Latest / Lama Lena Teachings / [#10] Naked Awareness Spontaneously Arising (Aug 2026)

Transcript

[#10] Naked Awareness Spontaneously Arising (Aug 2026) · Lama Lena Teachings

0:01
SPEAKER_02: Okie dokie.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, y'all.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the House of Chaos.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of it.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: It's all in there.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: This is what happens when you have a small house, a messy house guest,
0:25
SPEAKER_02: and then a bunch of people turn up.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: This is life.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: If your practice does not include life,
0:34
SPEAKER_02: then you should go follow the Southern School, not Mahayana.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: Southern School is based on renunciation, discipline,
0:44
SPEAKER_02: and it works, but that is not this.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: Mahayana is wild and woolly and somewhat chaotic,
0:57
SPEAKER_02: and that's okay.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Practice has to merge with life such as it is, whatever it is in that moment,
1:06
SPEAKER_02: whether you're in a war zone as some of you out there are,
1:10
SPEAKER_02: or in a time and place of peace,
1:14
SPEAKER_02: or a drought, or a flood, or an earthquake,
1:18
SPEAKER_02: or the volcano next door became active.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: Regardless of circumstances, there is life.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Don't squish it.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Merge Dharmakaya nature of mind
1:39
SPEAKER_02: with Nirmanakaya nature of mind by identifying
1:45
SPEAKER_02: with Sambhogakaya nature of mind, which is itself the vitality,
1:50
SPEAKER_02: the lucidity of open awareness.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Stand in the middle, bringing the two sides together,
1:59
SPEAKER_02: Yoga of dancing stillness is bringing the two sides,
2:03
SPEAKER_02: the stillness and the movement together.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: And you can only do that from identifying with the middle, the bodhisitta,
2:13
SPEAKER_02: the Buddha consciousness, the vitality,
2:18
SPEAKER_02: the aliveness of the Sambhogakaya.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: That's you.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: That's where all the yidams arise.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: You are your yidim.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: There is no differentiation.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: It's also incredibly ordinary.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: If you want something, you want to find something that makes your eyes bugs out
2:42
SPEAKER_02: and your mouth fall open, that's a nyam.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: It'll happen and then it'll go away again.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Can't count on those.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: So don't try
2:59
SPEAKER_02: to get rid of life in practice.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Shukku Kunduzonmogombohe, Dorje Sampagyarab Dorjidang.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Sherva Singgibhar Dushinlabde, Deeramadzantatattu Sumchi.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Zonchenjupe Lama La Sol Wa Dieb,
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Kargenpema Junne Sol Wa Dieb,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Dorjichang Ciclo Narodang, Marpa Mila Gompot Sat Sapa,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Napupadang Pal Den Rupa So,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Kargyulama Nam La Sol Wa, Thank you.
3:57
[music]
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Chakya Lama Namla Solo Adib.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Nyandu Dayundran Lama Namla Solo Adib.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Alkondujang Dung Yeramay Pa,
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Gwangarap Dwarji Jintrag Pa, Piti Dung Nisumay Pa,
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Alamanam
4:49
SPEAKER_02: Chaitan Te, Chong.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: Vodicita is the heart of it.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Guru Yoga is the manifestation of Vodicita.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Since all beings
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Have Buddha nature.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: And all beings arise as the actualization of that beyond time and space.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: In the fourth time, all Buddhas of the three times and all beings
5:33
SPEAKER_02: of the three realms are the same thing.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Buddha, Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: Primordial Buddha-ness, primordial Buddha-herd.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: The essence pervades everything.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: In flight of the Garuda, it says,
6:02
SPEAKER_02: the great roar of the dragon pervades samsara and nirvana both.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: How can you possibly miss it?
