exchange at Nottingham. She's going to be hosting twice a month, this dream sharing thing and we're gonna have some she's gonna we're gonna send along some general guidelines and protocol things and stuff like that. But that's a nice introduction. So I'm happy to share that with you all. So okay, Alyssa, here's the pause. recording in progress. I sent you these pauses so far, at least people told me I'm supposed to do before we started our formal sessions. Almost forgot Dr. Ed. Since he's here. Dr. Ed's medical event. So Alyssa, sorry you made a mistake. You can leave this on. Dr. Ed doses is he has a monthly sleep medicine thing which I I'll be there for sure. I was trying to attend the Savi there. And these are if you haven't shown up for these things. They're pretty cool. They're really fun. And his extraordinary expertise is available to us. So big formal bow to you my friend out there. You showed up. Thank you so much for doing that. So that's a fun event. I'll almost forgot to mention that. So what we're doing today, every time I do this, do you remember that you remember that? absolutely hysterical scene Saturday Night Live when they had their Christmas specials. Remember, there's that one scene with John Malkovich? You should check it out. You've I'm sure you can find it on Google. I'm sure Barry can pull it up. It's this hysterical thing with John Malkovich reading this Christmas, these Christmas stories to these kids. And it's really edgy. It's just it's hysterical. So every time I do this I have this kind of strange flashback to John Malkovich, who's kind of perverse reading to all these kids. So anyway, we finished last time where we left off I should say page 151 mindfulness and illusory form. Is that right Alyssa?
Is that chapter 17?
Session 17. Yeah. If we're wrong, it's your fault.
Lots of people are saying yes. So.
Okay. All right, mindfulness on illusory form. And so remember this, this illusory form thing right? This is such a big deal. Practice that, hey, look that we talked about what to do. We started almost two years ago. The dreams of light. Oh, a whole bloody book is about illusory form. So this is a big deal to me. And it's actually the main practice. Dream Yoga is a subset. Oh, here's another thing I bloody forgot all kinds of things. I'm forgetting Alyssa. You're supposed to remind me just Just kidding. I'm interviewing Bernardo kastrup. Hopefully he agreed this Monday. And so I'm super excited to spend some time with him. I'm just absolutely devouring everything this guy wrote. So those of you who are into this kind of work, science ideated is a really wonderful introduction to his stuff. Also, why materialism is baloney. This guy's amazing. So I'm super excited about that. That's coming up on Monday. All these things I forgot to list I'm sorry. Okay, my thoughts on the list reform as we've seen Dream Yoga and illest reform support each other. They're bidirectional practices, right? They lean on each other. They're co emergent. But do you get it illusory form? The more successful Have A Dream Yoga. The more you dream, your dream yoga. The more it helps you with the practice of illusory form and both practices what are they centered around right nothing. They're both centered around emptiness. So both will this reform and Dream Yoga? As in everything Buddhism circumambulate nothing Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing. Your practice of illusory forms strengthens your dream yoga, Your Dream Yoga Strengthens Your illusory form. When I did my three year retreat, that's what we did for months on an illusory form all day long. And then Dream Yoga and sleep yoga all night long. It was awesome. So now when I do my dream yoga retreats in am I going to retreat? This is what I do illusory form all day. Dream Yoga all night. And hey, guess what happens? Lucid dreams every night.
It's flowing back and forth between the two. And this is where it gets so incredibly juicy and rich that that because you're doing this you're creating a virtuous feedback positive feedback loop, where both practices feed on each other and lift each other up. Illusory form is closely allied to my ally to mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is about being fully present with things as they are. Illusory form, practice expands this mindful awareness so that not only do you continually come back to awareness of the present moment, but you can now you continually come back to an awareness to what's happening in the present moment is illusory. And so on what level is we'll see it's really easy. It's, I should say, simple that let me say that it's really simple. Simple doesn't always mean easy. It's simple. It's not easy in the sense why because we just forget. That's that's mindlessness. And so this practice just adds illusory form just adds a little extra dimension, second order so to speak on top of traditional mindfulness, to work with this empty, illusory aspect of seeing a solid lasting independent world the unholy trinity I call it the way things are not is partly a product of mindlessness. mindlessness is a lack of awareness to see stability where there is none. It's associated with a discursive and speedy mind, a mind that glosses over the discontinuous nature of reality. Stitching things together into a seemingly continuous whole, the world of mere appearance, and why does it do this out of fear? Because if you slow down the parse the quantize the pixelated nature of reality just naturally reveals itself. world is full of holes is wholly were the ones that stitch it together through the speed of our mind. The classic analogy of the old movie reels, the illusion of continuity is brought about by speed. You slow things down, they fall apart. And this is exactly the art of meditation. putting the brakes on things br A ke to see the brakes B or E AK and things right. Your ego doesn't want to see this. That's why it's resistant to this type of D deceleration. And cognitive science the stitching together discrete information, which generates the illusion of continuity and solidity is called flicker fusion. What a great term flicker fusion that leads quite literally to confusion for fuse together. This is really compelling to meet. The confused mind is one that literally fuses together. quantize pixelated discrete moments of reality in Buddhism. If they're called dharmas, small d small d dharmas the atoms of experience. things appear to be stable, but they're actually fleeting and flickering. In other words, our brains make things seem solid or whole based on limited information. Literally, it's literally called the brains best guess theory of perception. Top down processing, if they throw something out there, we don't know what it is. And so the brain is called Predictive processing the interview I did with Ruben laukkanen. Listen to that. This is the neuroscientists who just wrote a dazzling paper about predictive processing. From a cognitive neuroscience point of view. This stuff is so incredibly cool and again, the large part of dreams of light right? Remember this was about exactly this kind of thing. In other words, our brains make things seem solid or whole based on limited information. We fuse together pixels of experience to create the appearances we think of as reality. And in fact, we have to do this oh my gosh, there's so much to say here. We have to do this because this is what Bernardo says his most amazing statement. He said if we actually saw things, like I really don't, I don't have it within grabbing range. He said if we didn't do this, if we actually saw things the way they are, and I love the way he says it, we would turn into soup.
