not happy we have this kind of sinful propensity because our aim is 180 degrees off just a tiny bit off, like 180 degrees. That's why we're not happy. That's why we keep missing the target because we're shooting outside and what we want to do is shoot inside the wonder the world is going to hell. We're 180 degrees off from what we want. If we knew who we really were, we would no longer want and then we wouldn't be the average American with consumes 200 times the world's average of natural resources. Settle into that because we have this deficient emptiness, this sense of lack. So we eat we consume we destroy. Instead of getting full, we get fat. This is the basis of all obesity epidemics. Because we're we don't know what we're doing. We don't know what we're eating, and we're killing the effing planet because of this. So this stuff may seem like oh, this is nice butter philosophy. This is nice metaphysics. Hell no. This has tremendous explanatory power for the medic crisis that's consuming this world. It comes down to these fundamental principles. Really. No kidding. Okay, almost done. We avoid the core of our body like you avoid the core of reality. We're afraid of the center of ourselves. We spend our lives running away from ourselves. The inner yoga is direct us to reality the access and exercise and exercise are to in our bodies, weakening our exclusive identification with our form and strengthening our identification with the formless. This is this relocation of resources transforming your portfolio, your retirement account to your true IRA, the immortality retirement account that takes place when you invest in the two dimension of your being which is deathless. This market does not crash this market market is changeless. It doesn't go up and down. This is where you want to invest. Everything else is going to crash. Everything else is gonna die. Invest in what Won't they allow us to touch our deathless nature, but nature changeless nature literally. This is the guiding view and all we have to do to die. Well that's it. That's it. Second Chance to close this book out and go home. That's all I gotta do. We can strengthen this view by understanding the eight phases of the alternate energy solution and they are accompanying signs. They're coming up next. This is cool stuff. The signs arise as physical and mental functions see signaling the advancement of death. It's like learning about Notre DOM before visiting it. Yeah, see like that puppy burned down talking about impermanence, right. Having studied we can better appreciate the nuances of the experience. Okay. Where are we? That was number 16. Right? Tell Alyssa Chelsea 16. Yeah, I think at this point, maybe two years on this book. Maybe three. But hey, I had a really cool lucid dream last night. I had a really cool I'm having lots of lucid dreams these days. And I'm about to go into a sleep lab. Some kind of ramping up my game. And I had this dream. It was really pretty cool. I'm also doing a lot of relatively, I think, interesting studies in the work of the extraordinary genius of Carl Jung and his work with the unconscious mind. Oh my god was this guy on to something I forgot really how amazing he was. So I'm going back into his work. And I had this really cool lucid dream last night where I was in it and I was like, I had the dream. And something was speaking to me whether it was some external agency or something within me, I don't know. It doesn't matter. And I'm sitting there going data on I literally like okay, you know how hard it is to remember stuff in a dream, right? And so I'm in our lucid I'm going, Oh, my God, this is a dream. This is a great teaching. It's occurring. And I'm going I don't have a voice recorder. I can't write it down. How am I supposed to remember these things? It was actually it was kind of cool and literally like I was looking for my hands of course I don't have any created the hand, tried to find a voice recorder. The voice route Have a good dream. