[172] Exploring Ego and Egolessness through Somatic and Sitting Meditation - with Rebeca Castella

3:48PM Sep 10, 2024

Speakers:

Keywords:

ego

feel

lying

practice

breath

andrew

sitting

experience

posture

belly

meditation

notice

reading

book

sense

open

bit

relax

rinpoche

today

All right, hello, everyone. Good evening in Europe. Good day in us. Looking at some faces. Philip, you're back for more. Hi, Barry, nice to have you back. Let me take a little peek here. Gretchen, Bonnie, Tim, Michelle, nice to have you. Thank you for joining tonight.

Okay?

So good evening. Everyone happy August from a hot Spain. Think we're at 33 degrees here today, so I'm comfortably inside my house with the air condition on to get a little break. Hope you all are well, wherever you are, I'm happy to be here with you this evening. Yesterday. Hi, Sarah, nice to see your face. Yesterday, had little nintun here at our house, which is a half day intensive retreat in Tibetan, and so I have a little shrine set up behind me for that. Hi, Joan, nice to see your face. And yeah, we did three hours of practice here, a group of us, and we do this monthly gathering here in person at our home one Sunday morning a month from 1030 to 130 so we just sit for a couple of hours, and then we listen to a little teaching by Andrew and have a little discussion and dialog about it. So I'm happy to reconnect, or connect for the second day in a row to Andrew Sanga into like minded practitioners, it feels really like a luxury, as I'm sure many of you feel, or have noticed, that this path can feel very lonely, so these gatherings in community are really precious, even if it is just online, always better as much in person as we can get. But online is second best community gatherings for sure. So feel very grateful and fortunate to have you all here, and we have one more face, but I can see your name. Is it? Deidra? Dedra, hello, Deidra. Um, okay, so, um, I didn't have a very good night last night. I have still two young puppies, and sometimes they wake us up a few times in the night. So I feel a little resistant to do a longer lying down practice today, which is what I have been offering in the past, the other few times we've been seeing each other here on Monday evenings, but I do want to start lying down, and then we will do a little bit of a longer sitting guided sitting practice, sitting, the practice of pure awareness, as my main teacher, Reggie Ray, calls it. And I've been revisiting a little bit these two books that I wanted to I've shown one of them, I think, in the past year. The practices that I offer here, the somatic meditations that are big timeline down, come from this book, which is the awakening body, which, let's say, the first in a series of books by Reggie Ray. It's a lot about the bodywork and and the somatic meditations starting lying down to awaken the body. And the second book in this series, let's say, is this book which is the practice of pure awareness. Which can be practiced both lying and sitting, but mostly sitting up. So we will do a little combination of some starting to lie down, somatic practice, and then followed by some shamatha, or practice of pure awareness, as Reggie calls it. And before that, I wanted to say a few words on the topic of ego, which I have been reading a couple of different books the last few weeks, and I find very, very refresh. And necessary to reread and to revisit this concept of ego. It's probably part of my ego that wants to revisit the concept and the stories and the content and and probably also a part of my, of my beyond ego, just the longing to experience and practice something different than just this, this ego. So I wanted to actually read a couple of pages. One both about the eagle. One is from Andrew's first book, I believe, which is this one here the power, the power and the pain, which I find an incredibly good book. Don't remember what year he wrote it, but I believe it was his first book. Um, 2000 1009 think this book came before preparing to die. But anyway, it's a really brilliant book, and it's there's two pages, pages on the ego that are really brilliant, that describe it really well. And then I've been also reading um lately this book. I don't know if any of you have come across this one. It's more recent copulation, but it's a Chom Trungpa Rinpoche book by Chom Trungpa called cynicism and magic, intelligence and intuition on the Buddhist path. And he also has a page on the ego here that I wanted to bring to today's reflection, contemplation, and furthermore, practice. So hopefully you will enjoy this little reading moment and and get some nuggets, some pieces to add to your to your practice. So I'll start with Andrews. Andrews, Andrews, H and a half. I believe where's my bookmark? There it is. Okay. So, so Andrew's right up on the ego is a chapter 14, in case you have a book you want to revisit it later on page 155 and it's called the mistake of the eagle. So it starts with a quote by ekatole, and then I will read one page of Andrew's writing. Check on second chat. Somebody say Gretchen is asking if the names of the books can be posted here. Sure. Let's see this one. Maybe you can write this Alisa, as I say it. So. This is Andrew holla checks both the power and the pain, just his first book. If you can write that in there. And the second book I will be writing, I will be reading from, is a book by chongpa. It's a copulation by, actually the second generation after chogya Trungpa Rinpoche. So students of students of chogya Trungpa Rinpoche, so that would be my generation. And this book is called cynicism and magic.