We would basically dissolve into a entropic soup because the limited self sense, can't tolerate literally can't accommodate that level of input. And so we parse out the default mode network, the salience network parses out just enough information for us to survive. And I thought this is what I'm going to hopefully talk to Bernardo about this because I think this is one of the things that actually happens when we die and enter the luminous Bardo Dharma talks exactly what we're going to talk about in August, dollar month and center is basically there's no filtering mechanism taking place on that part all the all the filters are gone. In fact, in the Bardo literature they talked about the experience being akin to having a naked eyeball three, just imagine a three dimensional eyeball, you can see every direction not just for it with a naked eyeball without any eyelids without any protection. And because it's just so overwhelming, it's too open. It's too much going on, what do we do, we contract out of fear. And that generative impulse of contraction then is reiterated all the way through to Bartos. It's reiterated every time we grasp every time we're distracted. And so I think this is a pretty solid way of thinking about actually what happens when we die is the filtering mechanism. mechanisms are removed and unless we're capable of maintaining this radical kind of openness, open eyed awareness and all dimensions. We close our lives We contract out a fear it's too much. No place for personal identity. And that generative contraction eventually generate samsara. Oh, wait, where's my page? There we go. We fill in the blanks that are inherent in reality with the putty of ego, which fuses together our seemingly solid lasting and independent world. This continuity and fragmentation are central characteristics of dreams, right? In one isn't just one of the things they're characterized as a dream if you were to, if I was to ask you, how do you describe your dreams? Wouldn't that be a characteristic? It's disjointed, it's fragmented, it's incoherent in a certain way. That's revealing more of the pixelated nature of experience. Because they kind of lose some of the super glue is actually pulled away. In one instance, something is happening and the next sentence that something else might hops from one disjointed scene to the next. Continuity. On the other hand, is a characteristic of waking reality, the illusion of continuity. We flow seamlessly or we think we do from one moment to the next right until what happens until the empty impermanent nature of reality. reveals itself. Things Fall Apart, someone dies, that's a big rip a big gap. We flow seamlessly from one moment to the next. Do we really one of the insights from Dream Yoga and the practice of illusory form is that the more we wake up to the dreamlike nature of waking reality the more discontinuous it becomes. Have you actually noticed this in your experience is very interesting. You know, if you're in retreat, you may you may actually notice in fact, it's sometimes it's a very unsettling experience, you'll you'll actually see the kind of disjointed, pixelated, fragmented nature, the parts dharmic, small denature and that causes ego to basically freak out. It's like, well, wait a second, what's happening, starting to see the Bardo nature of reality here, and then from that, if you're not prepared, through these teachings through the practices, what do you do? Contract and that contraction then fuses confuses everything back together. It's amazing. A central maximum with a Dream Yoga journey. It's also shared by physics. The deeper you go, the less you find. That's actually pretty good, right? The closer you look at things the less you find, right? So true, because there's no thing there. Conversely, the less you investigate, the more you find, the more things appear to be solid. Those who don't bother to look closely at things continue to see the world is more solid, lasting and independent. They remain asleep. Those who do bother to look are the ones who see through this is the x ray eyes kind of the quality of divine eyes that are cultivated. See through the trinity of false appearances this trinity of false appearances and wake up seeing reality which in Buddhist language is synonymous with seeing emptiness is in one sense about seeing less.
Things are less solid, less less thing less independent. That's why so much of the path is what negation negation negation all the terms Nirvana, NIR is determined in the great negation, Nirvana to extinguish nirodha to cease Miss punch, I mean every so many of the terms are negating terms. Not just in Buddhism, but in many contemporary art traditions. If you see no thing, this emptiness, that's the very best thing that's such a classic line and majolica Buddhism. Not finding is the best finding. So I often do these kinds of thought experiments, these contemplations you know, try to find yourself trying to find the thinker, try to find the dreamer. These are the classic classification to majolica practices dialectics and also Maha Mudra investigations. Try to find it you know even even now pause for a second. Can you find the thinker can you find the perceiver? Really? Have you ever looked? If you really take that good, hard look exactly what we're going to do unless you all these ways I get to plug my stuff. You're going to find nothing but that nothingness is not emptiness in the pejorative sense. That nothingness is actually fullness, radiance and luminosity. That's what beams of light was all about. So this is cool. I forgot about this. This actually seeds the whole next bloody book I wrote down a fun it's kind of like a minute necessarily. I kind of enjoy this in a completely narcissistic way because once my books are out there, I never read them until I do these sorts of things. So maybe that's why subversively, I'm doing these look study groups because it's in a narcissistic way allows me to read the stuff that I wrote that I previously once it's impressive. I know I don't read them again. So this is kind of fun for me. And of course, remember it's all about me.
Okay, here we go.