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to translate that into physical reality. And so I remembered some of what was was transmitted to me. But one thing that was really clear at the end that was said several times, it was really kind of forceful was in this kind of big booming godlike voice. It was kind of cool. Less is more centered about five times it was awesome. Less is more. For me, as you know, that's a big deal because I usually just get so excited. I can't shut up. It's like now I gotta tell them more. We gotta get more as more and more and more fill my schedule. I drive myself crazy. So there's really interesting teaching came in, and it was cool. I was totally lucid. Totally were frustrated because I didn't have my voice recorder. Because that's when I go with the dark retreat. I have these insights and I just click my voice recorder. And so the only thing I really remember I woke up this morning was less is more. That's a good one. That's a good one. Okay, so one question came in if you have questions or comments or jokes, or funny puns or word play, but let me answer this question that came in and then we can chat until I go back up. To watch more of the masters. Let's get real. That's what it's really all about. Scottie, Scheffler is going to take it he's my number one choice if he doesn't get it. Who's the guy that won the US Open? from Denver. Windham Clark. Here's my second choice. Number three. Rory McIlroy. Okay. A couple of years ago, maybe 15 years ago I gave a talk the day before Super Bowl and just spontaneously I ripped off I think this is going to be the score and it turned out to be the score. Is any several people call me later and said oh my gosh, I wish I would have known I could have bet. I just it just came out 17 or 2017. That was the score of the game four hours later. Are you kidding me? That's kind of cool. Okay, here's a question. Patrick. Thank you for all you do. Okay, thank you. I try. When people do deep meditations is a taste of non duality all that they experience or are there other things too that they can experience? Oh my gosh, Patrick, they can experience a host of things. Not just all non duality. No, you can experience quia essence tranquility through shamatha meditation. You can experience insight through Vipassana you could experience loving kindness through metta. You can experience compassion of through Tong Lin you can experience I mean, oh dozens and dozens and dozens of things. Non duality is just one literally of dozens of things you can experience. Can they get insights? Yes. Or even visions? Yes. Which come from a higher source? Yes. More than just the mind in his projections. Yes to all those questions. Someone told me when you close your eyes or have them open in perfect darkness, the pixelated forms, the pixelated formless blackness is rigpa. Is that true? No. Or is that pixelation from the eyes? Probably in rigpa is something that can't be seen. I don't a ton of dark practice in the pixelated darkness thing. First of all, Rick put, you can't see rig pot. Rig pose that which sees it can't be seen. You can't see it as an object. And so this is why they say not finding is the best finding. And so if you're actually looking for rigpa in any form, you're looking in the wrong direction again, repose That which sees that can't be seen. repose that which manifest another term for dharma tog Dharmakaya to which everything arises to which everything returns So on one level, depending on how you defined it, yes, there's only BrainPOP that's another way to talk about it. Rick, post multi Vaillant term. So on one level No, you can't see rigpa because it's formless, but it is that which sees like they say in the Cthulhu Parishad That which sees but cannot be seen that which hears but cannot be heard. On another level, right? GPA is everything. This is BrainPOP. This is the ultimate puroland. So on one level, there's only rigged out you're looking at it right now. So it depends on how you define it. But in relation to this question question here and what this person says no that's that's not quite right. If you think you can see it with your eyes, no, especially in a dark practice like that. No. least that's my understanding. Okay. Questions or comments from you? Oh, that's the only one that came in. Patrick. Thank you for the good question. I hope that helps. The idea is there's so much more you know, the mind is such a wondrous events such a wondrous thing. There's so much that you can see, except for Rick but there's so much that you can discern, unpack, unveil all the noble qualities of the awakened ones that are there to be unfurled and released. And that's why there are dozens and dozens of meditations that are designed to in fact access all these dozens dozens of types of experiences. Okay. Hey, James. Let's get you started here. Buddy.

