That means all the other blable I just said won't be recorded. So there are a couple of questions that came in and I'll start with those and then again, anything you want to run with so this one's from Katie, she always has such great questions. Do I understand correctly that a yogi who practices generating creating himself as a deity will at the death process arise from the Nando Clearlight experience in the Bardo in the same form as a DND? Okay, so let me unpack a couple things here. What she's referring to is big practice that we spent some time doing last weekend and pyrolyzed program, which is called Generation stage meditation, a huge part of Tibetan Buddhism. Where is literally what Katie is saying here. It's also called deity yoga. It's also called yet on practice, it's also called evolutionary yoga has a bunch of different names. But one of the things you do with his practice is you you literally visually visualize yourself as a deity. You recite the deities mantra. You visualize the environment as the Mondal of the Deity. And you might wonder why do you do that? Well, she's honest, she's right here. There's a number of reasons you do it, but in relation to her question, as I understand it, at the moment of death, because of this practice, you will rise from the non dual clear, light experience in the Bardo, in the same form as a deity. Yes, before I go on with your question, Katie. That's one reason to do this practice. But here's the thing you work with this is a way and I think, you know, this is a way to purify birth. The whole idea of generation stage meditations, is literally the purified birth and in this case, you're referring to that but but really, what it refers to, quite specifically, is how you're you're purifying the shaping the birthing of the formless dimension of your mind, not only at the end of life, arising as a deity, then why not arises the deity now, right. So what you say is absolutely run on you do this practice. So that when you dissolve into the non dual formulas, clear light experience, and this by the way, when you're doing full blown generation stage practice, you know this when you recite the mantra almost probably should this ever number show above the shadow harm. That's that that is basically designed to intimate the clear light mind in the daily practice. And then yes, you arise is the DoD in preparation for death, but just as importantly, you're purifying rebirth of your mind now moment to moment to moment so that then instead of arising is a reified. Joe Schmoe or Josephina schmo, you arise now moment to moment is the deity which means you take on the form of compassion, which is sunrays, you take on the form of wisdom, which is Manjushri you take on the form of power, which is not japonais so this is this is a multi Vaillant practice that for sure does apply to the big arising at the end of life, but just as much so it works with purifying birth moment to moment right now. Okay.
Oh, and the other thing that can happen here Yes. So if you if you have real proficiency with this fundamental fundamentally, someone who has this kind of control over their mind, not only can they arise as a deity, and then go immediately into their deities, pure land, they can arise this anything. Literally, literally they can arise and this is really pretty out there. Kind of stuff they can arise is what we will call inanimate appearances. They can arise as a breeze or as a medicine or as a bridge or as a tree. It's like, well, I don't What are you talking about? That's what tradition says that you know, when you really understand the nature of reality is the nature of mind itself. By forming your mind that way you can actually form what we would call physical inanimate objects. So this type of proficiency not only extends to a rising in the deity, voluntary, dramatic, high, violent, voluntary toogoo You know that term, you get arises anything out there. stuff, but that's what they say. Further question the mind contracts voluntarily to an illusory body of the Deity. Yeah, you could say you can say contracts voluntarily yes versus involuntary. Rebirth impure rebirth. Into illusory bodily deity. Yes, it condenses, it crystallizes it emanates. It emanates in the in the form of the Deity. Remember, what is deity represent, right? It's not like some cartoon character. The Deity fundamentally represents purity. So your rising is a pure illusory form by doing this, so it's a slightly esoteric question, but so be it. The mind contracts voluntarily to an illusory body of the deity to prevent impulsive contraction to the samsaric body. Absolutely high five spot on you got it. Second part of the question or question two. Does mind always have some form? Body bodies? Yes, it does. And that's why the word kya is used que ya in the Buddhist you know, the roughest Groasis three body manifestation thing you got is you know, nirmanakaya fully formed body, samba kya, subtle body Dharmakaya very subtle, formless body. So there's a reason why Kaya the word kya is used is always mind is always embodied even if their body is very, very subtle. So they're really really subtle dimensions. It's no longer a physical body. It's literally a body made of front of mind. So there's no such thing is a non embodied mind just doesn't make any sense. This one of the great books that was written in kind of launched the cognitive science movement, literally the embodied mind. Purchase Gibberella Evan Thompson Elena rush, this was a really landmark book, I don't know 2530 years ago, where Francesco Francesco and company talk about all mind is embodied. It's just subtle, gross, or very, very subtle. Okay. Good questions, Katie. Oh, hey, from Steven. Well, this may not be a typical nightclub question. That's okay. Because this is not necessarily a nightclub forum. I wondered if you might answer a question on the recent sessions on the pier LAN. So it looks like Steven here attended the Carolinas which is awesome. Caroline's hidden as they can on the target behind me so during that weekend, I had a talk of religious Scroll of sukawati the Pure Land and Amitabha Buddha that Carolyn and they're talking behind you was Boucher, Pawnee? Yes. Correct. The Bodhisattva power both in a raffle and peaceful emanations. Could you please explain why there are peaceful and raffle emanations? Yeah. Well, because there are many ways that the mind can manifest it and really the archetype here is the what are called the ship tro Shi T arrow peaceful wrathful deities in the Bardo and the luminous part of them Dermatol were seen as you may or may not know there's 100 of these peaceful wrathful deities that arise and they're basically archetypal representations of the spectrum of the manifestation of mind. And sometimes it's peaceful. And sometimes that manifestation can be raffle. You know, tough love there is there's a place for this type of manifestation. And interestingly enough, the the math is interesting because if you do think there's a 52 wrathful deities for the peaceful deity so they're actually more wrathful emanations and there are peaceful emanations. So basically, why is that it's, it's because the mind manifest in this multitudinous kind of display. You can manifest and peaceful. There's also called the the genre and emanations, the semi raffle emanations. And then there are the raffle emanations and basically again, it just points to the fact that the mind can radiate shine manifests in all these different ways, which are represented then in these