Live. Yes. So if you see no thing is emptiness, that's the best thing. It's a classic wine and Maha Mudra. That finding is the best finding. Fantastic. So from the perspective of Dream Yoga, and Buddhism altogether, saying things that solid lasting and independent is a dream sign that you're asleep in the world of duality. Yeah, so this is good to streamside things good. These dream signs therefore help us understand what it is that the Buddha's wake up from and what they awaken to. They wake up from seeing the world is solid, lasting and independent. That's a nightmare. That's a nightmare. They wake up from samsara they will get the wake up to saying the world is open, impermanent. dependently originated ie empty. They wake up from the delusion of materialism and Intuit, dreamlike reality or if you're like philosophical terms, and this is what I'm so going to jump in the conversation with Bernardo about idealism, seeing the world has made a mind to dream. And so I'm really going to get into this with Bernard because that's his big contribution is analytic idealism, using pure logic reason to come to exactly these conclusions. I've never read anything. Honestly. I've never read anything. I can't do what he's doing through pure intellect, logic and reasoning dissecting reality to see it as fundamentally mental in nature and a dream. I've never read anybody like him, so hopefully he'll show up on Monday super excited. And again, if you haven't read his stuff, oh my god, you got to read it. Okay, where are we here? They wake up from the duelists delusion of materialism and physicality into an empty, idealistic, dreamlike reality is the irony of spiritual awakening, we wake up to the opposite of what we consider normal awakening each morning. Each morning we wake up from the fluidity of our dreams. And into the solidity of our daily lives. But as wake up spiritually, from solidity and into fluidity, and this, of course, is one reason why ego or as a form of development doesn't want to do this. It prefers to say asleep because ego is anti emptiness. It's the complete antithesis of emptiness. So in terms of mindfulness, the faster the mind moves, the more solid and continuous things appear. To be notices, really, when you get super speedy, how solid real independent, lasting things appear to be. When you put the brakes on things and slow down and guess what happens, right? falls apart. ego doesn't like that. Slow the mind down through the practice of mindfulness. That's the process of deceleration de automatization. Leads to deconstruction and the gaps in reality that have always been there start to be revealed. The pixelated nature of reality is discerned. It's like taking a movie reel, which were discrete images passed before the projector 24 frames per second roughly creating the illusion of continuity. Slow it down. What seems so continuous is now full of holes. flicker fusion disappears and appearance falls apart. Right? And so this is what I'm going to present to Bernardo, this is one of the questions I'm going to present to him is why is there so much resistance in the academic community because his logic I can't find the holes in it. I mean, his logic and his reasoning are just astounding. And so it's like, why is there so much resistance in the academic scientific community to an idealistic worldview? Well, I'm going to present a question to him and I'm going to propose to him that it's a developmental issue. That really it's a developmental is because of ego is an arrested form of development. That we basically there's an emotional not an intellectual, not a cognitive there is an emotional egoic investment to see the world this way. I'm quite certain Actually, I'll see what he has to say about this. This is why there's so much resistance to seeing the world as mentation mind, does that matter? It's just like a dream. It's just like a dream. It's not a metaphor. flicker fusion disappears a Paris falls apart. Ah, hey, guess what happens if you don't do this now? gonna happen when you die, right? Look, a fusion disappears and it falls apart. This is precisely what's gonna happen. When you die. So why not dine out? This is another reason why mindfulness meditation is so helpful for green yoga. The more mindful you are, the more you see the fleeting ever changing dreamlike nature of reality. The more you see the discrete flickers
seeing change is all about seeing difference. If nothing is different, nothing is changing. And noticing differences noticing altogether is the essence of mindfulness. not noticing these flickers also gives rise to a type of mindlessness. Called change blindness. My friend Steve Miller barriers when I used to teach with him, he was one of the really cool things with Stephen is he would gather you know, over decades, he's really awesome videos. And he used to play these really cool videos about flicker fusion, about change blindness and that sort of thing. And he'd also test us you watch the saying, See you can you notice like what's changing Can you notice these these super interesting stuff? So this is a perceptual science is really cognitive neuroscience, perceptual science. This is really where science needs spirituality. Yeah, physics, maybe a little bit, but not really. This is where they really need this level of perception. That noticing these flickers gives rise to a type of mindlessness called change blindness, right? Which is the close cousin to the inattentional blindness discussed earlier. Remember that within attentional blindness, you fail to notice our mindless of an object that is fully visible because your attention has been directed elsewhere. You've been distracted. With change blindness you fail to notice or mindless of a change in the scene. Both of these forms of blindness or synonyms for being asleep to our world. The world is constantly changing and permanent and therefore discontinuous, like a dream. Through our mindlessness, we're oblivious to the fact that we're the ones that freeze it so solidly. This is really really pretty cool. I remember Suzuki Roshi right the great Zen master love this guy. was once asked, allegedly, you know, can you summarize Buddhism, what is the heart essence of Buddhism? And he reflected allegedly for just a few minutes, and he simply said, everything changes. That's it. That was Suzuki Roshi, a Zen master his summary for all Buddhism. Everything changes. impermanence. Permanence is an expression of emptiness. So basically, he was talking about emptiness as it expresses itself. Everything changes. Okay, the stable mind here we go. Well, let me just let me share this is a totally unrelated but I want to share this little thing with you about blindness. One of the things that Bernardo writes about that is incredibly interesting, I mean, like, super interesting. So he has this view of of reality is, is everything is of the nature of mind, but there is an out there