Okay, oh, wait, we're forgetting our aspiration. Alisa, let's start with that before I do any reading. Yeah, I'd like to start this, these sessions with an aspiration, just setting an aspiration that was written by my teacher, Reggie Ray. And then at the very end of our time together, we'll do a little read up on the dedication, dedication of marriage. We will give up. Okay? So I'll just take three breaths to settle a bit, and then you can either just listen or you can, you can chant along with me as you as you prefer. So let's take three breaths All together just to begin. You

may I develop complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people. May I experience everything nakedly, completely without mental reservations or blockages. May I never withdraw? From life or centralized onto myself, may my heart be laid bare and open to the fire of all that is

just taking a moment to let those words settle in and

so as I'm sure many, many of you, if not, probably all of you, if you've been Listening to Andrew, you have heard his his sentence. About open and relax that I've heard him say it in many different ways. But if there was a really the one core instruction on on how to die, on how to live, on how to meditate, he will be open and relax. So in this aspiration, we aspire to open, to open and to allow or surrender, accept anything that comes our way and and relax with that, no matter how tough or hard or painful or pleasurable or joyful, but, but yeah, open and relax. I think this is this aspiration to me. Just puts a few more words to that very pithy and core instruction that Andrew offers us very often. Okay, so I will jump on the reading of the chapter, the first page and a half of the chapter 14, called the mistake of the ego of this book, which are Andrew's words, apart from the first little paragraph, which is a quote by ekatole. Ekatole says in the book a new earth, ego is no no more than this identification with form. If evil has any reality and it has relative, not an absolute reality, this is also its definition, complete identification with form, physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. I will read this quote by Eckhart Tolle one more time. Ego is no more than this. Identification with form. If evil has any reality and it has relative not an absolute reality, this is also its definition, complete identification with form, physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. So now Andrew's words, like emptiness, ego is also one of the most important and misunderstood topics in spirituality. It is accused of being the source of our suffering, the thing we are supposed to either befriend, transcend or destroy, to progress along the path, we need to come to terms with ego, to face it and discover its essence. Relating inappropriately to the ego is the source of a great deal of unnecessary hardship from an absolute perspective, the ego does not exist. This is important to understand, because it sets the view and shows us where we are going. In other words, we should never try to get rid of the ego, because there is nothing to get rid of. Trying to get rid of the ego. Ironically, redefines it. We are wrestling with an illusion and wondering why we cannot pin it down. So the point is not to get rid of it, but to see through it. We may already know better that that destroying the ego is not the point, but we still sit in meditation and try to get rid of our thoughts or banish unwanted experiences. This is the same as trying to erase ego. We tend to relate to the ego the way a child relates to a monster in his room. A child wakes up in the night screaming that he just saw a monster. We comfort the child and assure him that no such beast exists. But no matter what we say, he doesn't believe us. To prove our point, we have to ask the child where he saw the monster. Go there and show him that there is nothing there. We show him it is not in the closet, under the bed or behind the door. Only when he sees for himself does he finally believe the monster does not exist. In a similar way, in the darkness of ignorance, we believe that we exist. It doesn't matter what others say. We know in our bones that this monster, this monstrous sense of self, is here. We can feel it the only way to prove that it doesn't exist. Is to turn on the light of wisdom and look at where we think it is only when we try to find it and discover that there is no ego in the closet, under the bed or behind the door, do we come to a stark and liberating realization that we absolutely do not exist on the relative level. Of course, we appear to exist. We each have a body, thoughts, emotions and perceptions. We relate to other people, and we each come to the mutual conclusion that you are out there and I am in here, this conclusion may be mutual, but it is misinformed. Relative truth. Remember, is truth from the perspective of confusion. We don't each have our bodies, feelings, perceptions and thoughts. They have us. They have us in the sense that we are so completely identified with them, with these forms, that we forget that we are formless, empty awareness that lies beneath all form. We are possessed. We are possessed by that which we feel we possess. Unraveling the ego on the path is a necessary hardship. Getting to know that which creates such a relative and absolute fast can help us relate, relate to and remove a lot of trouble. In the next few chapters, we will discover how the illusion of ego is constructed and therefore how it can be deconstructed. We will see how that deconstruction is initially felt as frustration and eventually as panic and fear. So after this piece, he goes in in the unfolding of the five skandhas, which is the explanation of how ego is getting formed. But I wanted to point out and make a brief commentary on one line here that stood out, especially for me, that was the only way to prove that it doesn't exist is to turn on the light of wisdom and look at where we think it is. So to me, turn on the light of wisdom is is to practice, to practice meditation and and specifically to me, the somatic meditation that I personally connect to so much as it is to me that meditation is coming in the back door. It's coming coming in the other way, versus the ego way. It's like through relaxing, through through really deep relaxation, you know, relaxed body, relaxed mind. So our mind relaxes and and we can actually have these glimpses that there is there is no ego, there is no constraints, there are no there is no tension, there is no judgment, but, but this, this our experiences and glimpses that we get through practice. So this line of turning on the Wisdom, what was it turning on the wisdom of the light see one more time, was so beautiful and Drew has such an incredible way with words, the light of wisdom, turning On the light of wisdom.