6:14
SPEAKER_02: It's utterly obvious.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: There is no separation.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: There is no duality.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: You create it by insisting on ethers and ors.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: Either this or that.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: Either here or there.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: Either this or that.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: Here or there.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: Now or then.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: All of these ors and ethers.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: You made them up.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: Put them back.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Now let's see, some people say we are on 15, some say we are on 16, and some say we are on 17.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: Let's summarize 15.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: This itself, this lucid clarity, this immediate awareness, which is always present,
7:17
SPEAKER_02: The seer, which translates as awareness,
7:26
SPEAKER_02: is without mistake or error.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, it is a vehicle, it is meditation.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: It is all of it.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: When we talk about the four great nails, nails are points which are unchanging,
7:52
SPEAKER_02: they hold things still, they tack things up.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: The nail of the unchanging view.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Look, you change.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: Your perceptions change.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: Where you pay attention changes.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Tawa doesn't change.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: You just sometimes look at it and sometimes you don't.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: The sky is always there.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you notice the sky and sometimes you're indoors and you notice
8:27
SPEAKER_02: the book you're reading or the person you're talking to or the drink you're having.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Didn't bother the sky, didn't make it go away.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: It's still up there.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: You just aren't thinking about it or feeling it or noticing it.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Whether you notice or not, it has no effect on the sky.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Tawa, also called the view, is often likened to the sky.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: It does not come and go.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: And in Tibetan, when I say the word sky, I don't mean a blue dome.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: We refer to sky and space.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: This hunt here, space, by the same word, naoka.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: Or naoka.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: Naunkai is possessive, so Naunkai.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Like Naunkai Norbu, sky's jewel.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: As unreal as any jewel you see in the sky.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you think he was real, do you?
9:42
SPEAKER_02: When you miss him.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: He was never who you thought he was.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: You made him up.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Just like Lama Lena.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: You're making me up.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm not really that.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Any of those.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even this.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm making this up.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: This immediate present awareness is lucidly clear
10:25
SPEAKER_02: because it is stable
10:27
SPEAKER_02: in the three times it is called a nail.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you are aware of,
10:34
SPEAKER_02: the awareness doesn't change.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Look, look at me.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: Look out from behind your eyes.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Now go look at something else.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: We need a new tank on the bubbly maker.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: I looked at one thing. I looked at another thing.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: My attention moved.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: But me the awareness, not me the personality, not me the Lama Lena.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: The see-er of all that is seen,
11:28
SPEAKER_02: feel-er of all that is felt is continuously seen and feeling.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: The perceiver of all that is perceived is continually perceiving.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: It's not the perceiver
11:46
SPEAKER_02: or the perceived that is important.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: It's the ing in between.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: You're a verb.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: You think you're a noun, but you're not.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: You're a verb that holds a subject and object together.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Identify with the verb, not the nouns on either end.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: Third, the great nail of the unchanging sofa.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: This immediate present awareness is lucidly clear.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: You can see whatever you're looking at.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Clear, transparent.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Look at this, look at that.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: You can see them.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: See, it's clear.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to do anything about it.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: It's always like that.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: Because it is stable in the three times it is called a nail.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: So you have Tawa,
13:12
SPEAKER_00: the view,
13:15
SPEAKER_02: which is a nail because it is always present
13:18
SPEAKER_02: whether you're looking at it or not.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: You have Gham, the traditional method of training the mind.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: But it's always there whether you're doing it or not.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, it is also a nail.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: You have SOPA, action, conduct,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: the spontaneous action of non-action, the flow.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have heard of the flow.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Some of you think you're sometimes in the flow and sometimes you're not in the flow.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: This is a misperception.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Whether you feel that you're in the flow or not, that changes.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: Whether you think you're in the flow or not, that changes.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Whether you perceive yourself as being in the flow or not, that changes.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: But the flow itself of time through space,
14:27
SPEAKER_02: the intricacies of the patterns Of the time-space continuum,
14:33
SPEAKER_02: that doesn't come and go.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: It always flows.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: Time flows from the past into the future with occasional hiccups.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Hiccups are kind of fun.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Eddie's in the time
14:48
SPEAKER_02: -space
14:56
SPEAKER_02: continuum Because it is stable in the three times,
14:59
SPEAKER_02: this immediate present awareness is lucidly clear.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Because it is stable in the three times, it is called a nail.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: This is the great nail of the unchanging fruition.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Enlightenment itself has never been lost.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Or you just thought it had, that was a thought, those come and go.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Or you felt that you were a fool, that you didn't have it.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: That there was a haver and an it for you to have.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: So you went chasing it like a cat chasing its tail,
15:34
SPEAKER_02: really thinking it's going to catch it someday.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Your cat will catch its tail.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: And then what's it going to do with it?
15:44
SPEAKER_02: Okay, got a tail.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: So you chase enlightenment, which is present at all times.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: The fruition is the enlightenment.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And because it is stable and lucidly clear, it is called a nail.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: Do you understand 16?