out there in his languaging there is something that is not you There's something so to speak independent to view called Mind at large or the stream of consciousness completely resonant with with both Hindu and Buddhist thought. And so then what he talks about this just bloody brilliant is how within this stream of consciousness, you and I, each of us listening here, what is our relationship to this stream of mind consciousness? We are each dissociated alters and what he does here that is just incredible. He uses this extraordinary analogy of dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality. I've been fascinated with stuff for decades. If you read the literature here, it just blows your socks off. And so with dissociative identity disorder, you know people NPD people can have dissociative alters sub personalities, that are completely unknown to each other. And so within that same one mind you have dissociative alters personalities that are completely clueless to other alters in the mindstream. And so he says in exactly the same way, that's what we are. That's the relationship of us, this mind to Transmetal so called external phenomena that were simply dissociated alters within this larger mind at large. And so some of the studies just briefly around this if you really have to read this, it's just the literature is amazing. And they they prove this by the way these these have been scientifically proven because there used to be some like, Oh, these altars are faking it. You know, there's some really classic stories of people who
an altar will come on subpersonality will come on, and this is no exaggeration. The new person that is there literally blind, or paralyzed. And so the scientists that say, you know, that there's just no way and so now what they did was they were able to get these people in scanners. And so the personality comes down, the person is like, you know, eyes are open everything they are blind, talking about the power of the mind and so they put them on the scanners in the scanner show that the occipital cortex is completely inactive. So these people are not faking it. It's like astounding to me. And so Bernard was working with this, I bring this up because I'm reading all the stuff to prepare for my conversation with him his way of using this dissociative identity disorder as a very powerful analogy, for each one of us actually being in a larger scheme dissociated alters in relation to mind at large, it's sophisticated. Okay, the stable mind. The practice of illusory form reveals our lust for stability, and shows us the difference between apparent outer stability and authentic inner stability. What we think we want and what we truly want, Steven the bears offers the insight that waking consciousness is draining consciousness with sensory constraints. Dreaming consciousness is waking consciousness without sensory constraints. That's really a wonderful synopsis. Other sense then other neuroscientists have, I think somebody independently have come to the same kind of Maxim or like the flopping back and forth in bed from waking to sleeping. The city, Mr. Khan said, in reality sleep and the wakeful state are nothing but the turning of the consciousness from side to side, from one side to the other. That's pretty cool. And quote, sensory input is what constrains consciousness and creates the apparent stability that we ascribe to our conventional reality. If there's one single ingredient at any appearance that causes us to think of it is of it as reality rather than illusion, delusion or dream? Its stability. Stability is virtually synonymous with our sense of reality. As a philosopher Edmund Thompson says, quote, real is the name we give to a certain stable way of what does it say that we give to certain stable ways that things appear? And continue to appear? When we test them? Isn't that true? Isn't that true? They're what we ascribe the term we ascribe or impute onto reality. It's very interesting exploration to do by the way, write down a list of paper. What are the characteristics for you that define reality? Write them down. It's a very, very interesting contemplation. And then another column write down what are the characteristics and qualities for you that define a dream and then see what the relationship between those are because then you can start to see with deep examination how fundamentally you can see the other economists democratic nature of both those states that largely what we impute project onto the states of consciousness deeming one dream, deeming one reality is not independent of your hopes, aspirations. expectations on the life. And of course, remember, remember, in the mind of a Buddha, the awakened one, there's no difference, no difference whatsoever, between waking, dreaming, sleeping, dying, all the same. That's what it means to be awake. Stability is also a central ingredient to what we refer to as sanity. When we say someone is really stable, the implications is that they're saying conversely, instability is associated with insanity, roughly orienting generalization comments. So stable not only suggests real implies same. from a spiritual perspective, ultimate sanity is a synonym for enlightenment. Trungpa Rinpoche often talked about it this way, this kind of psychological rendering interpretation of these dharmic teachings which he caught some flack from this from traditionalists. But again, I think it's just brilliant. It's a brilliant cultural translation of approach to these teachings. Ultimate sanity is enlightenment, which can be described as the full experience of reality. Hey, what's the implication here?
If you're reading between the lines if you're reading a small pen what's the implication? We're all insane. Insanity is a matter of degree psychosis as a matter of degree, it's really dependent on your definition of what's real, right. So on one level, we're off it's a stronger rendering than than simply saying you're asleep. Stronger way to say it is we're all just a tad bit crazy. Some are just a little bit more crazy than others. But if you don't know what's real, that's not just being asleep. That's being crazy insane. We're all just a little bit insane. This is why my favorite definition of Buddhism which is designed to lead one to enlightenment, it's what it is Buddhism is a description of reality. I like this. I got this from my friend Antonio wood. He's a really brilliant psychiatrist. He was a close friend of Francesco Rolla. And too I just point 30 years ago, when I was doing my symbolic training levels. He actually taught my level two I remember very well and I had a chance to hang with him actually had dinner with a friend and I was really new to this stuff. So might have been longer than 30 years, maybe 40. And I was having dinner with him and I said, Antonio, I said, How did you get involved in the belief system of Buddhism? And he very gently corrected and he said, Andrew, so Buddhism was not a belief system. Buddhism was a description of reality. 