Okay. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for all you do. I have a couple of questions. They're very different. But the first one I have read you recommended at some point reading Bruce, Bruce TIFs book already free, which is terrific.

Yeah, he's a good guy.

But my question is, I'm gonna go back to page 69. On the last paragraph where they say, this body is the basis of our egoic urges. And like Bruce actually says, you know that the body is a place where you can get real rather than staying in the display and it says that mindfulness, the first foundation of mindfulness is the body. So it feels like there's maybe two different messages here. I'd like for you to talk about that a bit if you would. Yeah,

totally. No, no, we're both right. You know, this whole notion of daily theism. Right? It doesn't have to be yes no black, white. Right wrong. You can have an and or approach doesn't have to be Aristotelian, it can be dialed atheists, which means there's room for both. So on one level, absolutely. I mean, Bruce's great. He's spot on with that. You come to this body to be grounded in it, because the body is always forever presents. You're literally come to your senses, which only a Biden operating in the present moment. The first foundation of mindfulness is indeed mindfulness of body. And so the body in that regard is a marvelous, marvelous anger. But at another level, if you only exclusively identify with that body then that can transform into a trap, because that's superficial identification. That doesn't include these more subtle interiority of the kaios within the subtle body and the very subtle body so you can engage both right use the girl's body as a way to anchor to either tame the wild and unruly mind, but then realize their tremendous limitations that ego is exclusive identification with body with form Freud said it as well egos first and foremost, the body ego. So if you don't use the body properly and identify with it, then this wonderful wisdom, expression becomes a trap. Because then you're just basically locked in the superficial exterior most dimension of your being, and you're not tapping into the deeper issues with him. Does that make sense? Yes,

yes. Thank you. That's, that's great. Second question. You You said something about when you die, you die into the embrace the embrace of love or, or I guess another way to say it is the space embrace. You know, you die into a space of embrace.

Oh, I like that space embrace. I'll steal that.

Okay, so my so my question is, will somebody like Putin by and die into a space embrace them to?

Oh, he's gonna die right into hell, because he lives in hell. So these are the Bardo VIPs these are the people that are either really, really good or really, really bad. And it's just like a board game. They skip everything and the really, really good ones go right to a pure land because that's heavy karma. In the moment of transition. There are four operable laws of transitional karma. Heavy proximate, habitual, and random. And so heavy is what it sounds like. That's just what the person does all the time. And so if you're really good, good, good, and you do good, good, good. All the time. That leaves a red carpet for you. Nobody exists for you, you go straight to the pure lands or wherever. Conversely, if you're really bad boy, really bad girl. You know, you're going to inhabit the mind that you exercise during your life. There's no hell around waiting for them. Well, I find entirely true. It's a little bit of both. But because Putin is living in a hell realm now and because he's so contracted, oh my God, he's the archetype of contraction. When that that when that world pool opens forcefully, the Whiplash is going to be so intense you got to hurl himself directly into the lower realms because he's living in a lower realm. See? And so for someone like that, you need, you know, unfortunately, really heavy raffle techniques in order to try to do anything. I mean, if you get Putin in a room, were you going to talk therapy with him? Oh, oh, you take him out. Sorry. You take him out. So anyway, yeah, something like that, my friend.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you,

sir. Great, right, quote, unquote. Yeah, it's sad, you know, the level of contraction the velocity and frequency of his contraction is insane. And look, look at the look at look at what's happening because of that. It's like I think I shared this the other day, this incredible quote from Jon Kabat Zinn, which I really love, about the importance of knowing yourself and knowing your mind. Right, Socrates, Plato, know thyself. He says, if you know your mind fully, you get beauty, the arts and all things wondrous. If you don't know your mind, you get Auschwitz or in this case, Putin or fill in the blank. And so therefore, this is a consequence of a radical ignorance of who one really is and a complete concretization and reification of a nasally arrested form of development called ego, and it's effing catastrophic. So anyway, on that cheerful note, hey, Bonora unmute yourself there.

Yeah, I have a question about letting go. When I did the Vasa sock press cycle with Nitro. I had a lot of classic dreams of things clearing like the clutter, kind of a little in my heart or you know, like all the stuff that

please yeah, me too. Nice. Yeah. I

just wondering if I'm thinking about repeating it. Is that the would you recommend that as the main practice for letting go or is there something else that would be a practice about letting go?