these deities, the the iconography, the iconography, or these particular deities. Okay, Steven, the last one. Yeah, what are the best books you can recommend? They give an accurate description of the 64 relative cities. I don't have any because I don't I'm not interested in relative cities. So let me tell you why I'm not that interested in these sorts of things because see city, sad DHI, the 64 relative cities. There there's a difference between relative and absolute city and the relative cities are all the things like clairvoyance and telepathy and clear audience and all these kinds of psychic abilities which are great, I guess they're they're kind of cool. But they're not really touted, especially in the Tibetan arena, at all very little because you can slide into the sorcerer's trap. And so the relative cities can be helpful if they're used. To benefit others, but they're not touted in the traditions that I study, because they can be sidetracks the sources trap can be a real shadow elements of this type of power. So the much much more important power is absolute city. And then my languaging here is this is the way I relate to a absolute city. Well, relative city is when you have power over the world. That's when you can do all these shapeshifting things and all these capacities of manipulating the environment the miracles Christ could do and all the great masters can do it. Because basically they become so open they mix their mind with the kind of mind at large the mental leisure reality and therefore they can actually influence it shapeshifted in these kind of miraculous ways, hence the relative cities so that's interesting but potential trap what's much more important as absolute city is when the world no longer has power over a year. That's real power. So I can't really recommend books here because I'm not interested in this stuff. I find this stuff actually no criticisms, just me. I find it distracting. Do you believe in people who are able to communicate with animals telepathically Yeah, why not? Lots of people, not just meditators, but Empath, psychics on the way have this capacity and I saw this really cool video I can't remember. I mean, you've seen so many of these over the years. I can't remember what it was called. But it was out there. This guy. This, this guy with a big top not some sedans, some master was actually able to summon birds. It was just in they show him you'd be sitting there and I was doing some whistling thing I can't remember. And he told his little finger out and these birds would just come like flying around and they'd all come landing on his hand like, right. The only time that happens to me is when I go skiing in Steamboat, and I go up this chairlift and I put all this bird food in my hand, then the birds come and land on my hand. But I thought that was actually pretty cool. You know, here he is. He's just holding this thing out there and he's just, you know, doing this whistling thing, I think. And these birds are flying around and they come down and he's like landing on his hands. So I mean, why not? You know, I mean, who's to you know, when, when the mind opens again, this is where all these powers come from? Well, the fact that we don't have these kinds of powers is because we're so contracted We shut ourselves off. But all these types of powers tell Pat telepathy, telekinesis. I mean, when I was studying the New Age stuff decades ago, I did think this stuff was kind of cool. These are natural consequences of porosity are being so open. And so do people have this ability? Absolutely. Is this one of the 64 relative cities I have no idea. King Solomon and St. Francis were both rumored to have the scale hey, why not? Anybody can do it. You can do it. I would really love to know if the Buddha possessed disability no doubt he did. But I'm sure he just wasn't that interested in propagating these sorts of things because then people go oh, I think I'm going to study Buddhism. So I can get birds to land that my finger or whatever, you know, you get you get the whole thing. Like I'm just gonna develop these powers so I can read minds and all that. Boy, oh, boy, that is the wrong motivation. And that's why I don't I don't really riff on this stuff at all because that can set that totally can distort your intention. Your intention is to open your mind and heart, achieve wisdom and compassion for the benefit of others. If relative cities and powers comes from that, that's great, but don't use them for yourself. Use them for others. So don't don't distract. Again, me just me. Don't distract yourself. With this kind of stuff. Just use me.
Yeah, and the rest of it is about my dog. Yes. My dog. You mentioned Yeah, my dog was able to discriminate mental states. That's that's not my dog isn't I think my dog actually is a bodhisattva. I have no doubt. He's here. To teach me. For those of you who have pets, you know this. Your pets are psychic. I mean, they have these incredible extra sensory capacities, right? My dog is not alone in doing that. I just feel really sorry for him because if he can read my mind he must be leading a very tortured dog life. So anyway, questions or comments, those are all the ones that came in. I think I will check for there but if there's anybody here who has a question or comment, I'll check the chat column we're okay. And then so if there's another question again, anybody who sent in one of these questions that may want to follow up on any of those are more than welcome to come on. But that's kind of what comes to mind. Okay, Franklin. I recently heard a talk about somatic meditation. Yeah, I'm a huge I'm just going to run the comments as we go through this land because it's a long way up here. I'm a huge fan of somatic meditation. Because if your body if your meditation does not include your body, it's incomplete. could very well be Reggie stuff, because he's huge on that and I really liked his work. The speaker mentioned that there are recent scientific studies or at least one study that shows that when someone is experiencing outrage, specifically the quality of outrage, not just simple anger, that it lights up the pleasure centers in the brain. Okay, in your readings and study, have you come across this information? I have not. But you know, how many studies are out there? I mean, even in the world, let's just leave it at this limb. Even in the world of meditation. I used to try to keep up with these I got a monthly thing. I think I discontinued it a couple of years ago because it was just overwhelming. Every month I got a you know, I got to read out of all the studies that were coming out. In the world of meditation, there's over 1000 a year. That's well over three, three over three a day, right? There's no way I can keep up with this stuff. So I wait till the ones just like everybody else. I kind of scan across I wait for the things because there's a lot of bad studies out there. Reggie and Reggie, Richie Davidson and Dan Goleman. In their book altered traits talk about this book was published three or four years ago. And at that point, they are something like seven 1000 studies on meditation. And then they go through just weeding out just saying a lot of these are just like bad site, study model bad everything. So you know, just because something is so called scientific study. I'm always really really careful of these these are replicated mean is a peer reviewed is a double blind, placebo controlled. Just because something is in print. Maybe you've noticed this doesn't necessarily mean it's true, but I have not come across that. If true, this could go a long way to explain so many people seemingly being addicted to outrage these days. Well, let Yeah, I can't again, I can't speak to that study. But people are addicted to everything because we live in the realm of addiction. No kidding. We talked about this in the puroland program. The three cosmological realms in Buddhist cosmology, the realm of form the formless realms and the realm of desire. We as human beings live in the realm of desire, which is fundamentally a euphemism. It's a realm of addiction. We're fundamentally addicted to all kinds of things. We're I mean, I'm a thought junkie, right? I'm addicted to my thoughts. It's a form of substance abuse. So we're addicted to all kinds of things. I'm addicted to this body, I'm addicted to form I'm addicted to whatever descriptiveness And all the silliness, is that still occupying my being. But I think one of the biggest reasons that people are addicted to outrage limb