40 years ago, I still remember it. It was like, Whoa, that's still my favorite definition. So high 510 Antonio. Ken Wilber writes psychopathology has always been considered in one sense or another as resulting from a distorted view of reality. But what one considers to be psychopathology therefore, must depend on what considers when one considers to be real, right? Makes sense to me. To bring this back into the world of dreams when an unstable mind is released, unconstrained during sleep what's called top down so all the bottom up sensory constraints are gone right then it's all top down. That's why you can really study your mind in the dream state because all bottom up processing is it's not it's not there. It's not functioning, your senses aren't operating there. So it's all top down. That's where you can really study your mind. When an unstable mind is released, unconstrained during sleep we call that unstable state or dream. It's only a dream and therefore deemed unreal, because it is set in contrast to our more constrained and therefore seemingly stable waking experience. This is pretty good. Read this in a long time. This isn't too bad. But when the mind gets very stable through meditation, and that steady mind is then released unconstrained into the dream, guess what happens? dreams begin to feel more and more real have you had this experience? Have you noticed his dreams become more clear, more stable, more real? And sometimes, like I mentioned, you've probably had this they can feel hyper real. You haven't experienced that. You come back from that. This this is the foggy dream. The stable mind also works on Waking experience to see it is more dreamlike. So this is the bi directional thing I riff about this a ton and dreams of light. So it is through the practice of mindfulness. It's a two for one practice, which stabilizes the mind that we wake up from the illusion of stability in the outer forms of daily life seeing it more like a dream. Here's the second many we simultaneously stabilizing or stabilize our dreams seeing them as more and more like waking reality until what do you see the economist nature of both the one taste and so what does Milarepa say? That same day and dream is differing? This is as meditation as it can be no yes this is instruction as it can be meditation instruction. So until you can actually see both these dimensions in a completely economists way. For one thing your meditation is incomplete. Dreaming consciousness and waking consciousness become increasingly alike irrespective of sensory constraint. It's the same mind after all, expressing itself in different venues in different states. lopen cough and gore Jay says people who are awakened Buddhas and bodhisattvas experience no difference
between dream and the waking state. They realize the sameness which is infallible and quote preusse massive I saw a read I haven't read it yet but a new biography of his came out a couple of weeks ago at least I read a review in the New York Times Book Review. Amazing author that goes this In Search of Lost Time. I was alarmed nevertheless, by the thought that this dream had the clarity of consciousness. By the same token by consciousness have the unreality of a dream. Yes, hello. As you progress along the path, you lose the stability of external appearances. They're no longer seen as solid lasting and independent. This is part of the Freedom thing, right? This is this is what turns on while you're writes about so beautifully, you know his chances kind of summary. He doesn't proclaim it as a summary statement but I extract it is that when he writes beautifully says your teachers I don't know if he's written that yet. This is a dream. I am free. I can change. It's fantastic. This is a dream. I am free. I can change. And so this is a wonderful, empowering, liberating maximum because so often we think we can't change. Oh, I'm just stuck in my ways. I'm so grooved, especially as you get older you get more crusty, more reified, is because we have this false version of this reified reality. We see if we realize the dreamlike nature of things. We can always change. Everything's changing. It's just ego that doesn't want to see that. So when you get older and you think you can't change bullshit. It's you freezing lucking yourself creating prison of your own making. You progress along the path, you lose the stability of external appearances are no longer seeing a solid lasting and independent which may be initially unsettling to your stability creating ego. Have you noticed this when you've had this experience as claims people have it they have a little if they're not prepared? I remember first time for me. Little freakout if you had this, you have the experience when you're in the experience, it's actually liberating postscript you come out and like holy crap, I'm gonna go crazy here. I think I'm gonna die I'm gonna lose my mind. That's just ego coming in. Because the big gap has taken place the gap that separates you. From other that gap is now made apparent. And then ego freaks out in that space. So it's a miniature version of what happens actually after you die. Same contraction is born from that by the way. Maybe initially unsettling to your stable stability, craving ego Have you noticed this, but you gain the stability of a strong and unwavering mind which is ultimately very settling to your spirit or to nature. Great trade off because when the instability of external appearances inevitably rears its ugly head as a natural display of on permanence and death, both of which are an expression of emptiness. Your stable mind can ride that and reminisce without being thrown by it. The stability of your mind becomes your unwavering reality. That's pretty good. I can see why put this on a tablet. The stability of your mind becomes your unwavering reality, then it doesn't matter what's happening in the phenomenal world. Doesn't matter. You're dying, you're falling apart. It doesn't matter. You ride the stability of your mind you put your investment in the right IRA. In your immortality retirement account. In truth, you're investing in truth. So therefore, it doesn't matter when Fake news is revealed. You're not affected by it. You then take refuge in that internal stability, I have not been fleeting external appearances. No longer dependent on external circumstances for your stability, your sense of reality, or your sanity. So paren What is it what's being what is he talking about? I guess that's me. What am I talking about here? Unconditional happiness. This is another way to talk about on conditional happiness. Developing a stability, happiness, contentment, irrespective of external circumstance. So another way to talk about ultimate sanity or enlightenment is unconditional happiness. Happiness that does not depend on external conditions or circumstance.
