[12] Preparing for the Bardo: Meditation, Sensory Deprivation, and Recognizing the Nature of Reality

2:01AM Feb 2, 2024

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Keywords:

bardo

bardot

practice

sound

yoga

talking

put

dharma

meditation

good

recognize

habit

light

wrote

cool

nature

death

rinpoche

book

die

You know, in my case, I'm wearing this Andrew costume this name doesn't really mean anything. But that's not who you are. You are the Buddha. You just don't know yet. When you die, you will be introduced to your true deathless Buddha nature. And so by great luxury through these teachings and then the practices that implement that is to introduce you to yourself before you're forced to get to know yourself that's what that is. Forced introduction to the complete spectrum of your being.

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of page 48 We are some yoga kya deity yoga and toga. Oh my gosh, no wonder we're going so slow. This is some dense stuff, man. As we take our first breath of life, we are actually breathing in a huge I sigh of relief. So this is this is like we're traveling through Bardos more or less freaking out. This is what happens when you don't recognize who you are. You freak out. If the thermonuclear spectrum and power of your complete identity I'm not the universe I'm just just pathetic Joe Schmo right and so when the universe when you become nothing you become everything. get recognized that incredible expanse, luminosity and emptiness nature of you being you fundamentally freak out. You start to run away. But wherever you go, there you are. You can't run away from yourself. The attempt to do that is actually what hurls us out of the numinous, Bardo. Dermatol, the Dharmakaya into the karmic part of becoming and then eventually we even run away from that into the Bardo of his life. So it's all big one big distraction. One big just big distraction enterprise. The primordial distraction, literally to distract is to pull apart to pull away all the source. You can't say it happens exclusively with this primordial distraction because it's a bi directional process is bootstrapped. We distract on the Bardot's because we distract in life. We distract in life because we distract on the Bartos. So what is found and is found now what is found now is found in Kabir. So what we're talking about here is fundamentally the fundamental distraction, the primordial pulling away, primordial divorce, that separates the non dual nature of the Bardo Dermatol into the duality that we spend our lives getting lost in so this is a big deal thing. This actually is the fundamental explanatory really reason for why we we distract so much now. It's has so much explanatory power. Finally some solid ground upon which to stand or so we think there is no solid ground right my book dreams of light was all about this. Remember, we did this two years ago. There is no solid ground, there's no solid anything, nothing's fixed. It's our attempt to fix reality that fixes it. It's our attempt to improve reality and our image. Our attempt to fix it, fixates it. That's how we reify and freeze a world made of malleable, love and light. We're the ones that freeze it into steel. And then we wonder why the world is so hard, right? What a kicker This is amazing. Were the ones that like came by this unwittingly freeze the world into our image on a mental projection. This is what also happens in the Bardot's projection. We freeze the world in our image. We freeze it into concrete and steel. And then we wonder why the world so hard? Hello, the world isn't hard. You are you co constructing reality in your own image and then you spend your life complaining about it. world isn't hard you are this is what drives the process of reincarnation fundamentally, yes, involuntary rebirth, involuntary rebirth, just this relentless pursuit to put the rug back under our feet, because that's what happens when we die. Remember, Bardo is rhombus when the rug of your experience has been pulled out from under your feet, someone dies, you lose a job to collect a barter with COVID rug gets ripped out from underneath you. What's the ultimate rug closer than the one you're actually probably sitting on top now? What's the ultimate rug, your body? Your body. So when that gets pulled out from underneath you at the moment of death, right? PacMan. If you're not familiar with hanging out in that free open space, what do you do? What do you do? Anik right handed. Imagine you're sitting here like this great thought experiment. We're all sitting here. 70 little postage stamps looking at each other. So imagine here all your little postage stamps. We're sitting here and all of a sudden just imagine it's a fantastic thought experiment. The floor from underneath us pulled out the rug everything ganked gone. Just imagine as a thought experiment what that would feel like Right? Yeah. panic, panic. Nothing Just stand up. That's what's gonna happen when you die. Remember that rug that floor is your body. Your body that's gone. You're gonna freak out. What's going to happen? Involuntary habitual impulse to get rug underneath feet. To put some flooring, you know, this is like cosmological flooring. Get some flooring, get some rug underneath you so that you feel you have a place to stand. That's the whole rebirth process right there. A more workable version of Tada. Remember, crossing over into spontaneous presence was introduced by Campbell Gonchar teacher of Trungpa Rinpoche and Trungpa Rinpoche amazing, amazing guy. I didn't realize I had this in this book. Oh, my God. Wow. This is kind of cool. I haven't read this thing in 20 years or whenever I wrote it. This is kind of fun. This is this is deep. This is cool. Wow. Okay. It's a gentler way do you become familiar with the luminosity of your mind? In this practice you close your eyes very tightly and clench your teeth. I always have a little bit of an issue with this because I'm really tired dentists, right? And so I'd often have to fit people with mouth guards because they clench their teeth too much. So I have this with a slight reservation. Because if you Brooks if you clench too hard, you're gonna wipe out the occlusal table on your teeth and you're gonna have to come to me or some profit, not us. Spend a ridiculous amount of money to fix your teeth. So Don't clench too hard. But you could try this. This comes with a little little disclaimer. You know, I'm not saying I make this with full disclaimer I'm not saying you do this so that you don't you know, like put your eyes out or clench your teeth but it's worth trying someday when you have nothing else to do and you're bored as heck and you want to see if these great wisdom traditions actually are saying anything here. Give it a try. I'm not making this stuff, man. This this kind of kind of bizarre kind of cool. Is Strange is the same as even strangers. What happens next Kimbo Gantt chart says I don't want you press your fingers on your eyes and here's the way to do this. Okay, this is something you can do. And I actually recommend this for a while. If I've been talking to you guys a little bit about my my dark retreat evangelists i think i have so here's I don't know if I showed you but behind curtain number A this is my study right behind this door. This curtain. I have a little dark retreat holding cell. They might talk to you about this. Yeah, a little bit. It's like four by seven tiny little thing I go in there all the time. And this is actually something worth trying. I recommend it in here's how you do it. You want to go into the dark for a little while. If you're doing one of the mindful things. You have to wait a little while for your eyes to kind of acclimatized to the dark otherwise this doesn't work. And then what you do is hang in there for a little while. And then when I read this, I said there's no effing way I'm going to do this, you know, I'm not going to put this kind of pressure on my eye. And so I just figured this out on my own. And so what you do is you know, you don't you don't just like do this thing. You take you take these two fingers and you press on the bridge of your nose right here. And you press rather firmly not hard, rather firmly kind of down in in with just a little bit of collateral pressure on your eye. Not a lot because you don't want to hurt yourself. Go onto the dark. Let your eyes acclimatized for 15 minutes. Try this and then when we get back together in two weeks, let me know if you see anything. Okay. When you press your fingers on your eyes, or Oh, I'm sorry, on your ears or your eyes. Yeah, and here's the way you do it with your ears. This is great. I learned this from a dear friend of mine who actually excuse me told me he got these instructions from a teacher even more radical than Trungpa Rinpoche which is Osho right you may know about him that really super controversial character. Also, boy, again, I'm not endorsing him at all because I don't know his work that well. I don't but some of what I read is pretty damn brilliant. And so my friend told me when I was talking to him, this is the way OSHA would do it. He said he said you put your thumbs in your ear like this kind of up in this direction. And then you kind of roll your head over to the front like this and just that drives your thumbs into your ears. And again, it's this like weird stuff or what? What you're doing is basically bringing about a really intense, temporary sensory deprivation that allows you to see and hear things that perhaps you haven't seen and heard before. Give it a try. Out file a report to me in two weeks and let me know what you see and hear.