with or without this study, is that when you think about particular emotions, I can't think of anything that's more solidifying than anger, outrage, fear. I think that's one reason people are addicted to these emotions and that's why they're marketable. That's why you can paintable because no emotion makes me more solid than things like outrage, anger, fear. And so I think people are addicted to those because they're reifying emotions, they're reconstituting emotions. And you may notice this when things fall apart. It's very easy. To notice, especially in the death and dying business, for people to get really pissed off. And I conjecture that that's because when things are falling apart, sometimes the only way you can get it together is to get pissed off. And so yeah, I mean, this is a really interesting set of topics. You know, like the addiction principle altogether detoxification from that, but what I take away with this, what I wanted to share from my own experiences just looking at how solidifying something like outrages, and that's why people were addicted to it. Because ego is the archetype of reification outrages a highly reifying emotion. I think that's why we're addicted to it. I can't speak about this, this you know, pleasure center releasing I just don't know. My favorite answer. I just don't know. Quick question from Francesca and melos newsletter they announced the new year's retreat and you are part of the program. Am I Alaska to know, this is actually quite humorous. This happens a lot these days. In fact, Alyssa was just telling me I'm something popped up on social media that I'm doing a presentation next Thursday. I had it's not in my calendar. Maybe it's one of my emanations. Maybe it's from Katie's question, my capacity to generate an MA needed another deity or whatever, we'll do that presentation. Well, I don't know about this, Francesca. I have been invited to participate in that last couple years and I'd be honored and delighted to do it again this year. Because Bob and Bob Thurman and the wonderful usual suspects there are just the best people and so it's definitely not in person is going to be online at least for me. If there's there's definitely not coming back for that. So I apologize. I really don't know about this one. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll have to reach out to them. Okay, probably and I often have a hard time telling if I'm dreaming or lucid dreaming or in the hypnopompic state. Do you have any guidance to tell to help me? Tell which I'm in Yes, I do. Doesn't matter if I know which state I'm in. Um, well, it does matter in the sense limb that it can bring a level of articulation and clarity to the manifestation of your mind and whether you a pen, the label, liminal dreaming, lucid dreaming hypnagogic, hypnopompic, or whatever that's up to you. But it doesn't matter in the sense that it be speaks the fact that you're actually lucid in that state. Now whether you wake up and say, you know, am I in in any way are these multi dimensional manifestations of mind?
That on a fundamental level is not, I guess, exceedingly important, but the fact that you can actually identify what type of bandwidth of consciousness you're inhabiting. I think that's helpful. So in that sense, I think it does matter. So I have a hard time telling you if I'm dreaming or lucid dreaming, okay, well, first of all there, there is definitely the difference between dreaming and lucid dreaming right Lin? So what I'm suspecting you're experiencing is a degree of lucidity in the normal dream state, otherwise you wouldn't be asking this question. And so so let's just take let's just take two really overt examples. So, like, best case scenario, you know, classic, non lucid dream is just that the vast majority of dreams for people you're dreaming, you don't know that you're dreaming. You're basically you take everything that takes place on the experience to be real. Lucid dreaming is just the complete converse of that right, you're actually aware now that you're dreaming but lucidity comes in degrees. So if you have a hard time telling whether you're dreaming or a lucid dream, my guess is you're probably in a liminal space like you're talking about here. When you talk about the hypnopompic space. In other words, there's a degree of lucidity right? So therefore, my guess based on what you're sharing here is if you're having a hard time telling you probably are in that hypnopompic space, that liminal space, which is the Post's sleep. State. hypnagogic is the state where you're not awake, you're not in a dream going in hypnopompic you're not awake, you're not dreaming or asleep going out. So based on what I'm hearing here, let it sounds like just by the nature of the question that you probably are in that kind of liminal space. And so, you know, if you can gain a little bit more familiar to your familiarity, a subtle nuanced understanding of your mind through meditation altogether. Then what happens is you develop this witnessing capacity. You much as you're more better, you're more able to articulate the dimension of consciousness that you actually inhabiting. Okay, so I'm not sure I'm entirely hitting your sweet spot there, Lynn and if you want to come on and say something about that, I'm happy to run with it further. But that's what comes to mind. Okay. From here and basically the cities are what we can do and lucid dreams. Well, that's a different story. That's not one of the 64 cities though. But those realize master can do them in waking life. So we we just have to move on to the higher level of mind. Is that correct? In your opinion? Yes, I would say that's a more elevated way to look at all these things correct. That you can use these powers as they're developed in the dream state. And this is in fact, one way so it's interesting, like where do these powers come from? So they come from a number of capacities. One is, in fact, capacity to be extraordinarily proficient with lucid dreaming, and it's a time practice of illusory form. That's one way to develop these cities. Another way is through Believe it or not, through shamatha through basic standard mindfulness when your mindfulness practice becomes extremely capable and extremely saw strong. These capacities are relative city also are a natural consequence of that. And this is where they can become a trap for for meditators, they can drop into these spaces, they develop these kinds of relative powers, they get stuck there. And that's why these things you know, obstacle opportunity can transform into obstacle if you don't have a proper understanding. The other way cities come from the third way they're more. The other way they come about is obviously through ultimate awakening. When you attain the awakening of any kind of Buddha and you Master then at that point, you're actually able to shape shift reality because you see it as fundamentally no separate from your own mind. So what you're saying is fundamentally great, just move that what you're talking about to a higher level, and work with relative city in application to absolute city. Okay, so Keenan Hey, buddy, fire away.