So I think with Andrew's words and comment on the mistake of ego, I would like to transition to the practice piece, and then I will read jogyeon, Trungpa, Rinpoche piece on the ego after after the practice. I think that will be more powerful. So there might be some of you who've been in my meditations before, and there might be some of you who are here for the first time today. What I have done in the past is a little bit of a longer, maybe a 30 minutes approximately or so lying down meditation, as taught to me by my teacher, Reggie Ray. And then we always after lying down, we sit back up and and finish up the practice with some sitting meditation. And today we're going to do the same where I'm going to shift up a little bit the timing, so we're probably gonna do a briefer lying down, and then a little bit of a longer sitting so probably a total of something like that, 30 or 35 minutes of practice time. And there might be some of you who are not. In a condition to lie down, and that's fine. You don't have to. You can just still sit and just follow the instructions in the sitting posture and and do the whole the whole practice period sitting. So that that's completely fine, too, if you're not in a space to lie down, but if you are, this is a moment to transition. We're going to lie down on our backs, and I will review the physical posture. It's pretty straightforward, but for those of you who haven't done it before, and I'll make sure I speak up, because I have received feedback that I get a little more quiet when I lie down, and sometimes it's hard to hear, so I will try to make an effort, and if and if you don't hear me, please feel free to unmute yourself and just tell me so I can make sure that you can hear my voice. Okay, so let's take a lying down posture on our Sabaton or on a blanket on the floor, recommended.

So we do take a minute or two to make sure we have a comfortable posture. We don't want to fight physical discomfort. So,

okay, so relying on our backs,

relying on our backs, you can have a little cushion to raise your head. If that's more comfortable, you can lie completely flat on the floor, depending on your neck and how it feels. And then we're keeping our feet grounded, about hip width apart, and keeping our knees falling towards each other. So we create a little tripod between our feet, our knees and our buttocks, if you have a strap or a scarf or a belt, you could tie that right above your knees and tight so you don't have to, you know, Try to hold it in any way by yourself. In general, it seems like maybe the belt or the scarf is more needed by men than by women. We have a little bit more flexible hips. And then we place our hands on our lower belly, left hand, under the right hand, unless, unless you're left handed, then you do it the other way around. The idea is to have the hand with less agendas closest to the body, and we keep our elbows grounded, and then we close our eyes, and just going To allow a minute to settle into this position and

so today, I'm going to guide us in a practice called the 12 fold lower belly breaths, or also called the 12 clearing breaths, So we can focus our breathing on our lower belly. Just to begin, we'll have a little taster of three big breaths in the lower belly. So as we breathe in, we breathe in a very full breath, allowing our bellies to fill up with air. Our hands are racing as the belly fills up, and when it's completely full, we can have a moment of passing there and then breathing out completely and fully, letting all the air of our lower belly exit and

let's do two more of those. I'm.