When you press your fingers on your ears or on your eyes sounds naturally resound and colors and lights naturally manifest rest naturally for a long time and grew accustomed to the appearance of the utterly empty forms that don't exist anywhere. Neither outside inside nor in between the sense at the time of death there was nothing other than this. You will recognize the sounds colors and light is your own self display and be liberated just like a person you already know are child leaping to its mother's lap. Cool, huh? It's not mandatory to press your fingers on your eyelids or to plug your ears. If you do be careful not to hurt yourself. At first you only see darkness but if you rest your eyes within that blackness eventually red, green, blue or yellow lights of various shapes and sizes can arise. These appearances of the natural radiance of the Dharma tie your own mind. See, this is another thing that's super important. We think this stuff is like crazy. I mean it is esoteric. But we think it's just like wildly inaccessible. It's like oh my gosh, I'll never realize that. Dharmakaya maybe if I'm lucky when I'm die, I'll die recognize it. I'll never recognize the symbol kya know nothing could be farther from the truth. The reason we don't see it is it's actually hiding in plain sight. And that's all there is is fundamentally these dimensions of your being. And so, don't think that somehow you can't experience this that is reserved for some elite whatever. You have a mind you have a heart. You have these two kayas within you you can may have these experiences well before you die. That's kind of a point with BARDA you'll go to be introduced to become familiar with the very definition of meditation to become familiar with the states of your mind and heart now, so that when death non negotiable he points them out. Well, hey, guess what? Then they're done that. That's me, recognition and liberation or simultaneous. Trungpa Rinpoche within one's commentary when the eye faculty has stopped the death. The natural radiance of the Dharma nature will occur and if we have no experience this then we will wonder what these lights are. We will be terrified to these confused appearances. This is why we practice now. These lights appear but there's nothing about them that can be established as real. When you do this to empty lights of the Dharma nature do not disappear. But you fear of them will diminish. By the way this is all the stuff that happens when you do darker to write. Just a more extended way of doing this. There you don't have to put your yours. Your thumbs in your air because the solitary confinement it's not just visual sensory deprivation, that's auditory sensory, sensory deprivation. It kind of does it for you. You can do the same thing with the sound of the Dharma ta rest your mind in Samadhi that is free from thoughts as possible and then clench your teeth. We had more time we'd do it together. But even though time doesn't exist, we don't have lots of it. Try it on your own. You may hear a background sound that has no discernible source. This can crescendo into the roar of the nature of the mind as it says in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The sound of Dharma ta roars like 1000 thunders kind of Ribbit che continues. So this is I mean so what's what's happening here, right this is so this is so profound. And and this is why there's so much to say here. Like I mentioned I think last week that's why I'm doing like one one or two pages a session is because this is the reduction base. This is the singularity. You know, the big bang the Big Crunch. This is where everything comes down to this is where everything comes from. So everything basically is being reduced to its irreducible component. You could say sound and light the world is made of sound and light. This is just an amazing sound and light show. And so here we're basically deconstructing taking it down to its irreducible expression. So triangular Bucha continues the sound will also occur when we're in the Bardo. It is quite possible that possible that we'll be terrified of it when we hear it. I mean, 1000 thunderclaps right. I mean that that that'll get your attention 1000 thunderclaps is pretty loud. Why is it loud? Because there's a longer buffer. There's no longer any sensory of pundants it's just smack right in your face. And again, that's what we run away from. It's too bright. It's too loud. Got to put a muffler on this. So you run. We haven't stopped running by the way. We're still running every time you run away from the present moment. You're running. Every time you're distracted, you run. We're still running. It's all on the way to dilute reality. It's too concentrated. So we're talking basically here about reality concentrate. It's too concentrated. It's too much it's too bright. It's too loud. So we dilute it, and we dilute it by what I'm trying to get away from it. But that's the pisser you can't get away from it. Wherever you go, there you are. You think you can but you can't. You try to get away from it by what? Moving movement Hello Bremen che says of all the habits we have Baba samskaara of all the habits we have the principle of habit is the habit for movement. We're movement junkies. We see this in relationship to thought was thought and tantric language thought is literally defined as movement of mind driven by the winds. So basically, we're all thought junkies we're we're movie junkies. This is the actually the basis of the entire multi trillion dollar entertainment industry. The movie industry starts right here. Really, this is the reduction base of all entertainment to entertain means to hold between but anything between me and the intensity of reality. I don't care what it is put a muffler on it, buffer it get me away from it to the entertainment industry, which I mean like how many multi trillion dollars is spent on that how much time do we spend at the movies it's all in an effort to put something between literally entertain between us and phenomenal appearance. So we need to listen to it we so we need to listen to it now so that it will not be so frightening when we hear the Bardo when we just listened to it our minds relaxed and not altering anything in other words not altering not moving. To alter is to move. What's going to happen when you die I'm this logic is so logical what is going to happen when you die. Alright, this is this is the title of my I don't know, in the queue of the books that I'm writing lessons from a corpse that I tell you about this book. I'm writing lessons from a corpse essays on life death and everything in between. Well, one is what's one of the lessons you can learn from a corpse and why is this important? Because when you die, you dissolve into the matrix of the nature of reality liberation. What are some of the characteristics of a corpse so to speak, experiences this well, one utter silence I've never heard a corpse talk. If I did, it'd be kind of creepy. Still waiting for that to happen. I've also never seen a corpse of I mean that also be kind of cool right breakdancing corpse that'd be kind of cool. So fundamentally, what happens is the corpse by definition can't move. Hey, what a surprise. Reality is revealed when you longer move away from it. Let me say that again. Reality is revealed when you no longer distract yourself from it. What happens the death death is the ultimate forced non distraction. You literally can't move. You literally expire. body can't move eight stages of slowing down. That's the eight stages of the death process coming up. You putting the brakes on things. When you hit the eight, the nine stage ultimate hard stop, but we'll entendre intended heartstopper everything comes to a screeching stop. That's it, you're dead. Well, at that moment, according to this tradition, you experience reality. So you can learn a couple things from a corpse. That's why I'm writing this book lessons from a corpse. You can't move man. What's meditation about most meditations not all are stasis oriented. State. Boycotting boycotting the principle habit for movement. That's why meditation. You know, when you're no longer Windows window shopping becomes so frustrating, because it's designed to frustrate the machinations of the distracted self sense. The distraction which actually creates the very self sense. So if movement is the source of all our suffering, and basically it's really, you know, manifest distraction. Start moving now. Die now be a corpse now. Brilliant. When we just listened to it, our minds, our minds, relaxed and not altering anything, not changing anything that moving away. Sound doesn't disappear. But there's no object to be afraid of nor any of this or any other any way the sound can harm you.