Well, what a great question you know, it really, it depends on what resonates with you. Um, there's so many practices, really? Gosh, darn, I mean, how many meditations are are fundamentally engaging the narrative of release right? Verse yourself is incredibly powerful purification practice. I mean, I'd be hard pressed to find one that isn't. They have kind of secondary tertiary applications and bandwidth of applicability. But you know, the ones that really, that come to my mind that I find the most impactful are practices like open awareness, if you do that practice, non referential, shamatha shamatha, without a sign, of course, maha mudra absorption, those practices which are just a notch above open awareness, but I write about it a ton to three chapters in my or two chapters in my recent book, reverse meditations. The first time I've written about open awareness. This is a genius meditation when it comes to the end of life. It's all about release letting go so that one version of software relates to spot on. I mean, gosh, there's so many but those are the ones that come to mind directly and then Bardo yoga as a general rubric, and then dark retreat. I mean, I'm more and more talking publicly about the power of dark retreat. You want to practice the ultimate letting go practice go into the dark, because if you don't let go, you're going to drive yourself crazy. And that's why it's a bit intense. So it's not for everybody. But I'm talking a little bit writing a little bit more about it, because it's already happening. We got a bunch of scientists that I'm coordinating to go in and study it. This is probably the most impactful practice I've ever done. And especially in preparation for death, nothing tops it. And in terms of letting go I can't think of another practice that even comes close. So depending on how inspired you are, you could start to explore that as well. Unfortunately, there's not many centers that do it but my friend Scott at Sky cave, he's booked out two and a half years. He's got three caves he wants to build seven more. I was just up there checking his scene out. He's 2000 people on the waiting list. 30 inquiries a day. This is really taking off so I'm trying to support a number of centers. I'm trying to raise money to get some of these centers actually built, cabins created so people can go in there for three, four or five days and really work at extraordinarily deep levels. It's incredible ROI. The return on investment with this practice is off the charts. So something like that. Open awareness dark retreat. Thank you. Okay. Hey, Michael. Oh, wait a second. Steve. Steve Miller, of course. We should sing this together. I want to fly like an eagle.

Rank Andrew for all you do and listen, I've got a quick question about the POA puroland in the Bardo practices. You write you write the teachings are insurance Dharma, and emergency practices. And while I feel that my samatha practice is stable, and on that account, you say, one does not need insurance practice. But earlier you quote, patrol Rinpoche is saying Pola is that teaching that brings Buddha hood without meditation. I am practicing that just a couple of weeks now. And because if I get to Buddhahood that much quicker without practicing meditation, well, there you go. So can you comment on that a little?

Yeah, you know, these these sorts of comments on the tradition are very, very interesting. And again, I don't I can't say with complete authority. Yes. Well, I can't say with with authority on a couple levels, these absolute level teachings, which pose one definitely have the capacity in theory to actually bring one two states of complete realization because of the extraordinary power and efficacy of their practice. But what this means my friend is you have to master POA is that you know, it takes a little better practice. And so, who am I to say that Patrul Rinpoche is somehow off? I mean, there's no way I'm going to do that. So you still have to master that practice. You still have to, at least in my estimation, work with some level of purification of habit patterns and karma. But it's there for a week. It's in the tradition and sometimes the teachings can be somewhat metaphoric. So you know what they say things like, I used to take this literally until I was correct, correct, corrected by a teacher. For that what is taller Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world or the heap of bones that comprise your previous lives? Tolerance? Are the heaps of bones that comprise your previous life. Well, I've been to Everest a couple times. It's 29,000 feet. That's a big mofo mountain. Right. Or the other one have you is there have you shed more drops than there are drops in the oceans in the water, you able to shed far more drops in there drops in the ocean water. It's, it's, it's not hyperbolic, it's metaphoric. Take it literally, but don't take any. I'm sorry. Take it seriously, but don't take it literally. That's the way I read that. Because otherwise, if you reify it you know, you could get a little bit tripped up on this or anything. It's the same thing that happens when you reify solidify concretize any myth. I mean, myths are language of dreams and some of these should be interpreted and related to symbolically not literally. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome very much. Moody Blues. Oh, I love the Moody Blues. Yes, I love them arrive. Well, these are gray eurhythmics Yes, Annie Lennox. I know the guy who was married to her actually. The woody blues legend of mine. Yeah, we cope app Yep, we talked to I think we cook is a really cool app. You can get the pings in five times a day these little things on your phone to basically says you're going to die. It's pretty cool. Okay, Chelsea, Alisa, am I missing anything? Can you help me

Hamlin that was sent to me.

Oh, okay.

Okay, so it says the obvious benefit of merit in the Bardo is the development of wholesome habits that will guide our experience. Can you talk about the other benefits of merit, developing the perspective that sees the true nature of reality, or at least moving us closer to seeing it? Yeah, Mary's taught that.