You take your stable mind with you and to any possible experience. This is what you want to do when you die. Which by the way, when I have to tell you this, I'm sending off my book, where is it? Oh, it's over there. My manuscript is done. goes out to my publisher next week, and then returning full bore to the preparing to die program. And so all this stuff we're gonna really talk about here, but in that program, that training program coming up, so stay tuned for that. But one of the central aspects of that program that's so connected to this right here is that not only does this stuff help you for your nighttime dream, right? This helps you for the dream at the end of time, death, death. So you develop this kind of stability. Now, not only does it transpose into the dream arena, the double delusion, it transposes to the dream at the end of time, and therefore, hey, talk about not just the twofer This is a three for the stability that completely prepares you for death. body falls apart, no problem. Samsara confused mind consciousness is one through eight falls apart, no problem. Why? Because your mind can ride any circumstance without being thrown out because you've developed this more stable dimension of your being literally called the deathless changeless nature. So the whole program that we're designing is going to be completely riffing on this sort of thing, where all the strange stuff will then be applied very specifically for the treatment at the end of time. So I forgot to mention that Alyssa that's three things you forgot to remind me of today. My that at the highest level, here it is. Oh, this is good. This is quite okay. The central criterium Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Back up here. Yes. So you you take your stable mind with you into any possible experience. Wherever you go. There you are. That's the title of Jon Kabat Zinn is quite famous book. And that you has got it totally together even when everything else is falling apart. Like even when you're dying. Nothing, absolutely nothing can shake you. This is the unflappable, indestructible mind of an awakened one and Buddhism known as the Badr of mind. The central criteria for reality is still met stability. But it's now met within the highest levels of mindfulness, the mind itself becomes what you've been looking for. Something changeless and therefore deathless to central qualities of the clear light mind. Hey, oh my gosh, there's so much to say here. This is what you're looking for. Anyway. Anyway, look at your experience. You think and this is this is so important. You think you're like fill in the blank. It doesn't matter what it is. You're looking for a lover you're looking for a house you're looking for. Let's get real big, money, power, fame doesn't matter. Fill in the blank. You're looking for something because you think something is missing. And so you spend you meaning most of us. We spend our lives trying to acquire these conditions that bring about a seeming state of contentment and happiness. But have you really take a take a closer look at this is that really what's going on? Not at all. Which is why when you acquire the external circumstance, it never sustains what you're actually looking for, because it's a substitute gratification on what you're really looking for as a quality of mind. power, money, fame, what do you what are you trying to purchase with money? A particular quality of mind. Otherwise, if you bought a particular object, and it had that kind of power, it would make you happy all the time. Right? Right. A fill in the blank for that one. Does that house make you happy all the time now? Does that spouse I mean, again, whatever. Look at what you're after. Does it still have that same kind of power? Of course it doesn't, because that's where the power comes from. What's actually being cultivated in external conditions is a quality of mind. And I'm also going to be talking to Bernardo about this the kind of cash value of this idealistic view. What you're really after. If you get this this will save you a ton of money, and a lot of unhappiness, what you're looking for, I don't care what it is. I don't care what you fell in that label with money, power, fame, sex, drugs, it doesn't matter. You're looking for a quality of mind so why waste your time looking in external directions for this? Look Within rest within you already have everything you could possibly want. It's egos economy that sends us out in a way looking for substitutes. This is the basis also the entire obesity epidemic. Oh my gosh, there's so much to say here. This stuff has tremendous cash value.
Okay. If the terms are defined properly, you can even say that the mind becomes solid, something you can rely on lasting changeless or unwavering it independent of external influence. Everything you've been looking for outside oh my gosh, I haven't read this in a while. This is actually quite okay. Yeah, read this again. It's everything you been looking for outside outside objects. Don't have that power. You give them that power. So in my languaging I refer to this this little whole episode here is kind of a peaceful transfer of power. This is real Abbey shaker for those of you don't know that term real long, real empowerment, peaceful transfer of power. back to its source. You don't need any of this outside stuff. So through the practice of illusory form, what you lose out there you gain and here you're therefore liberated from the vicissitudes of out there altogether. Because there is no out there out there. It's all mind. Your mind that salep system there is a trans mental reality that it's not you that's the Whirlpool you're a whirlpool. dissociated alters a whirlpool. You're part of the stream. When you die, by the way, what happens the Whirlpool dissolves into the stream that's all that happens. So there is something quote unquote, out there that's not you. That's transplantation. Mind at large. Oh, this is good stuff, I think. So through the practice of illusory form, what you lose out there you gain in here, you come to prefer your own state of mind over all unstable appearances. And like anything else, stability is something that you take with you. It's also very green, it's sustainable, it's renewable as recyclable. It's a very green enterprise. And unlike anything else, the stability is something you can take with you even when you die. Because it's the real you the indestructible quality of your deepest mind and heart. The next chapter, we'll learn how to engage this practice. Well, that was fun. Wow, I totally forgot about this. Cool. Okay, let's stop there. So this is the 18th. PAGE 157. We'll have to pick this up when I come back in August. But if you want, we can have questions, comments, offerings, challenges, and the like. So I'll see if anything pinged in. That's a nice place to stop. I don't want to just jam all this stuff in here. Okay. We've got a live question too. And oh, live questions better than a dead question was from Beatrice IP address. Oh, can you but you can rise practicing. Yeah. John Malkovich. Ruiz twice, twice the night before Christmas. If you haven't seen that, copy that click and watch it. It's hysterical. Yeah, so that's how I feel every time I come on with my little book. Now. You'll understand it if you watch it. It's really wonderful kind of gallows humor. Okay, Beatrice, go ahead there.
Okay. I have kind of an odd question because you're going to be interviewing Bernardo. So you know, because you had mentioned him before. I've been looking him up on YouTube and listening to some of the interviews. And there was one that really disturbed me recently. It was with Rupert Rupert spyera.
Yeah, cool. So
they somehow somehow they got on to giving their opinions about the Ukraine war. I thought they ventured dangerously into geopolitics when they should have been sticking to the subject of spirituality and consciousness and science, all that good stuff. So, Rupert Spiro was saying, the use of force is sometimes justified and sometimes not to use it as cowardice. And he never mentioned nonviolent resistance as a form of courage but all right but but that was him and Bernardo was kind of nodding along with him and going along with him. But then Bernardo was specifically asked by the interviewer. Well, what about the risk of nuclear holocaust as a result of the Ukraine war? And Bernardo, says, Well, maybe I'm misinterpreting, but this is what I understood. I said, nature is on the side of freedom. And basically, probably the West is the West represents freedom. I mean, didn't actually say that, but that was understood. So if we all if we all get obliterated by nuclear war, that's okay. Because it's in the service of freedom. And I was very uncomfortable with that. And maybe, so I'd like you to listen to it. Okay. Yeah.