The reason we need to get used to these appearances of sound and light is that the appearances we see at the time of death are no different from these, these licensed sounds will occur this is why mantra which works with primordial sound visualization practice with works with primordial light. And toggle which works with both are so powerful. These meditations play with the elemental forces of creation. We're playing with the fires of Prometheus. I saw I finally saw the Oppenheimer movie this leak. Have you seen it yet? Whoa, whoa, I thought it was unnecessarily abuse guitare I mean, it didn't have to be that complicated. I mean, five I mean, talk about distraction. So I'm gonna I'm sure you embody distraction because the way my mind works, straying away from the topic. I'm that's everybody here has probably seen it. It's a good movie. It's a bit long. But it's way it doesn't have to be that complicated. But I mean, the whole thing is what Prometheus right, stealing the fire from the gods and it's actually quite powerful in that regard. The kind of apocalyptic mythical nature of Oppenheimer's life. It's worth saying. We're playing with fire the fires of Prometheus. So while these later two meditations are something we can explore, full on Toggle needs to be practiced under the supervision of a meditation master or you risk getting burned through if you don't do these, if you don't do these esoteric practices, you can gain concordance familiarity of the Bardo. Dermatol by studying tantric iconography. Look at tacos. Oh, I got over my study, but my new computer I can't just flip around religious paintings. Look at the talkers of DDTs especially the peaceful and wrathful ones. They're also llama dances that display the deities accompanied with shrieking whistles and screeching sounds. It's recommended that the elderly pay particular attention to these dances for the way to prepare for what lies ahead so this is cool. So in fact, when when I was in Katmandu hanging out with my dear friend Matthieu Ricard they were do these amazing if you've been there, you know, they do these amazing llama dances. And these things are so much deeper than just mere cultural shows. Right? I mean, there's there's some really profound stuff going on underneath here. And one of us this, that, that they're they're actually typifying really profound archetypal expressions. And in fact, it is recommended for the elderly, to paper particular attention to these deities, dances and whatnot is a preview of coming attractions. Because what do the deities represent? They represent the purified nature of your mind. Right now the mind is just projecting, projecting, projecting projecting. When we die, the projection stops the radiance continues the radiance never stops. That's the radiance of the mind that shine that Sun never sets the Great Eastern Sun never sets that's that's sun is on more than any 711 around the block stays down all the time. But what happens is when you leave the luminous part of marmota other radiance is flipped. Oh, there's There you go. Barry, there's Lama dances. The radiance is flipped into projection. When we see that again, this is really really big deal. When you leave the Bardo Dharma top, the mind still continues to radiate. But the radiation is flipped into projection. And so everything you see in this phenomenal the world is the flipped version of radiance. This world is a total projection, not just merely the psychological projections that Jung talked about was such a genius and his shadow work. This is our archetypal ontological projection but very sense of other the very sense that there's something out there is a projection. So this time I think I mentioned this last time, you get you get a deep look into these Bardo teachings. This is Ultimate shadow work. You're taking the union principle of shadow and taking it all the way down to it's again, this reduction base. The whole projection, Shadow principle starts here as well. Everything starts here. That's why there's so much to say. This is the reduction base of the epistemic primacy of the whole thing. That's why we're never going to get past this. We're going to be here for two years. Okay, because we're unfamiliar with our mind at the subtle levels. For most people, the Bardo Dermatol flashes by completely unrecognized, totally true. We're all going to experience it. Just like every night weeks, we sort of speak experience, deep dreamless sleep, but we don't recognize it. philosophers talk about this as the difference between access and phenomenal consciousness. You're experiencing things all the time, but you don't recognize it. I think I did this last time. Remember? I'm going to point it out right now. Breathing. You've been breathing. Right? You've been experiencing it on some level. That's phenomenal consciousness but you haven't accessed it in meta consciousness. It's there you just haven't recognized it. Right. So this is a you know, this is kind of a pointing out transmission that points out these dimensions of your being that otherwise will go by on recognize, you will experience it. But without preparation. I mean, how do you expect to recognize, I should say meet, let alone recognize something in the darkness of death. You haven't met in the full light of the day you're not going to recognize it? This isn't some fire and brimstone hell thing being tossed by some judgmental creator principle. No, this is simply your lack. This is basic causality. This is your fundamental lack of recognition. If you recognize it, what does it say? In The Tibetan Book of the Dead like 10 times recognition and liberation or simultaneous that's Buddhahood Buddhahood the moment of death otherwise what happens? No recognition. Right? That's the birth of the seven consciousness. Boom, right into samsara. Everything is here. This is just an amazing but with a familiarity caught up by these pack cultivated by these practices, and the doctrinal template that supports them that which is the blah, blah, blah that I'm doing right now. We will recognize these dimensions when they are revealed after death and attain enlightenment, right? We'll be able to say fruition is what to go smiling into the Bardot's nodding your non head because you don't have one and saying to yourself, been there, done that. That's the whole point. That's why we're slogging through all this crap. All these teachings and all the practices are to get to the end of life where you can say, Been there. Done that. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous. That's awakening. Okay, the final body nirmanakaya illusory form and Dream Yoga. No, no, man, this is dead stuff. It's giving me a headache. And I wrote this crap. Just kidding. I love it. The movement from the sun booga. Kya to the fully embodied nirmanakaya is echoed in the Christian tradition when it says In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh. Yeah. So you know, the Christians this is this is this is such a archetypal template that you'll find this kind of tripartite three fold approach to the display of reality and a number of different traditions. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's the Christian way of talking about it. explicate, implicate and super implicate order. That's David Beaumes way of talking about it. I mean, you dig underneath so many different traditions, you'll find it everywhere. This at least that this is the basic it's obviously much more granularity. There are many kinds of sub levels here. But the fundamental threefold level is is most simplest well simplistic in the in the best sense not in a pejorative sense. recognition in the Bardo becoming, which is liberation the level of the mnemonic is facilitated by Dream Yoga, illusory form, practice. Contemplating the absolute bodhichitta slogans right in the logic mind training and the study of emptiness right. This is the Bardo where we will spend most of our time for most people not many people, most people that constitutes their entire art experience. Most people won't recognize the bottle Dermatol.