Hey, hey, man, nice to see
you. Good to see you. I had a quick question. Since we're talking about data yoga, I recently this is something new in my path, and I'm looking at studying more from the Kashmir shower standpoint. And in this tradition, the way at least from my understanding the practices are given is that the deities are within you almost seems like that individual is considered like almost a hologram of the universe. The deities are sort of invoked from within. So I'm doing the sadhana and I just wanted to check with you if you had any, any pointers or in your, in your own journey. Does that land with you in the Tibetan tradition?
It does lay with me. And you know, you can relate to the Deity principle in a number of ways. So this is the difference between the front visualization and self visualization. So when you're doing doing deity yoga, and you're invoking a front visualization, then you're invoking the provisional externality of the Deity principle. So whatever, I don't know what deity you're doing. But let's say like this weekend, we did Amitabha. You visualize Amitabha in front of you, you do all the things that are associated with that. That's a way to invite to invoke that Amitabha principle in a provisional external way. A little bit. More. So that's stage in a certain sense stage one, stage two would be the selfish realization, which is what you're talking about, you actually arise as the deity and then what that does is exactly what you're saying it evokes invokes that particular deity principle within you, let's say in this case, the Amitabha within you to come out. And then fundamentally, the really, in a certain sense, the fruition is the dissolution of interior and exterior, where you basically come into a non dual understanding of both the inner and the outer. But I think with the type of practice that you're doing, the, the, the internality, the fact that all these deities are within you, that's really the most important thing. And that also ties into the earlier question when I was talking about relation to Katie's question, when we're talking about the 100 piece on wrathful deities that manifest at the moment of death. Well, why do they manifest at the moment of death? Because they're, they're part of the emergent unconscious mind. And so what happens when you die? Your your unconsciousness is revealed and that's not always a bad deal. It's only a bad deal if what you've stuffed into the unconscious is full of crap. Then that creates some of the perilous aspects, the harrowing aspects of the Bardo. Dermatol but where the 100 Peaceful wrathful deities come from in the purest expression of the diamond atop a luminous Bardo of Dharma TA, they're shining in that dimension because basically that level of purified being within you that's now expressing itself in this archetypal form, see? And so in a real way, when you're engaging in this self actualization and invoking the deities within you, you're bringing those unconscious processes into the light of consciousness. And then so a couple of things happen when when you die. There, there won't be any surprises because that'll manifest now a living color just like in a dream, or mind becomes reality. Because right now, you may visualize yourself as Amitabha or whatever, but you still get your hand used to look in the mirror until you get really advanced in this practice, and you realize you're just faking it, you know? That I don't see myself that way. So in a certain way, you're superimposing a template experience that's actually in resonance with reality. But eventually, you do that long enough that hey, one day you actually may look down at your body and see that it's not looking the same way before you look in the mirror and you might see something different. But the whole idea here is that you're trying to bring some of these unconscious processes and you're trying to revoke them, invoke them, bringing them into Light of Consciousness, so that they transform you now and also at the moment of death. So that's what comes to mind and I'm happy to run with this further with you if you have something else to say or ask. But deity Yoga, you could tell me I mean, how do the Kashmiris What do they say? How do they relate to it?
My understanding is sort of sort of limited. But in terms of in terms of the practice, the way you're describing is I'm just doing some practices with The Goddess Kali and they have like the 12 collies and the Kashmir Shaivism, which is kind of the unfolding of space and time. It seems like and so I'm just relying on the mantras and the longing and I guess that was my question is if one is just left with a deep sense of longing, and just the mantras would do suffice because I know when are you when you get into some of the practices can be very elaborate and you have to receive them from the proper channel,
I suppose. That's a great question. Yes, it can't suffice. In fact, the devotion alone can suffice. You don't even have to do the mantra so devotion is the most important thing, especially in any level of tantra that is that the most important thing because why? What does it do? Devotion opens your heart, it just opens opens opens. If you conjoined devotion with mantra recitation that you're ramping it up even more because now you're actually involved with the acoustic manifestation of that deity. And as Chris Wallace, you know, as you know, he's a pretty savvy cashmere shyest guy. He basically says the mantra is the deity of Sonic form. And so when you're reciting the mantra at invoke involved with devotional aspects, that's really fantastic. If you want to take just another step further, then you have the visualization thing. So that's another way to even ramp it up, right? And then what this does when you add the mantra and you add the visualization, in addition to the supercharging of the devotion, what that does is it's basically working with the sound and light nature of both a deity and a reality right? Because reality fundamentally is of the nature of sound and light. And then when you get down to the very essence of of, of reality, remember what is what do they say in the Christian traditions in the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh. Everything's fundamentally reducible to sound mantra. A mantra is the purest form of sound next to silence. And then light in the purest form of light is the light of the mind. That's worked within the visualization thing. So if you're doing devotional practices with mantra, that's, that's bloody fantastic. But if it does, light you up, so to speak, or inspire you, you can wrap it up even a little bit further by bringing in the visualization and because not only will that help to invoke the presence of the Deity but it also works to stabilize the mind. You know, I mean, when you're working with a visualization, literally, the kind of artistic candidate completely trying to just make it as clean and precise as you can. That's a form of tantric shamatha. That's a way of stabilizing your mind. So these are all incredibly skillful means that you can use depending on what in this case, Mom was literally resonates with you. But just to repeat, if you're doing the devotion thing, that's number one. You can augment that supplement that with mantra and visualization that just add some rocket fuel to what you're already doing.
Thank you. Very just out of curiosity, last thing I would ask is, when you were talking about earlier, the archetypes do are these deities, you would say have been created by certain certain masters or are the pre existing pre existing?