What is this one either with Jamie Robinson? Who is
maybe I'm gonna post the link. Yeah. Because, um, you know, you say dying and falling apart or fine, but, you know, I'd rather not see a nuclear holocaust if I could do anything about it. But anyway, see what you have. To
use again? Yeah, there's a lot of things lots of I like to hear it. Because that is a very interesting comment. So I also want to caution any comments because I'm not an informed with it directly, but I will check it out. So post it, you know, okay. Yeah, the dying thing is one level. Yes, it's okay. But that doesn't mean we should just sit back and just and just let the buttons be pressed and everything happened. Oh my gosh, this is where you have to kind of balance relative and absolute truths, right. So on one level, it doesn't really matter what happens. On one level, it's all just the ceaseless display the radiant emptiness nature. of the mind. But boy, if you don't relate to that, properly, that that leads to a host of serious spiritual pathologies, dismissive, bypassing and nihilism and all kinds of things. So one has to be very careful when you make these kinds of proclamations in terms of centrifuging out relative and absolute truth, and always making sure that things are constantly context dependent, because sitting back and I mean, it's a it's just very unskillful it's actually a misinterpretation in my understanding of these profound tenets that just say it doesn't matter. It's all in the spirit of freedom. It's all they're all gonna be liberated in any way. Or like even killing animals and insects. You know, it's like, ah, their karma is bad. They're in that realm. You know, we It's okay. Oh, lordy. I mean, if you have that view, that is really wrong view. So outside of that, I will refrain from any comments because I haven't heard this directly. But I am interested, and maybe it will lead to a point of conversation when I chat with him. So I appreciate it.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I
mean, generally Bernardo and Rupert are a wonderful tag team. I the conversations I have heard with them, I find quite rewarding. And one thing that is interesting is that you know that people should not be afraid of venturing into geopolitics with this kind of the skill set of these teachings. Because otherwise, if we don't do that, like I often say, right, what value is it that we're doing here? I mean, why this is just mere armchair philosophers. And if we can't engage, so I don't think there's anything wrong. That I think is wrong if you don't venture into these things to venture into geopolitics and Ukraine and all that. But then the issue is, is again, very sensitive, kind of applied your application of these teachings and real world situations and so I very much look forward to saying this will ping it in the column and I will look it up and see what these guys have to say. Okay,
thank you so much.
I'm big fans of both of them. So I'm very curious. Thanks for offering that okay. What is the paper he mentioned? Bernie, I'm not sure which paper that I mentioned. Oh, it was it was an interview. Yeah, the interview I did with Ruben laukkanen. You can find it on either nightclub site or the edge of mine site. I interviewed him maybe seven eight months ago. Really terrific guy moving. Okay. Yeah, that's the interview. Cool. Okay, from Laura Ken Wilber developmental stages. Yes. Does this apply in your thoughts? Really resistance to borrow casted within modern science world? Yes, it totally does. Laura in the scientists can. He's just one of over 100 voices that talks about developments. And this is a very important and to me somewhat incredulous omission in so many thinkers these days I say it's like, sometimes it's to me, it's so obvious. It's like evolution. It's like how can how can somebody not think in terms of developmental stages? But I think because of things like Dominator hierarchies and all kinds of really misinterpretations of development or evolution. There's a lot of people that still don't talk enough in my opinion, and this is one reason I do like Ken's work and integral theory. But again, he's not the only one. I mean, there are literally hundreds if not 1000s of these developmentalists and but Yes, Laura, would you say is or seem to be suggesting a spot on that. Ego is a particular form of development, arrested form of development, then in my estimation, one of the reasons there's so much resistance to idealistic worldview is it's a developmental issue. Highly oh my god, can you see the hornet's nest here? Because immediately Oh, this is a hierarchical kind of thing. Well, there's a difference between Dominator and actualization hierarchies. hierarchies in and of themselves are utterly non problematic. You have a hierarchical relationship to your children and up to a certain point, you can bring them up to your particular center of gravity. That's a really healthy thing, right? But the kick there is where does where does that evolution stop? Where does development stop and for many people in the West, because ego isn't a rested form of development. Trans egoic transpersonal domains are highly contested, largely because they're not experienced yet. And so it's an arrogant, cubistic way of dismissing evolution at the level of human development. But basically, yeah, the whole developmental thing to me, the reason there's so much resistance is I think it's a developmental issue. I really do. And I'm going to pick it towards Barnardos way and we'll see what he has to say. Barry, why not wear your swimming? Sure. You're right. I should very that's a good tip. I forgot it for today. A house is in total disarray, so I didn't anyway, different sorry. Re external phenomena. Okay. There's a link here. I'm not sure what that connects to. So I'll let that go. Any recommendations about something to check out in regard to dissociative disorders? Oh, lordy. Well, it depends on what on what you want to learn about if you want to learn about it from a clinical perspective, the literature is voluminous. There is a ton out there. The work of Frank Putnam going back decades, depends on what dimension of D ID you want to work with. I find this particular issue unbelievably fascinating on every level. And I do I do believe and dreams of light I refer a couple pages on this stuff. So I mean, there's so much here, Lloyd, I would just say, I mean, you know it's like dismissive google it but Google it. In terms of like the deep dive thank Bernardo is the only one that I know of, that takes it to this particular really interesting analogical level, but in terms of MPD di D, the literature is huge. Okay. Very, we asked Bernardo about his dreams and how he sees them in relation to his logical thinking maybe, maybe. Yeah, I'm always very careful about you know, personal questions, unless I get enough of a vibe with a person that they're willing to go there. But we'll see and there's the YouTube thing. Oh, okay. Let me get my phone. I'm gonna get a picture of this so I can pull it up. I want to see I'm one of the sort of the Jamie Robinson. Email it to to do that if you don't mind, because I really want to hear it. Okay. Okay, this is Hey, hey, Shari. Bucha I'm not far away my friend.