Most people is Padmasambhava was just calling him but I put him on hold. I hope it's okay. He should be okay with it. Okay, for him time and space doesn't exist. So he's usually okay when I put it. Where it was I was distracted. Yes, most people won't experience the burden of Dharma taught at all. Nothing. Maybe a few little flickers of light. A little bit like when somebody knocks you in the head. You know, if you ever have a TBI kind of thing, a few little flashes of light. That's it. You know, finger snap and most people just blackout. They wake up they don't even know they're dead. In the comic Bardo. of becoming that's the biggest problem just like a non lucid dream. The single number one biggest problem in the Bardot's is not realizing that you're in them. Just like Bruce Willis in the sixth sense. When I saw that movie, whenever how many years ago was I was like, kind of blown away. I said, Oh my god, this is exactly like the Barlows it's just like a non lucid dream. Biggest problem in the end and I lucid dream is not knowing that you're dreaming what controls the dream experience if you don't wake up and do think about this. What controls your journey, if you don't, your habits? What are your habits? Karma? Same thing in death. What happens if you have a non lucid death experience? What controls that? You don't? Because there's no lucidity? What controls it? Habits, karma. That's why it's called the karmic Bardo. Becoming. And this is why Trungpa Rinpoche famously said, you've heard this many times. What is it that reincarnates remember what he said, your bad habits. Genius. What are the two principal bad habits the habits for movement? Right. And the habits for habitation itself? The habit for housing, the habit for a body? That's the second major habit, literally habit for habitation. I love the play on the word habit. double entendre habit is something you were right. And habit is something that kind of drives us. So this is this is little bit important here. Kempo kartha Rinpoche says, Dream Yoga exists largely because of these it is the best preparation for this phase to the Bardo spot on high five. So this is why in the night school curriculum, right, this is why this is part of night school what we're doing here, why are we talking about Barbie yoga? Because it's part of this curriculum. It's just the dream at the end of time. When you study the stuff on the dreams, lucid dreaming this is a massive difference between lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. Lucid Dreaming doesn't touch this. Dream Yoga is all about this. Your use the mind as it expresses itself in this concordance similitude the nighttime dream as a way to prepare for the dream at the end of time. You want to know how you're going to do you die. Look at how you dream it's called putting the fear of habit into you putting the fear of karma pop quiz every night for the final exam. I'm not sure if that's inspiring or intimidating. But it does seem to be the truth. The bar was called a treacherous passage because because it is a fearsome experience fraught with difficulty. Well, I'm gonna run some commentary on this. Well, yes and no. There's no pre existing Bardot in there. There isn't some like big harrowing scary thing that you're going to drop into. It's just your mind. So what makes it fearsome and fraught with difficulty is not some spooky, Halloween creepy house thing. It's your mind creeping you out. It's fraught with difficulty because your unconscious mind is fraught with difficulty. This is why Bob Thurman says in his genius way. It's not safe to die as long as you have an unconscious mind. Why? Because that's the spook house that comes up on your death. And that's the Halloween Hallmark or whatever that comes up when you die. Same thing that happens when you're doing your dreaming your unconscious mind controls a dream. What happens when you die? Your unconscious mind controls a dream. And this is where it's super important. Gosh, I need to I need to write a new edition of this book. It could probably be 10,000 pages with the way we're going. So who's supposed to do this what some of you one of you is supposed to be transcribing this whole thing and spitting it out into a transcript so we can collectively I can put at one postage stamp co authors here. We're going to write a new edition of this book. There'll be 10,000 pages right? But this is a really this is a sort of big deal. This is why we're you know working with this penultimate nocturnal practice of Bardo yoga, because all these other practices are preparatory for that one, right? You want to understand this where I was gonna go with this. This is where it's super important. And again, there's so much bloody stuff to say here. Super important to understand the dimensions and the strata of the unconscious mind, which is really, it's the obfuscated mind. It's not it's not just one monolithic thing, like Freud thought, Oh my God. That's just the repressed elements of the superficial most dimension of the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind works across at least six major bandwidths minimum. And what happens in sleep and dream and especially death is a tour through all these different stages of your mind. So that's why what's what he's talking about here is what's revealed at the upper most superficial dimension, where all the crap is where all the refuse is where all the repressed stuff is. That's what's going to come up first. And that's what's going to freak people out and they're going to run away from that just like they ran away from it the first time. I mean, does this make sense or what? This is just pure physics. You ran away from it because he didn't want to face it. In life, out of sight, out of mind, out of sight is enter the refuse heap of the unconscious mind and there lurks 95% is dictated by the so called Black Energy black matter, dark energy, dark matter. Interesting correlation of numbers. Isn't that scientists tell you that the universe is made of dark energy dark matter, that that means we have no idea what it is. It doesn't mean it somehow explains it. Oh, now I know what it is. It's dark matter dark energy. That doesn't mean anything. It just basically means we don't know we meaning the scientists. But isn't it interesting? Neuroscientists will tell you that 95% of what takes place is dictated by unknown unconscious processes. I mean, how interesting is that? Well back to him. It is a great advantage to purify one's perception of the bar to beforehand through the practice of Dream Yoga. Then it will be easy to get through it when the time comes. If you do not make preparations the party will be extremely difficult to reverse when you are in the throes of it. Why? Because it's just your unconscious karmic mind released without mediation in the luminous Bardo Dharma top all heaven breaks loose. We can't deal with our Heavenly Nature because we don't realize we're made of heaven that we are these deities that we are pure. Okay, that's fine. Okay, flip you get what you want. Now you're on the bar to becoming what happens there all hell breaks loose. We're a little bit more familiar with Helen, we are with heaven because we practice hellish habits all the time. And that's therefore what dictates our experience on the Barna becoming. It just makes so much sense to me. I mean, even psychologically phenomenologically spiritually, I mean, just makes so much sense. Padmasambhava, who wrote The Tibetan Book of the Dead I left him on hold here, so I probably shouldn't be talking too much longer. And karma link bow, the co author slash Terrington who discovered it and the master who he discovered it said that if we become lucid in a dream seven times we'll be able to become lucid in the Bardo, becoming this is an archetypal number don't take it literally. It basically refers to some level of constancy lucid dreaming instructions are available in books. Since then, I wrote read them. In addition retreats are frequently offered that teach Dream Yoga and I still seem to do that. All the effort to help you die. In order to wake up and recognize that we're in the bar to becoming it helps to learn how to wake up while we're dreaming and recognize our dreams in order to wake up in our dreams that helps to learn to wake up during the day. Why are we lucid to the contents of our mind when we when we dream and sleep because we're we're non lucid to the contents of our mind. Now, what is found now was found and or conversely, what is not found now was not found them. Were not lucid to I don't know how much of it takes place in our mind probably 95%. I mean, who knows? That's why 95% of our dreams are more or non lucid. We because we practice now lucidity all the time, this this makes just so much sense. This is the function of the practice of illusory form. I wrote a book on that illusory form, Dream Yoga and part of the yoga or progression are practices that build on each other so you see, all the books that I wrote after this were designed to unpack and support this practice of lucid dreaming, Dream Yoga, illusory form. All about this. Okay, I better stop so we can have a little conversation. Let me get to the top of the next page. Wow. We did better today. We got through three pages. Maybe we can cut it back to three years instead of five.