One more and

so as we just stay breathing in the lower belly gently for just a moment, as I say a few words of The purpose of this practice, so these clearing breaths are meant to, I would say, offer the experience of that eventually, of that openness and the relaxation by Starting very concentratedly and focusedly breathing in one point, and in this case, the lower belly, and also what it offers. It's like a clearing and emptying, a sense of purification of any constrain, constraining thoughts, any story, any ongoing stories, any stuck thinking, any loops or obsessive patterns in our minds. So by concentrating in this way and focusing on one point very strongly and using the breath, you can actually clear kind of like cleaning off a window from dirt or clearing a canvas from paint to start with a fresh canvas or start with a clean window.

So we will do a total of two cycles of 12 clearing breaths in this lying down posture, and we will take our good, happy time very slowly, very fully, very purposefully. And at the end of the second cycle, we will sit back up. And we will do this in the sitting posture. So if you're not lying down, of course, you just do the same. But in the sitting posture, it will be three, three cycles completely in the sitting posture. Now let's begin, oh, in breath, in the lower belly, under the hands and

allowing a pause at the end of the inhale and then exhaling all there until the very, very, very end. And when we think there is no more air to exhale, try to exhale. Push a little bit further and then again, there might be a few seconds pause at the end of the exhale, and then we go to the next inhale. And

so these curry breaths are quite forceful and very intentional, but feeling up The belly again for the fourth breath completely fully and

we're trying to Do these as completely as possible, and just notice a brief pause at the end of the inhale and another brief pause at the end of the exhale, and I'll be quiet for the last breaths. I would continue the same way. And.

In the last three breaths of the first cycle and

The last one I

and then at the end of the last breath, just relax and breathe naturally for a moment, and just notice,

notice it, The space feels a little bit more crisp, more bright, more luminous.

Notice, if there's a little more stillness that when we began and

notice if you're tensing any parts of your body, allow them to relax ground and

might experience a Feeling of tingling or like sparkles in your body, whatever is there, just notice, try not to judge or label too much. Try to stay in the experience of what is and

Okay, so we're going to do our second cycle of the 12 clearing breaths, and this time we're going to continue in the same way, Very full inhale, filling up the belly completely. And then emptying through the exhale all the air of the belly completely. And this time, we're just going to allow the pause at the end of the exhale to be a little bit more extended. So if before it was just two or three. Seconds. Maybe we stay there a little bit longer. We don't need to force, we don't need to push, we don't need to change the organic, natural rhythm of the pause. But just pay attention. You might feel organically inclined to stay there for no, eight, nine, maybe even 10 seconds. So just notice that pause and pay attention to it. Let's Begin And

the last three breaths, very fully, very intentionally, attending to the gap at the end of the exhale and.

And at the end of the last breath, relax. Just breathe naturally. Notice our body, our state of mind. Just notice and

I see that feeling of having turned on the light and

might be A sense of likeness of Feeding picture feeling better and

We can gift ourselves another minute, another moment, to just be in the space. Allow whatever is here to be here. Open to it. Relax with it. And

slowly from here we're gonna transition back up to the seated posture. Good way to transition is to turn to on our sides and take a breath or Two there and

and then pushing ourselves up to seated posture and

finding our seat, we can stay with our eyes closed to begin with for a smoother transition. Find our ground through our sits bones, all of the parts of our body that are touching the ground underneath, sits Bones, legs, feet and

posture for openness and relaxation and

just take a minute here To ride land. Notice you

so Back in the seated posture, we can place our hands, either in our lap or on our thighs, palms facing down. No need to place them on our belly. Here we want to be comfortable and relaxed with gravity and

place your hands where it feels natural to you. And now here in the seated posture, we will do one more cycle of these 12

clearing breaths, and just notice the difference from lying down when we're lying down let's begin a full breath in the lower belly, filling it up with air

and emptying out completely until the last very inch, quarter inch, centimeter, and we think we're completely empty. We empty out a little bit more.