Sir Andrew. To two questions. One is about the dreamless phase of sleep. In the in the in dreamless sleep. If we look at the eight consciousnesses are the seventh and eighth still operative you know the the first six are not but our seventh and eighth still.
They operate until Buddhahood. will be so those seventh and eighth. They're there. So here they are really your your Mr. Yoga Chara Mr. Ravi Dharma great questions. I love it. You know, there's you could do worse than studying Abbe Dharma and yoga. Chara, trust me so you're doing the right thing. So consciousness is one through six. They're conscious but in constant so sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. And thinking. Mind Consciousness is considered the sixth consciousness. We can identify those they are conscious, but in constant, quietly, you're not always thinking you're not always smelling. You're not always hearing your consciousness is dancing between them. So that's a classic characteristic cause an incontinent but conscious consciousness seven and eight are constant but unconscious until you do not engage in deep meditation. Until you do practices like open awareness where you can bring the discriminating in the pejorative sense, sticky seven consciousness and the light of awareness, the self referentiality So the seven consciousnesses is basically that dimension and don't think of these is eight separate minds. They're not eight consciousnesses. There are eight aspects of one consciousness were technically not the same as is awareness. in mind. So the consciousness is by definition are in Buddhism and this is where Buddhism is different from Hinduism. Consciousness and Buddhism is a pejorative term. You've heard me say this because consciousness by definition, and Buddhism is always dualistic. So what simply consciousness does is this the Krishna minus is the bad boy. This is the referential mind. This is the contractive mind. This is the mind that works subliminally subconsciously until you start to meditate, constantly force feeding, referencing everything back to self. So it's that dimension of mind that doesn't recognize its true nature. And it's this fundamental black hole. It's just thinkable. It's the part of you that sucks. It's a part of you that sucks everything into you to create the sense of you. And so, I love this actually. So you don't see it because it's happening so constantly that's what masks it that constantly The ubiquity masks its presence. It's like being in a building with an air conditioning system. Have you ever been at this experience? You don't even know it's on until it turns off, right? Have you had that experience? Also, no turns off you go holy crap I didn't even know that was on. And so that's the way the seven consciousness works is underground all the time. Constantly force feeding, looking back, taking one through six, shoving it back into eight to create the sense of cells, looking back into the age pulling everything out, throwing it out. So it's it's the it's the spinning door. That takes everything and feeds it back in, takes everything from within feeds it back out. And so those two consciousnesses you will have temporary nirodha experiences in meditation. That's an enlightenment experience. But the stability the total transformation not E ratio. That's the difference. You don't necessarily race them. This is the difference between I hear this conversation with Delson, I just have an accent I'm going to edit and get these to you but it's so bloody business very busy. The tantric traditions aren't that interested in no Rhoda cessation, you're not going to find a lot of references to know Rhoda. Have you noticed this PEMDAS when you read tantric stuff, they hurt Have you ever? Do they talk about nirodha? No. They don't talk about cessation. They talked about transformation. So what what the tantric traditions do long winded answer to a good question. They basically take these these consciousnesses seven and eight and then they transform them right into what
was wisdoms. So eight would be the wisdom? Well, seven there's the wisdom of equanimity quality. Yeah, cool qualities are in equality, right? And eighth would be the mirror like wisdom.
High five. And that's what's one through five.
all encompassing wisdom.
Not quite. Oh, wait, no, it is so that would be your right No, the accomplishing action? That's correct. And then six would be
discriminating. Five
you passed the test for today. That's exactly right. Yeah. So anyway, good question. So seven and eight. You'll, when they are when they're arrested, that will be a kind of an enlightenment experience. But those aren't temporarily transformed until you attained a bit of it.
But even in dreamless sleep there, even though there's no mental activity, crying was asleep. They're still there.
It depends on what dimension of dream was speak sleep you're talking about. So when we talk about dreamless sleep, there are gradations of that dream was famous means for months I didn't know that. So it's not all just one right? So sometimes it's full blown Alia sometimes it's Alia, Kannada so when you say dreamless it's not just there's there's granularity within that seat. But basically, yes, and the untamed non train mind they're operating even in deep dreamless sleep.
Testing tested. Okay.
Fantastic for ego. Not so fantastic for your spirit. Okay, anything else before we close out for today? And to see all my friends and enemies are we good? Any last minute questions? Before I disappear? So I'm not sure who's here on Monday. I haven't gone through the schedule yet. It's either me or Joe or Yeah, cuz that's right. It could be Joe because we had Jeffrey so anyway, we'll be back next week for Monday. I'm here with Dr. Ed on Wednesday. If you're not showing up for these with him, they're really fun. They're really great. q&a thing on Thursday, and then I go on to retreat. And then I leave the retreat in New York. So I'll be gone for a couple of weeks. But nice to see everybody. Thank you for showing up on on Saturday in the middle of the day. I've always appreciate people that show up in the time. So if you want to do this totally geeky thing you turn on your camera. We all do this little love fest. And remember any dedication, any benefit that we have accumulated, we don't keep it for ourselves, we gather it. We send it off. Because the world is made of mind. It's not made of matter. What we do with our minds and hearts can affect others. So we send it to oh my gosh, so much suffering in the world today. Always raise our gaze. Remember what we're doing here. It's not just about us always, always, always have to remember what we're doing is waking up so that we can help others wake up. That's, that's our gig, right? That's what we're all about. So let's not forget that so nice to see everybody really appreciated all kinds of cool things coming up. But between now and then pleasant dreams. Take care of yourself. And I'll see you in the dream world or somewhere. Beyond Okay, Ciao. Ciao. recording stopped