BARDA Yoga is a contemplation practice. Yeah, so part of yoga is yes, there are some meditations but part of yoga is is fundamentally a contemplative practice. It's basically studying it's exactly what we're doing here. This is Bardo yoga. It's studying the beans out of the map. That's the essence of what Bardo is it's contemplation practice. It's what we're doing here is we studied the Bardot's and some classifications all three practices are subsumed under the category of illusory form. Dream Yoga and illusory form of reciprocating practices, bi directional. They're essentially the same meditation apply to two different states of consciousness opening interstate traffic between the two. I love I love to play on words. Isn't that nice? To have different states of consciousness we're opening up actually three this is interstate traffic between three states, waking, dreaming and dying. Practicing one therefore helps us in our practice of the other. We're basically triangulating that's why you can understand, you know, study Dream Yoga, you're preparing for death. Sorry, the Bartos you're working with dreams. Study your mind in the day you're working with all three. So we triangulate the process. It's called reciprocal hermeneutic why not? Okay, I'll this reform helps us recognize dreams Dream Yoga helps us work with illusory form and both my parents for death. They also prepare us for life. Kempo kartha Rinpoche says to prepare for the bar, do you need to practice Dream Yoga? And to practice Dream Yoga. You need to practice illusory form. Cool. All right. Hey, I'm so happy. We actually got through three shifts. We're booking now man. We've gone from a snail's pace to lizard. Okay, so where are we page 52. What this is session on Okay, so we'll pick up there. And I just just before I came on, Alyssa sent me two questions that came in. So let me get to those and then if you want to have a little discussion for a minute, let's to do it, but let me see what came in I haven't looked at these yet