Then we allow the gap, however long before we take the next fall inhale,

trying to stay with the breathing really low in the lower belly. Try to not breathe with our chest or with our upper body, but really keeping it as low And as Belly, belly breathing as possible. Let's continue. You.

In Breath, you can allow the hips to rotate a bit forward. That feels natural, organic. And then with the exhale, the opposite rotate backwards, kind of tucking in the table a little bit in order for all the air To empty, exit. So the very last little bit and

and the gap at the End of The exhale is Where we Open relax and

in the last three breaths, really feeling the intimacy with Our breath in The lower belly And

and at the end of the last breath, breathing naturally and just staying very attentive.

Notice. Noticing the quality the air in us, around us,

noticing our body, state of mind and

Slowly start facing our gaze, if you still have your eyes closed, and just Stay in your body, stay present with your breath as your eyes open up a bit, maybe just a couple of feet in front of you.

Then maybe raise them a little bit more four or five feet ahead,

erase them slowly, at your own pace, until you're all the way straight Looking at the horizon in front and

practice together with a bow and

up going to our own basic goodness and each other's basic Goodness, Buddha Nature

turned on light egolessness. And just taking a moment to feel grateful to having gifted us this moment and sharing it with others. Thank you. Thank

so we are on the hour I'm hoping to take maybe another 15 minutes still to allow any comments or questions. And as well, I would still like to read the one page from the cynicism and magic by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll just open up first to any oops, I'm trying to look at the chat. Yes, some thank yous Okay. Some people had to leave. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, I would love to hear from you if you feel like asking, sharing anything.

If not, we'll do the reading and allow another opportunity after the reading.

Really praise His hand go ahead. Philip,

yes, okay, thank you. Just just a detail when you have stopped the lying. Position just before sitting up, you take time on the side, and it's, it's, it's good, because when I listen to reggae on the tape, on the recording, just after lying down, position in the 10 points practice. There is no time to sit up, and this is not comfortable for me. So do you? You do it for 10 points practice too, or it's just you, or it is recommended to do it this time on the side. I

um, so every, every guided meditation is absolutely unique, right, probably even just the ones I might lead or the ones Reggie might lead. So what I have noticed having received many, many guided meditations from Reggie, well, I was going to say especially the in person ones, but, but not really, you know, really, equally in person as recorded, you know, there's always a unique flavor. And of course, in person, he can read the room and see what's necessary, you know. So sometimes maybe he feels that a more smooth transition might be necessary, and sometimes he might feel like just sitting up directly without much transition is just fine, or that's what's needed. So I think in that regard, you know, trusting the teacher and trusting the moment. And actually for me, that even goes for the recording, you know, because I am sure you, as me, as all of us, have had the experience of listening to a recording and feeling like, wow, this is exactly what I needed to hear, exactly what you know, what was what the doctor ordered today, right? And, you know, Philip, sometimes, you know, meditation, or any of these practices, are not just about being comfortable, you know. So I would play with it, you know, like I usually offer a little bit of transition time for me, mostly to not lose it, you know, lose the space that has been created after the lying down practice and see just kind of play curiously with it, to see how much I can stay focused and centered and grounded in the transition. But you know, the four kinds of meditation are the lying down, sitting up, standing and walking and and each one supposedly brings back the ego more and more. You know, the the closest to egolessness is when we're lying down, and then when we sit up, we kind of gather ourselves little bit more and put ourselves together and try to return to form, right, which is ego, and then as we're standing even more so, and as we're walking even more so. So it's a little bit of an exploration, because, you know, really, from lying down to sitting, we are gonna lose it a little bit, you know, it's also easy maybe, to become attached to a sense of comfort and a sense of space and a sense of relaxation that we might have developed or achieved. We can say so in the lying down posture, wanting to bring that sitting and, you know, there will be part of it that will disappear or change, because that is the law of impermanence, and that's how it is. So that was a very long answer to your pithy question.