Sorry. I'm sorry. What's the last thing listen, I cut you off.

There's a little bit more but today we are talking about accumulation of merit increases wisdom, but not much about how it happens. I'm curious to know your take on with it on it with your understanding of modern quantum physics. You briefly mentioned this at the beginning of today's talk. I'd love to hear more.

Ah, a week long class. Yeah, this is a big question. So two things you know the quantum field theory and the dedication of merit Boy, that's a big long riff I'm not quite gonna go into that because that's that's big. I mean, because marriage is such a really big topic. I can't really spit out one or two soundbite clips that are going to basically satisfy your longing to understand the process of merit. Is this a really big deal topic? So quantum entanglement quantum through quilt, field theory and the like. It makes a ton of sense to me. But this is a big deal to unpack. I don't have time for it. Not in this situation. The first part of your question I can't say something about and that is one of the principal a major reason for the accumulation of merit is merit is you know I have to be again metaphor because it kind of cosmic currency. And then if there's enough merit, then what happens is the merit actually transforms into wisdom. And so what this means is that when you get like a pointing out transmission, you get something of the nature of mind pointed out to you, I mean, in nothing happens you know, you come out of an obvious shake along in Parliament, he's like, geez, like nothing happened. Well, why didn't something happen or if it did happen, and it doesn't stick in mature why? No mirror feel that it's like throwing seeds onto concrete. So merit creates a field of receptivity, that when these transmissions and whatever are pointed out, they stick they plant they flourish, they grow. And so this is actually what creates so to speak, quote unquote, this is what the germinative field the creates a proper holding environment for when nature mind is pointed out. You get it. You get it, because you have enough merit. If you don't, you don't get it. You could live with a completely enlightened being. And like nothing would happen. I mean, somewhat hyper hyperbolic, but you get the idea. Unless there's some level of receptivity, processing opening on your side, nothing will be transmitted. So I set myself up for these types of difficult questions, because you know, I beg these questions because I pass this stuff up, but to answer something like what you're asking for here, this is such a big topic, that literally I'm not being exaggerating in this regard. This is why I go off and teach on it for seven days, because there's just so much to say here and so I hope you understand that for me to just say more than that in the few minutes I have before I have to go back to watching the Masters is the best I can do. Okay, so am I missing anything else Chelsea or less I apologize for the people that send me direct messages. I you know, if I sit here and read through those I'll read them Alyssa if you can hold the chat for me and somehow send it to me, I can read them then. But I really appreciate the private messages that come to me but if I sit here and go through them all. Again, I'll be here for another 20 minutes. So I will look at what was sent to me and Chelsea and Alyssa you guys know how to do this. Send me the chat column. I can look at those. Then I can address these comments and questions which are quite extensive after I have a chance to read them. But just the read them will take me 15 minutes. So I hope you understand that as well. Okay. That's why it's always best if you have something to say or share to just come on and do it live. But I'll do my best to look at it later. I just can't do it right now. Because there's a lot it's great. I love it. But I just can't do it all right now. Yes should practice oh my god, Linda for sure. High five. The cutting through absolutely all the texture related practices should severance. Absolutely wonderful for letting go. Oh, okay. Terrific, everybody. Great to see you. Remember, it's either Scottie Scheffler or Windham Clark. That's where I'm putting my money. Take out the masters. Number one and two, of course I'll be totally wrong. But until then, what do we do? Right? If what we're doing here is not a benefit to others. If it's not a benefit to the world. It's irrelevant. We're just sitting here making ourselves feel good. dedicate the merit, whatever that may mean to you. Whatever benefit we've acquired, we send it out to all sentient beings. To share the benefit of any value that we've created, always realizing that we're really doing this for others, right. Never forget, never forget. But until then you know how things work. I'll be back in two weeks. Those of you who are not club members, you know what's happening by preparing to die of friends. You know, we have a couple more weeks on that program. But much love to you all all the best, and see you around town so to speak, shout out