okay oh from Maria Okay. In your upcoming teaching, can you please incorporate a further explanation of the symbol Gaia? Yes, I just did it. Hopefully that's helpful. Maria and Maria sorry, both in this life, in which we live and how it plays in the Bardo, dying in the Bardo rebirth. You spoke a bit last session. I have never understood what Samba is. And now that I heard that it is part of the bar doesn't want to understand it. can you please help me understand it? I can try. Yeah, so here's the thing, you know, here's the other thing about the coyotes, right? This is super important. So this is a good question, there good direction is we're talking about the trachea principle as a progressive series of unfoldment, that you have the Dharma.

A pletely valid but yet provisional way of looking at it. It also has a near enemy, and the near enemy is a big one. Because it implies a very subtle cosmological dualism, this is important. In other words, if we don't also realize that sokaiya, you can also describe it in fact, even more accurately as simultaneous. That and I'll show you how to play with that we're experiencing the Tocai all the time. So the subtle cosmological dualism of the unfolding which is done in a kind of heuristic pedagogical divide and conquer approach, seems to then inherently imply Oh, somehow I have to return to the symbol Gaia. And then somehow I have to return to the supremacy of the Dharmakaya because that's the groundless ground of the whole thing. On one level, that is provisionally true. Only because of the extremism that we maintain. We're all fundamentalists, we're all extremists. I wouldn't say we're terrorists, but we're fundamentalists who were extremists. Whether we know it or not, we're blind. What we see you know, there's we're blind to and ourselves. We're all eternalists we believe that things exist. That's a form of fundamentalism. It's an extremist point of view. And so originally, there's all this slash and burn, cut, cut, negate negate, negate, you know, the majolica teachings all the class is cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Why? It's what politico MPJ talked about is the extreme path to the middle, because we're extremists and eternalism. Originally, it helps to be at least temporarily extreme in in the kind of almost nihilistic end, cut everything cut, cut, cut. This is the great contribution of the DeLuca tradition, my Jamocha in particular, Prasanna gusta tantrik are for those of the deeper divers, but there's a massive Neurotomy here, because if you just keep on hacking, you can actually cut a direct experience of reality itself. And for those of you who are deeper divers, this is where you have to go into third turning shentong Dhammika otherwise, he gets stuck in a nihilistic rabbit hole. But the idea here is the extreme path to the middle you swing all the way back to the Dharmakaya not to hang out there. Because if you do even come on our heart and that I mean, that's a better than being a confused sentient being. But you're still stuck. You're just stuck now in the penthouse of samsara. This is what gets you reborn in the god realms. This is what what the god realms are all about. You know, it's just the penthouse of samsara. Trump Tower apex. Oh, sorry, I didn't mention that dirty word. So basically super important to understand that the terracotta is not only pedagogically unfolding, it's also simultaneous. So the clear nature of what you experienced the fact that you see all these postage stamps and you're looking at it somewhat articulate, clarified world that's nirmanakaya quality. That's the clarity you know, that the kind of energetic components underneath it, the quality aspect of it, that's the symbol good kya that slightly less articulate, more ineffable, energetic quality, that's a mocha kya that's happening now. The kind of open spacious, some are groundless aspect of the whole thing that if you take a very close look at any of the Aruba, kayas, some Bolkiah and nirmanakaya. There's nothing there. That spaciousness, that openness, that's the Dharmakaya. So if you look at the Ria, if you look at reality properly, right now, that means anything. You recognize the trachea and every moment of a rising this is actually important because otherwise you get into the spiritual bypassing thing is spiritual materialism thing all these complex these that say I have to go somewhere I have to get back to something No you don't. That's why I wrote this article. I think it will do for tricycle short one last fall. The two biggest problems with the spiritual path remember my riff on this? Number one, you said the word spiritual number two use of the word path. Outside of that the spiritual path is perfect. Well, why is it that so perfect because spiritually it not nearly 100 distinction to material but in opposition to it? Where does your spirituality go in the material world? So spiritual, yuck, no, and that's a great path to where? Nowhere, where are you going? Seeking denotes the absence of that which you seek. So the very notion of a path becomes counterproductive here. You're not going anywhere. This is called the path of undue Paya the path of no path. The means of no means. So that's super important. So there you go. Murray. There's so much more to say about this. Yeah, I'm trying to think of some references that come to mind Reggie res. Oh, and oh my god, I literally click back to that. I just say Reggie Ray. I literally clicked back into my computer and I just got an email from him. I mean, like Hello, literally, am I kidding? There he is. Hi, Reggie. Cool. That's auspicious coincidence. Reggie Ray, thank you for reminding me Reggie ray in his book Secrets of the virtual world. writes about the Tocai really beautifully. So if you want to explore some of the stuff in real elegance and rigor Reggie's two volumes, indestructible tooth, hanging out on Mahayana and especially at third volume, Secrets of the virtual world. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. That's kind of cool. That's cool. He just pops right in. Perfect timing, Reggie. Okay, this one. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's the same question. So I just got it piped in twice. Excellent. So if anybody has a look in the chat column anything come in here. Let's take a look.