Yeah, they're like, they're like platonic archetypes, right? They're not, they're not union archetypes. They're platonic archetypes. So they're, they're part of the evolutionary trajectory. Right. And so one of the things you're doing, I'm not sure I want to go that far. But yeah, they're exactly that they're not made up the Masters don't make them up. It's like with mantras. The Masters are making up a mantras. They're just incredibly sensitive listeners that that my languaging hacking the vibratory coder reality, they're not making them up, they're hearing them. And so the deities, those are inherent as well, what they do so to speak. Makeup or color, like a coloring book, is the particular cultural iconic graphical representation of that deity principle. See, and so therefore, maybe the Bodhisattva chin Raizy in and yet I'm just shooting from the hip in the Buddhist tradition would be analogous to Mother Mary or even Jesus right? You know, there is just at that particular principle is just evoking itself in a different dressing so to speak. So they don't they don't make them up in that in that fundamental sense. They discover them, they share them, what they do, make up a color, or the particular icon or graphical representations. See and that's why we always have to be careful when we do these things to realize this is why the three aspects of visualization. One is what's called the purity principle where you understand basically what every aspect of the DD represents, so that you don't get hung up on the anthropomorphism the anthropomorphizing of that do you see what I'm saying? So they don't make them up, they discover them. They color them in the particular cultural environment that they're embedded in. And this is also helpful to know when people die. Will everybody experienced these deities in the same way? Absolutely not. You know, what, why would why on earth would a Christian experience a Buddhist deity? Why would a Muslim experience a Christian deity, right? That just ain't going to happen. So that's what that's why you have to separate out the relative from the from the absolute, that these are very powerful heuristics. teaching tools, but eventually at a certain point, you realize both their strengths and their limitations. And like with relative city, you just let all that go. Okay,
Andrew, what do you have any pointers on how to receive receive a visualization because there are visualizations in the public sphere, but I'm assuming that you have to somehow have a
well, you don't have to but yes, there. There are different types of different ways to do these practices. What we're talking about here, you know, the little bit of a blend between the over the counter public sutra level teachings like Manjushri, Tara Avalokitesvara written version planning to a certain extent, these are all super level, you don't have to have a whole lot of transmissions or empowerments to do these but you know, to really do a full blown tantric practice that's a slightly different story. Then you go and you get the the obvious shakers, the ones the Empowerments. And you do for instance, like are you there for day again, there's so many of them Kalachakra empowerment or something? And then when you do that, then that's a whole different league. That that your whole you're entering a whole different league of practice. There, you get the magic of the whole contract thing. And so it's a little bit like you've gone from 110 to 220. You know, the current is just a lot a lot stronger, but that also requires a tremendous commitment. You can't go in there in a dilettante ish way. You're actually now you're not dating anymore. You're you're getting married. And so there's a there's a commitment level that's involved here. So that's not in any way to dismiss the suitor level practices. They're fantastic. They all have a place but as you know, there's a difference between just speed dating and getting committed to something someone when you really commit and you do the environments and you kind of join in. Then there's there's this part of the taking the refuge thing you know, you're taking refuge at a provisional level, a Buddha Dharma Sangha at the Vajrayana level. You're taking refuge in the in the protector, the guru and so, at that level, that level of refuge bestows a higher level of so called benefit, but that that depends on the person's predispositions how committed they are, how resonant they are with it's not, not in any way to criticize any of these other approaches. It's just that there is there are prescription strike mantras. There are prescription strength visualizations. There are prescription strength deities, mixing metaphors and in order to do those you have to go see your doctor and get a prescription. Right. That's strong medicine. Okay,
thank you.
Yeah, very welcome. Okay, let's see. Did anything else trickle in here? Are we good for today Stephanie Hey, Stephanie.
Nice to see. Good. It's good to see you too. I came in a little bit late and I just caught the tail end of your talking about cities and stuff. And I just wanted to share something just because I thought you'd enjoy it or some of the people and experience I had with with my teacher, so I have a Qigong teacher, who, um, you know, there's he and he's the person who he's a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, long time who he's the person who kind of nudged me into practicing mantras, and kind of which led me to you know, and until I met you, and I've learned a whole lot more through this, because he didn't go into a lot of the conceptual stuff. But anyway, so in the context of Qigong, there are a variety of kind of internal milestones that happen and probably like what so anyway, probably like 15 years ago, this happened or something where I experienced something and I recognized it again, he didn't describe a lot but just enough that I would know that something I would call attention to it. But anyway, I experienced something that that I thought, oh, that this is that and I remember going in to see him and, and to practice or whatever and I walk in and I'm all kind of excited to tell him like, you know, this, this thing happened and is this that or whatever, before I can open my mouth. You know, I was there barely five minutes and he just goes, Oh, this thing happened to you. He fully just told me exactly what had happened to me. And this is an internal energetic thing. There is no external means of recognizing he just thing and it blew me away. I just said, I was just going to tell you that how did you know how did you know? And he just without missing a beat says your body is my body. And it was just like no big deal to him and totally like, just another phenomenon that he recognized without even trying. And it was just it was that struck me obviously at the time and now I'm learning more about a lot of this now through do all of this with you and you know, but it was you who's notable. Just nuts. Thank you for response.
Yeah, that's really beautiful. And that's really indicative of a real teacher, you know, and because these cities these, these cities are part and parcel for people that are that open and awake to that degree. That's just the way they roll. But they don't tout it, they don't market it. They never brag about it. They never even talked about it. But like you I've had a number of experiences like that where I mean 1,000% The teachers like read my mind 1,000% He completely tuning in and let me share another story. This is somewhat connected to the earlier thing where I remember earlier, early on, I went to see what my teacher and you know, I was like, I was actually really excited. You know, I had this kind of breakthrough thing and and I was all excited, you know, it's like, in a certain sense of little, my neurotic interjection you know, to be recognized as like, you know, some unrecognized Toku or some bullshit thing right? And so here I am sharing my story to my teacher, and I am not kidding. He like looks out the window and just like yawns, right? He could care less. And that in itself was like the most important teaching because I came in there like, oh, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna acknowledge me, he's gonna like, I mean, he just literally look out the window yond and change the topic. And that in itself is it's not what I wanted, but it was what I needed. Right? And so when I hear stories like yours, those are so awesome. And they're indicative of real teachers who have these powers, but they never talk about them. They never unless it's a benefit to others, and not a one on one situation like you. Sometimes you'll share these sorts of things. In my opinion, anybody who does that in a public kind of setting for me, that's that's a real marker that they're not a real teacher. There's a lot of they're a sorcerer, to some extent, and I get a little weary by that kind of thing.