I have seen also to keep my eyes closed during, during the tenement of position. It was, it was also different and good for, yeah, so thank you for the long, long answer.

But, but, you know, really, this long answer was pointing a lot. It's like about the topic I was bringing in, in the reading before and that I want to close with this, the ego, you know that we do all these practices to befriend, allow, accept, realize there is no ego, and taste something different, you know, but in the moment that we are trying to recreate Any situation or label it, or try trying to make it be something, even if it's comfortable, it's immediately the ego again. So I think all these practices in different ways, by different teachers, by different instructors, are trying to, you know, have us experience that open. And relaxation, which you know also can happen even with pain and discomfort. So you know, I would, I would give you the little nugget of try to stay open and relaxed, even in a more abrupt transition, maybe not all the recorded meditations have the a lovely transition from lying down to sitting so see how that would be to stay open even there. Thank you.

Anything else, I saw some nodding from kitty. I saw a thumb up by Tim. I saw a few happenings on the screen. There's one question for you in the chat, okay, let me see really. Tim says. Rebecca, do you prefer the lying down position over the sitting one. Do you notice the difference between them? Great question. Do I prefer? Well, of course, I'm human. I have preferences, just like all of you, probably. But you know, honestly, it depends. Tim, I think you know something I heard in the beginning of my past practicing, and I didn't understand it at the moment, but eventually I understood it is that after a while, you know, we become our own meditation instructor. You know, in the beginning, we do need an instructor, and we need someone to hold their hands, and maybe sometimes in the middle or at the end as well. You know, if we've fallen off the horse or we just need some support and guidance or feeling a connection. But ultimately, we are our own instructors, because only we can be very honest with ourselves of what we need. So I started this session. I don't know if you were there at the very beginning, Tim, but by saying that I actually didn't have a very good night. And I am known to myself for having spent my two first years of doing this somatic lying down practice, falling asleep, and of course, being the instructor, that would not be an ideal scenario if I would fall asleep. So I was saying that today I was going to do a little shorter lying down, little longer sitting. I don't know if I did that exactly. Was probably half and half but, but, you know, some days I prefer sitting and some days I prefer lying down. That's the short answer. And yeah, what was the other part of your question? Chat? Oh, do you notice a difference between them? Yes, definitely. And for example, yeah, if I'm, if I'm actually, that's not true. I was going to say, if I'm very tired, I I want to do the lying down, but actually I will sometimes, and I will actually even allow myself to fall asleep. That's possible. I fall asleep, and then eventually I wake up and I continue the practice. But, yeah, I would say maybe just to point to one difference, which is what I was just saying to Philip. You know, I feel less form, less constricted, less tense, less put together in the lying down position. You know, I feel like I can surrender more, allow more. You know, it's kind of a very vulnerable position on your back, with your belly to the top. And there's a sense of really surrendering to the earth, to the element, to my breath, to my tiredness, to my weight, and then, you know, sitting usually solidifies things a little bit more. But having said that, if I feel grounded, I feel settled, I feel aligned, I might just do sitting, you know, without the lying down. But if I feel very discursive or very distracted or very obsessively thinking a lot. I will definitely do some lying down. So that's a little bit the you know, being my own instructor and being really honest with what I need on different days. I hope that was helpful. I

anything else.