From Barry checking the marimba G advisors the same i pressing finger activity to show what it will look like in the Bardo. Excellent. Very cool, very cool. The body is a wonderful instrument of meditation. Boy, no kidding. You can't get enlightened without your body. This is another amazing contribution of the work of Reggie Ray was a dear dear friend of mine. I really love this guy. You know he has four volumes on enlightenment in the body. He wrote the first one touching enlightenment with sounds two and then three books, the Shambala pub, they're really really good stuff. talking about you know, my languaging the journey of waking down into the wisdom of the body. because again, well this is important. Another reminder. What's the where's the most immediate expression of this of the these bodies there within you.

You

Oh, I get I get little punchy at the end of the day. I had five hours of zoom meetings today. Literally so I'm I get a little poop which is okay, it loosens me up. Oh, geez, candy. Can you define the six dimensions at the unconscious mind? Oh, good, Lord. I can but I can't. This is one rendering. I might recommend my dear friend Ken Wilber. His one of his best books is kind of an anthology called Eye to Eye the quest for the new paradigm. Oh shit. I got it right here. I was just just researching this. What a surprise. So in this book, which is one of Canada's best books, I put it at the top two or three. He's got a chapter what is it called development meditation in the unconscious? Yeah, I was just reading this, obviously. And in this, I mentioned them to you and then if you're into this, I recommend this chapter. This is this is some of Ken's best work. So these are the six levels. The ground unconscious, the archaic unconscious, the sub emergent unconscious, the embedded unconscious, the emergent unconscious, and the emergent, repressed unconscious. So those are the fundamental six, straight up six straight up dimensions of the mind, which as I mentioned before, you know really more accurately, I think the unconscious mind is not the best term because it tends to reify it it's more accurately in my world. The obfuscated mind is just obscured. It's obfuscated, it's not unconscious. So that makes it a little bit more accessible. So Kenny, if you really want to dive into that this chapter by Ken Wilber highly, highly recommended this. This is one of his all times best books he talks about the problem with proof he introduces the pre trance fallacy. I mean, he gets into some really great stuff here. This is Ken Wilber. I think phase two of his five stages of work. If the sound of the Dharma ATAR or is like 1000 thunders is that mean? Buddhists are hearing that constantly. That sounds rather unpleasant. Yeah, so it's called tinnitus. Yeah, they have this kind of spiritual ringing in their ear, spiritual tinnitus or tinnitus, however you define it. No, it doesn't mean that you're hearing it in the way that you're going to hear it in the Bardo. See the reason you hear it on the Bardot's why? It is because that your buffs are taken off. In addition to your ears.