I gotta tell you full disclosure, that yawning response. I've got that a lot from this guy. While excited, he's just kind of like, like no interest. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. So it's like this famous story. You've heard me share this from Gampopa coming You see melleray But it's such a great story. You read the biography of Elijah. I can't remember maybe maybe it's called porpoise biography, but doesn't matter. We're gonna Popa you know, comes to see Milarepa in one day, he's like really long retreat, and he goes, he goes Milarepa oh my gosh, this last week. I saw the mandala of chakras and Bara in the sky was bursting with the ideas and he went on and on just about how ecstatic and fantastic everything was. Milarepa simply said it's neither good nor bad continue. month later. Milarepa aren't comfortable comes back. He goes, Oh, this last month has been totally crap. I've never been in so much. I want to commit you know, I'm gonna commit suicide. I'm so depressed. I'm a loser. I can't do anything. What does he say? It's neither good nor bad. Continue. Yeah, that's the point. And that happens to happens what happens with with these relative cities is you're you think now you're something you think there's some achievement thing. And that's it, you're you just you just killed your progress. You're dead in the water. So you just have to let all this stuff go and that's the problem with these relative cities is because they're there for real they actually positively exist. But you don't talk about them really. You don't really share them unless and and really intimate settings where it can be of benefit to others. Because these can become really dangerous traps. You think you're getting onto something you think you're getting some kind of power. And that's when everything just go comes to a screeching halt. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. Step. Yeah. Okay, Doc, Dr. Jerry.
Oh, Jerry, you're not unmuted yet. There you go. Hi, can you hear
me? All right. Yeah, we can now Hey, bud. Well, anyways,
you know, you have talked frequently very frequently about you know, false abilities and teachers are ones that really, you know, you shouldn't be going to see. And, you know, I said before, I know no one in my circle, who knows who practices meditation, you know, reads like you know, the Eastern or Western literature. about spirituality or whatever you like to say, even people who claim to be Christians don't read the Bible. But anyways, about 20 years ago, or three years ago, I was living in Portland, Oregon, and I read the book by Paramahansa. Yogananda. And, you know, I was very impressed, very impressed. And they had a local chapter of the Self Realization fellowship there. So, you know, I went and, you know, I became like a lay member, you know, I'd go to their meditation sessions, their Sunday sessions. You know, and but, you know, I was moving out of Oregon, and even though you know, like, I had some interesting experiences. I always, I never really could connect with anyone in the group. I mean, it wasn't they were impolite or they ignored me, but I've never had a feeling of connection. Well, anyways, when I left Oregon, of course, you know, I left that group. And then years later, like maybe just within the last year or two, I was reading literature about, you know, various masters and I ran across several articles that said, Paramahansa Yogananda his public image was one of, you know, like this pure master who was out to help everyone and he was traveling the world to set up all these, you know, things to bring spirituality into the world, that in fact, he had a violent temper, and that he actually has sexual relations with his a lot of his ashrams consisted of young girls on a surprise, and that one reporter read into one of the children this is after Paramahansa died, one of his children who admitted Yeah, he's, he was the son of one of these encounters. And so the question is, I mean, I really admire the guy and you know, when I was trying to practice, how in the world I mean, do you find that a, you know that you have a good meditation teacher?
How do you know if you have a good meditation teacher?
Yeah, I mean, one who is like, you know, has a public image but a private image that is?
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I mean, there are some metrics. And I mean, it's this is a big topic is an important one. I riff on this a lot these days. This is another yet another of the infinite instances of the importance of an integral approach to psycho spiritual development. That is not just along the vector of waking up. It's also on the vector of growing up. You've heard me riff on this, Jerry. Oh, yeah. You have to have at least in my opinion, there has to be this integral approach to your awakening because otherwise you can have a high state level realization like him or like somebody others. We all know their names, which is it's authentic. It's an authentic glimpse of a high level state. But then, then what do you do with it? You download it the minute you open your mouth, you downloaded through particular structural level of development, and that's where the crap show starts. So that's why these things take place. And that's why they're going to continue to take place because there's this kind of blindness and this kind of supremacy that the somehow state level realizations can basically trump everything they can't and that's why the stuff will continue. So how do you find it? I think the teacher Well, I mean, you got to be extremely careful. You have to ask the tough questions. You have to trust your intuition. You have to look at do they practice what they preach. In other words, how much do they devote their lives in selfless service to the others? How compassionate are they what type of philanthropic organizations do they have? How humble are they? Do they fly below the radar? And and what are their senior what is the community like and what are their senior students slash? Again, kind of secondary teachers like so if you go through that and you start start making the checklist, you will find that there are communities I can give you names of people that I have worked with studied with? That I have like, at least at this point, I wouldn't be really shocked if something came out. That I have close to 100% confidence and but the bottom line is in this day and age you have to be extremely careful, right because you can get seriously you know, almost irreparably damaged when you open the way real spiritual practices designed to open you. And then you get violated and abused in this way. To me, that's the worst type of abuse. So those are just the criteria I use. how humble are they? How, you know, look at look at Triangle Rinpoche for instance, right again, he's one I mean, he's he's devoted his life to helping others. I mean, he's got a whole array of monasteries and schools and I mean, everything. No, no interest in the limelight whatsoever. Check out again, students, what are they like? Are they are they willing to listen to tough questions? Are they willing to be criticized are they willing to really to look at themselves in that way? So I think there are criteria GRE and the other ones that I recommend without hesitation. Second, Rinpoche has organization Pandorica. Tergar means your Rinpoche. He's an unbelievable teacher. No hesitation whatsoever. Pull up Obj. Love the Bodie. So I can't say Rinpoche control Rinpoche I mean, I know these people I've been around him. I haven't seen anything resembling shadows anywhere in these communities. So that's that's what comes to mind my friend. I don't know if that's very helpful,
but how do I find one in my area here in southeastern Michigan? I've looked and looked and looked and
well, you doesn't always have to be you know, you might not find one in south south. You say eastern South Eastern Michigan, or
Michigan? Yeah. Yeah.