Anything. From kitty from Barry, or from Gretchen, or Michelle

hard from Barry. Yeah, Kitty, go ahead. Were you planning to another reading? Yes. Are you ready? Yeah, we never

just let's do

it. Let's do it. Okay. So this comes from cynicism and magic by Cho Yum, Trungpa Rinpoche, and it is page 15 titled non substantiality. He says non substantiality is the third mark of existence, which is anatman, or egolessness. This is further confirmation of the first mark, impermanence. At the level of impermanence, we begin to see ourselves as being not solid. Our state of being is made out of fragments of all kinds. In the second stage, not only do we begin to realize that we are not solid, but the flow of life also consists of dissatisfaction and overall pain, dukkha. And in the third stage, we begin to realize that there is no one to even experience pain, no one to experience impermanence. There is a fundamental state of non existence. So I don't know if you experienced this in our practice, I just want to make a brief comment. But in that space of the gap, the gap that we were attending to or spending a little extra time in at the very end of the exhale, that is that space, space, the fundamental state of non existence, you know, there's where that openness is and that, yeah, that that just that. So, yeah, we can, you know, we experience this spaces through practice. You might find it terrifying or horrific, but it is the case. People are often afraid of non existence. People are afraid of death. Also. People are afraid of becoming psychologically unbalanced or psychotic. They are afraid of losing their hold, losing contact. These are maybe true experiences of non existence, non substantiality, the idea of egolessness, from the Budd point of view, is not about pure emptiness alone. Normally, when we talk about emptiness, we think of a container that's being emptied, and we still have a container. In this case, when we talk about emptiness or the non existence of ego, we are speaking in terms of no ground to sit on. So even the question of emptiness does not apply. It is more of a question of groundlessness. But this groundless, net groundlessness is also, surprisingly some kind of a ground which becomes a working basis, the experience of existence, the experience of solidness, the experience of form and emotion. These experiences are not of any single totality, but they are particles of little things which have come together. So in a final sense, we don't exist. We should look into this third mark of existence carefully, because the question of egolessness is at the heart of Buddh teaching, there are different levels of egolessness. What we're discussing here is egolessness from the point of view of the Hinayana, or foundational level. It is direct egolessness in terms of viewing things as they are, and not philosophizing, not bringing the meditative experience into it, but simply looking at life, in other words, at the Hinayana level, we are learning how to feel, not ignoring how we feel, and not regarding what we feel as bad or good or discriminating in any way. We are feeling as we feel fearlessly. If we feel we don't have substance, that's okay. If we feel that everything is suffering, that's okay. If we feel that everything passing by and we can't get a grasp on anything, that's okay. There's something positive about the whole thing. Using negative analogies or a negative way of looking at situations, brings a completely different sense of positivity. It's fantastically positive because we're actually looking at things as they are without trying to make them better or worse. It is necessary to look and understand in that way. This is the Hinayana approach to how to view life, not view in the sense of developing theories or concepts. Concepts but a direct vision of things as they are, we should work hard on assimilating these ideas. It is possible. There's nothing particularly mystical about it. It is a question of simply looking at how we feel in personal situations. Do we feel anyone? Do we feel any one of the marks of existence. If we do, what is the relationship to the other marks of existence? Do we have to work on this and contemplate it and try to feel ourselves

okay? That was Julian Trungpa Rinpoche received, if not all of it, some of it, and trust that whatever you receive is perfect art from Barry. Yeah. Yeah to him, Trump and Andrew hollichick. What a what a duo, huh? Thank you. So, yeah, I'll just give another couple of minutes or three if there's any, not any other comments or any questions on what I read or the practice. And if not, we will close with our dedication. You.

Okay, so thank you for practicing with me today, pleasure. I hope you experienced ego and egolessness and everything in between. And, yeah, that's dedicate and death skull, yeah, if we die before we die, we will not die when we die. I don't remember who said that, but Andrew says that very often, like that one. So yeah, let's close with the dedication of the merit. Alisa, if you can put that up, please, and thanks again. It's been a pleasure. I'll be back for more on September 16, october 21 are my dates that I have received. So welcome back then. You

do we have a dedication? Alissa, are you still with us? Did you fall asleep?

Here? We should it's nothing.

Okay, I will just do the dedication, and you can just listen to it, whatever goodness my practice has brought, I dedicate to all those who suffer. Whatever insight and joy I have found I willingly share with all beings, whatever marriage my practice has generated, may it be multiplied to infinity for the happiness and welfare of all

Okay, thank you. Alyssa, thank you everyone. Good to see you. Have a good evening. Have a good rest of your day and until we meet again. Bye.