This is just so funny to me. This is gallows humor thing is kills me. So not only your earmuffs taken off when you die your ear, you know, I knew we're no nose, no tongue, nobody Your ears are taken off. You don't think things get loud when you take your ears off. And when they get louder shit in there, right? So they hear it in this new way. Because there's no longer a muffler right now they hear it somewhat diluted because they were the earplugs of our sensory apparatus. And again, you know, do we take this mathematically and literally and say okay, alright, let's just take the normal sound of a thunderclap and multiply it by 1000 No, don't do that. Don't Don't, don't reify anything. Don't fixate anything. These are just archetypal numbers, right? It's basically just really loud because why? The sound of the awakened mind is the lion's roar. It's really loud. And it drowns out that's what you want with these teachings. It's like like a Rinpoche says, you know, you want the teachings to be loud. You want the teachings to drown out you're confused mind. And so on the Bardot's that's all there isn't the Dharma and it basically is louder than anything else. And it's deafening See, this is this is the thing. It's deafening for the earmarked ego. Oh my god, it's too much you know, so then you run from it. It's not allowed for the Buddha's for the Buddha's. It's just the celebrate a celebratory display of a lion's roar nature of the reality. It's only allowed for the confused mind. Okay. Would matter be considered cultivation of a heavenly habit? Absolutely. James High Five my friend. Absolutely. Can one cultivate useful habits or is it more or is it just more thinking? No, really good comment, my friend. This is what you want to do. You want to stuff the ballot box. Get as many good habits in there as you possibly can. Because then what happens is those good habits will take care of you. This is why Dalai Lama Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and others say bodhichitta and everything around it metta, the four Brahma viharas, all these practices of love and compassion and kindness. They're gonna lay a red carpet for you on the Bardo. What does this mean? This means so many things. One is for God's sakes, even though there isn't one. You don't have to be a Buddhist to have a good death for God's sakes. You just have to be a good person. You want to know the number one best way to have a good death. I'm not being smart aleck key here. Be a good person. Really be a good person, right? My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand. That let that good ground ground you let that good ground lay the right copper for you on the bar it'll lead a good life. Practice metta practice bodhichitta practice the four Brahma viharas practice compassion practice tongue, land and practice the slogans be a good person. You know, I mean, yes, it's helpful to have plan A, plan B, plan C and all these hyper techniques. I'm not dissing them at all. But you want to have a good life. I mean, a good death lead a good life. It's really that simple. Goodness, goodness, goodness. Okay, from Tim, I've heard it said that if we follow any of the senses, and we're deeply enough, like the sound and light you mentioned, we can get back to the source high five, my friend is called Prachi Adara in Hindu Patanjali yoga and also the first of the six limbs of the college chakra completion stage practices for the deeper divers practice Adara. Withdrawing from the senses. That's literally what it means withdrawal that's what's going to happen when you die. That's what the meditations that help you do that in advance do they withdraw all the senses? Exactly what happens? What happens? Where else do we see this in deep meditation or sleep? This form of pratyahara takes place every night, otherwise you wouldn't fall asleep. So the most instant instantiation almost redundant of This Is What Happens every night when you fall asleep that's a form of spontaneous pratyahara withdrawal all the senses are coming home that's why you know luminous Bardo Dharma talk and coordinate experiences what sleep dreamless sleep yoga TURia. Oh, yay, Reggie Ray. Yeah, my dear friend, Reggie. Way. Cool. I can't believe that's so wild. Literally. This email pop down that's so cool. Okay, from our different Prem dos slash Sheriff Bucha sir, I like this I like to surf part makes me feel important from Das. You're so polite. That's good karma. Keep it up. It will take good care of you in the Dharma.

How are the six realms of samsara on a Baba chakra related to the desire form and formless realms? Are the total separate classifications? No, they're not. The form and formless realms are the God realms. Desire realm is the human realm. Basically, the the realm of desire. So the form this is a big wonderful cosmological question. This is the kind of thing I'm going to be talking about to the with Professor monguno. Yeah, we're in the realm of desire. That's the human realm. It's a wonder one of a number of realms of samsara, the form and formless realms of the god realms. These are associated Of course, as you know, with the jhana states, so if you want to be reborn as a guide, practice jhana state meditation. I'm not dissing it at all. Not in the slightest. It's fantastically powerful practice. But it's just the penthouse of samsara, it will liberate you. This is just the best of samsara God realms, but you want to be reborn as a god do the jhana state practices. This is why they're not emphasized. I'm not criticizing this at all. They're incredibly powerful. If you can accomplish the jhana states it is enormous accomplishment. But this is also one reason why the Tibetans don't emphasize this. And I've always wondered about it, because it's just really it's like mental candy. These are just just as just really delicious states of mind. They can get you stuck in the highest domains of the god realms. Okay, everybody, Pratchett Daraa, not Pratyahara. Put a D in front of it from das pra TYADH a are a patch a Dara. You'll find it in Hindu and Buddhist yoga systems. Okay. All right, everybody. Thank you so much. It's 712 I haven't eaten in a long time. Great to spend time with you all. It's always so fun. I always like to look at the postage stamps who are here so I can say hi to all my wonderful postage stamps, friends. It's so sweet. It really It's so delightful to say hi to everybody. Remember that we do this we're not doing this for ourselves. Always remember that you want to cultivate bodhichitta do not forget this. Do not forget this. The only thing you know my teacher Khenpo Rinpoche said it's impossible. It's very, very, very difficult. To accelerate your path karma has to work out has to work itself out in its own way. But he did say however, however, there was one thing that can accelerate your path, doing it for others. So it Dalai Lama talks about it as being intelligently selfish.

Do it for the benefit of others really. Otherwise what we're doing here this year, I've said this every time because we need to be reminded. If what we're doing is not a benefit to others, if not a benefit to the world. It's irrelevant. Go drink a beer and watch the Super Bowl. By the way I'm rooting for Kansas City. I think they're gonna rock it. But anyway, much love to you dedicate the merit, bring it all in whoosh, send it out to all sentient beings. Everybody needs our TLC and see you back around the block in a couple of weeks. Oh, wait, don't forget oh my gosh, Mary Mary Ann's here I saw her and hear her dream sharing thing on Saturday. Totally attended really cool. The usual stuff that we have is also you know, you know what's going on, but otherwise? Yes, I'm going into retreat in about three weeks. I'm doing another dark thing. I'll tell you about that later. But I will be back in two weeks for another round of this stuff. So nice to see everybody all the best to you. TaoTao.

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