You don't have to have one in your hood these days. You know, yeah, I know. Even when I was studying with my teacher, Campbell Rinpoche, he said, he told us frequently so you know, you don't need to see your teacher but maybe once a year. And then there's Yeah, exactly. It's not like you need to be around them all the time. So you go you know, these people very often they'll come by they'll do an annual kind of tour. You go in to connect with them in person. Now the COVID is over. You can do stuff with them online, that sort of thing. You do not need to have consistent contact with these. In fact, sometimes that can actually water down your thing because you get into this kind of got addicted space where you just want to hang out in a kind of dark shadow really just kind of soaking in their environment. I personally have found it very, very helpful to just have a deep connection to a teacher you trust see them once a year. And then when you are even less than that, when you see them. You're going to be really proud and you're going to really do the work that they set you up to do. And then during the interim period, you gather the rain of blessings that they give you go off, you do your work, you come back and you see him again. You don't have to be around these teachers like all the time, in fact that has its own set of problems like I mentioned. So with that in mind, check out some of the communities that are referenced again, talk to your intuition. See how they speak to you see how they relate to you. See what happens when your heart is open. In the Adrianna world, they say you know you found your teacher when you fall in love. I think that's really true. But the really tricky thing there is you have to worry about all the psychological projection and stuff that I'm so it's I'm trying to do sound bites to some really deep complex, thorny issues. But that's what comes to mind my friend, something
like well, could you put in the chat column, just some of those ones that you've mentioned you just mentioned? So I can look them up.
I have Alyssa can you do this for me dear? Yeah, so Pandorica p u n d a r Poon da recap under Rica. You can just look up that that's certainly Riverchase dl karigar te R G AR does mean you Rinpoche Okay. Nalanda, Bodie and ALA and da Bo DHI. Nalanda Bodhi. Oh, I forgot another one. Xikar contra Rinpoche so his his entity is Sri Mangala booty sh ri, ma nga la BH UTI. He's here in Colorado. Palestine is with him. Then you got that? What else I leave out. Yeah, though. I mean, those right there. I mean, they're just rockstars right.
Some of these videos on You know, my computer here at home. And but, you know, in my experience, I always get more out of being in direct contact with people. Not Not Not that I've lived in, you know, a monastery or London, but like, for example, Portland, Oregon, they had a Zen house and which was open to the public for meditations as of Sunday morning. And, you know, I go there, maybe once, you know, once a week or maybe twice at the most, right. You know, I'm not looking for someone who I can see every day or week. So this is
Jerry, where do you live in Michigan? Exactly. I live
just immediately north of Detroit in a suburb called St. Clair Shores.
I know exactly. My brother used to live in St. Clair Shores. I know exactly what really. He lived around the lake. I know. Yeah, I know that area really well. So I mean, you could also talk to myRA who's got her hand up here. Oh, yeah.
I've talked to him. I sent her several emails, but we can never seem to connect to each other. She's she's really really busy.
Right is that is does everybody not You're not that far from from from Madison. I mean, it's not that close. But it's also not that far, which is like, that's the local epicenter for Tergar in the Midwest, and again, I don't know all the different locations of these centers. I mean, you might have one in Detroit. I don't even know about it. I'm not up on.
There is a Zen Center and I've gone there once it had an interview with a master one on one interview after a meditation session, and somehow she hardly said anything. I mean, you know, I mean, she'd sometimes just nodded her head and I didn't feel any connection. So I I
know. That's, that's fine. You know, I have a similar sort of thing with a Zen thing. It's not a criticism at all. But the Zen thing doesn't really speak to me. So that's not your deal. I mean, my very first exposure was was with a Zen thing. And I have like zero connection to it. I have tremendous respect for it. It's not a criticism at all, but it just didn't speak to me. Yeah. So that doesn't mean anything. So then you just use trust your heart and then eventually, nothing looks like and then you know, Meyer is coming on next. Maybe she has something to say. But these days in the in the sophistication of online presences. The communities that I am aware of here, really, especially with COVID they really ramped up their online presence. Or check our offers. Their online community is astounding. There's so much there and so I unconditionally refer people to entities like that. Okay, thank you. Welcome. Hey, Maura. Yeah. Checking him Rinpoche Of course. Yeah, exactly. He's another fantastic teacher. And he's got some of these opinion and he's wonderful part of the family, by the way, with Sonia Rinpoche, and means you Rinpoche he also, you know, he's feeling he spends most of his time in Katmandu at the White monastery. But he visits there's a retreat center of his here in Colorado fairplay. He's got stuff on the East Coast I know for sure on the West Coast, so there are there are lots anyway, my arrow fire away.
Yeah, I hope well, I apologize. Jerry. I still work about 50 to 60 hours a week. But and just you know, in terms of Michigan, in terms of the depth that he's looking for, actually most of my community is virtual except the yoga studios and there are other little things that we do around so he knows that but anyway, the other day when you were in that wonderful weekend that we had this weekend, something interesting you were talking about the sense of self and how a lot of people are some beta talking that many people have it on their head like behind the eyes, that sense of self that is not there. And I wanted more information that because when you said it, there was such a somatic sensation trying to find that self I got you know, we asked him meditation many times whereas itself and where can you find that or or not find that in when you said that there was like I directly went to space to try to find that self in the middle of my head. Where is that information? Why is that localization somatic sensation of itself most likely in there according to data?
Yeah, and you can we're talking about as small as not big yet. Yeah, right. People were talking about biggest and usually quite hard. Yeah, I would have to dig up in. I don't know the reference off the top of my head but I definitely did not make that up that that studies have shown when people identify their provisional sense of self slash ego identity. They tend to point to a space a little bit above and behind the eyes, behind the eyes, which again, like I mentioned during the weekend makes a lot of sense, right? Because we tend to situate ourselves has kind of echolocation process visually. So that to me that that makes a lot of sense. And when we're visualizing interestingly enough to connect that to that, that this to that topic. We almost always visualize what I say. Say for instance, visualize something that your throat for Dream Yoga, we don't even think about it by default. We automatically think, Oh, I'm just gonna look down from here to create this visualization and my throat, right? That's just kind of what we do. But that's not what the visualization is actually inviting. That's just where we go. So even that is revelatory, right when I say visualize something in your throat or in your heart, where you're almost always by default going to say, Okay, I'm gonna go from here and I'm going to look down on it, which means that this even that is revelatory of this provisional self sense. But fundamentally along those lines of visualization is not taken from this generation. From this locus. It's actually taken fundamentally from the throat and the heart itself. But in terms of the actual studies and stuff, I'd have to dig that up Myra that's not at the top of my head right now, but I know for a fact and this one reason, this is a kind of a tragic implication of this It's one reason why when when most people commit suicide by firearms, they almost always shoot themselves in the head. Because that's where they think things the problem is and that's where they think they're gonna kill themselves is through the head. Hardly ever do they shoot themselves in the heart. So that's kind of shadows dark side of this sort of phenomena as well. But again, I didn't make it up I just can't pull the actual data on that but it's it's out there so if you want me to find it, I can do it and well,
no, no, no, it just it just that he felt it almost felt also like the subtle body and when we're moving energy stream, sometimes in certain visualizations, it felt that strong. And I was just curious about the reaction.
Yeah, I mean, again, think about it. When you think about we're wake centric beings. We're site centric, photo centric. And so basically, that's centricity. is almost again, it's just another to me. data point that we tend to centralize our sense of identity up here, right? In the head center. Just thank you, especially because of vision being such a dominant sense faculty, right. That's what comes to mind. Thanks. You and Jerry still have to get up. Yes, we try. Okay, from Francesco. Nice to see you there. Tergar was truly amazing. They have a huge offering and teachers are great. 100% agree. There's a couple of questions right above all the links they posted. Yeah, Andrew, can I ask which teacher yonder yo capital told from gumps or Rinpoche? Yeah. Kimball Rinpoche Lin. I'll never forget it. He spanked me pretty good with that yawn. It was awesome. From Linda with regard to receiving empowerment, commitment to prescription level mantra, can you please elaborate What do you mean? By commitment? Does this mean one must be monogamous with regard to spiritual practice and not mix practices from different traditions? No, it does not mean that Linda, what it means is that when you're doing like, you know full blown tantric stuff and you're doing like full blown legitimate deity yoga and whatnot. What that what that? What that means is that this level of commitment is brought about there's a number of ways to talk about this, Linda one is through the types of vows that are associated with each vehicle. So for instance, when you become if you become a car carrying Buddhist, you take a certain set of vows. There are certain precepts certain things that you do. When you enter the Mahayana path, there's a further set of vows and precepts. The bodhisattva vow that you take in the like, and then when you're doing a bunch of Ghana practices, you get these environments, and then you make commitments that involve involve what are called Samaya vows, and so I'm not sure how far I can run with this. I might recommend Linda that you look probably the best accessible material and this is Reggie Ray's book Secrets of the virtual world. He writes a fair amount about this sort of thing. And so what it does, when you when you do this, you go to an empowerment and some of them are again open to the public, others others, you can't even go to the empowerment unless you've already completed a fair amount of requirements. preparatory work in the light because in a certain way that weeds out the shoppers. So the people that come to these environments are already they've already done the homework. They've already kicked the tires. They've already looked under the hood. They've done the testing and they go yeah, this works for me. I'm willing to make this commitment. So then you go to a more restrictive not over the counter Republican bar empowerment. And then you know, going into dance like a wedding that they're going to be there's going to be these commitments the word called the semi vows and they're going to require a particular number of recitations a particular particular commitment in terms of either time or recitation. And again, these are all there for a very specific reason they're not social constructs. They're not there to really do anything more than create a proper protective holding environment where when you get these particular teachings, they just have the power that they are actually designed to have. And so you know, let me see if I'm missing here was a guy receiving apartments commitment of prescription level monitor, can you please elaborate? Yeah, so the commitment basically means the Samaya vows there are 14 of those. This is definitely not the place to talk about those.
Each one of these Vows is actually very interesting. When you take all these vows, it seems like oh my god, there's I'm like, I'm taking all these vows and everything's like so restrictive. Well, it's actually I've reflected on this a lot. Because what all these vowels do, and again, I'm not naming them all because it's not the right place to do it. Each one of these vowels from Haryana, Mahayana, Divisoria anovos. Each one of these sets of vowels just further further further contains you into what the present moment and so it's kind of the irony of this type of containment by fundamentally being so contained, so restricted. In a certain sense, what it's doing is it's containing restricting the discursive mind. And the commitments basically empower the present moment because in a very real way, they restrict you to the present moment. So there's these are very, very skillful means that these wisdom traditions have come up with to create the proper container for these really high power practices to be introduced. Because if they're not held within these particular containers, not only don't do they not work, they can become dangerous. And so this is not the the environment to talking to further about all these particularities, but fundamentally, there's a tremendous rationale reason for these sorts of things. And again, if you're interested, I'm pretty darn sure that Reggie Ray talks about this in his book Secrets of the virtual world. Okay. All right. Let me there's one other here Jerry, you're gonna have to ping me outside of this context is I don't even know which course you're talking about. So this is a direct message to me. Send me an email at andrew@hologic.com. We can track this down for you because I don't even know what five part course you're talking about. Okay. All right. Cool. Well, thanks everybody. If there's nothing else I think we're good for today. Dream sharing group again on Saturday with Marianne. We have our usual stuff starting again next week, the meditation group as you know. I think we actually have Dr. Ed, sleep medicine thing next week as well. And then books study group for the following Thursday. So nice to see everybody take care of yourselves member to whatever extent of dedication of merit means something to you, whatever we have gathered here of any value. We share it out for the benefit of all beings. So we realize what we're doing here is not just for ourself, it's really for this world at large students never forget that. But in the meantime, take care of yourself, take care of others, and I look forward to seeing you around town so to speech.