16:07
SPEAKER_02: That was last week or last month.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: Of course, you've forgotten by now.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Because your attention wasn't on it.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: It's okay for your attention to go here and there towards this and that,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: up and down, round about.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: It does that.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: It's always done that and it always will do that, so okay and do that.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Your feelings come and go.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, Bilgey, I'll slow down.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: Your feelings come and go.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: I often get this request from translators.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: He's translating into Turkish, I believe.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Your feelings come and go.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're happy.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're sad.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you feel like an idiot.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you feel very wise with all the answers.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're just seasick.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: These are feelings.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: They come and go.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: Don't try to grab them. Stop them.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: Make them be only one kind and not another kind.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: That's not their nature.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: Leave them be what they are.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: They don't matter none.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: They're just feelings.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Your sensations change.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're too hot.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're too cold.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: You're hungry, you're thirsty, you're satisfied, you're drunk, you're stoned,
18:01
SPEAKER_02: you're miserable, you have a hangover.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: These are sensations.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: They come and go, they change.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it hurts.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it doesn't.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And you would like to control the sensations so that only the pleasant ones happen.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: But that's not how it works.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: Death is rather uncomfortable.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: In general, when the earth element absorbs,
18:38
SPEAKER_02: it's like the deepest exhaustion you've ever had.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: You can't even pick up your hand or keep your eyes open, not sleepy.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like a mountain lies on you.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: Like all the cats in the world had decided that you're their bed and warm you,
18:59
SPEAKER_02: plus a couple of large dogs.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: And they were all on top of you, and yet can they move?
19:14
SPEAKER_02: When the water element
19:15
SPEAKER_01: dries up,
19:18
SPEAKER_02: you go dry, your lips crack.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: You better hope your eyeballs are closed because otherwise your eyelids are closed
19:27
SPEAKER_02: because otherwise the eyeballs dry out.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: That's why when people are very ill we'll often put something on their eyes
19:37
SPEAKER_02: to hold them closed for comfort.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Vision fades.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: It's all fuzzy.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: It feels dusty.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: All of these sensations happen, and if you're not familiar with what they are,
20:01
SPEAKER_02: they can be quite frightening and alarming.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: It's just dying.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: You do it every 50 or 100 years.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: Inevitably, sometimes if you happen to turn up as a maybug a few times, you do it every day.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: Stop trying to get the sensations,
20:31
SPEAKER_02: the thoughts and the feelings,
20:35
SPEAKER_02: all of which make up perceptions, to be one way and not another way.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Let it flow, it will.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: You can't stop it.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 17.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Then as for the secret instruction,
21:02
SPEAKER_02: which teaches that the three times are one.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: This is where we talk about what's sometimes called the fourth time.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: Relinquish all notions of the past.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: Abandon all precedents.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: Precedents. If it was like this, then it's going to be like that.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Yesterday it was like this, so tomorrow it's going to be like that.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: You're all used to coming to my living room and having it rather nice in many places
21:34
SPEAKER_02: to sit, couch, chairs, stools.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: And you think it's going to be that way every time except, oh well, didn't happen this time.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: These precedents create expectations.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Expectations create disappointment.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Don't bother with them.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: Cut off all plans and expectations with respect
22:11
SPEAKER_02: to the future as well as the past.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: You think, oh, tonight there is this or that going on and I want to go.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: Lilith, it's tonight that thing.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: We just remembered.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: I think Nyando still wants to go.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: So we have a plan here.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: Don't expect it to go down the way you think it will.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Frankly, I've never made a plan that came out the way I expected it
23:00
SPEAKER_02: to or the way I planned for it to do.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: Have you?
23:06
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you end up with picnics in the rain and getting the wrong tide table
23:13
SPEAKER_02: and going down to the sea to see low tide and see the shells and the tide pools
23:19
SPEAKER_02: and it's high tide and yeah.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Plans so you have a different one.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: As soon as you realize that the tide is different, you make another plan with the high tide.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Like sitting on the beach and watching the waves roll in.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: What little of the beach is left?
23:45
SPEAKER_02: You can plan.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: You can even buy tickets in advance.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: Just don't attach an expectation to the plan so that you get disappointed
23:57
SPEAKER_02: if it turns out to be different than you planned.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Do you see why?
24:07
SPEAKER_02: Because if you have an expectation,
24:08
SPEAKER_02: you're going to have a disappointment and then you're going to not like it
24:12
SPEAKER_02: and then you're going to go through a whole thing of emotions and thoughts.
24:20
SPEAKER_02: Why bother?
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Have new fun.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: In the present, don't grasp.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Don't grab.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: Thoughts arise. You like some of them.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: You don't like some of them.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: So it's automatically that you grab into yourself the ones you like.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: Thoughts of bodhisattva, thoughts of kindness, thoughts of dharma, thoughts of lunch.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: These are good thoughts.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: And you shove away the ones you don't like.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I should have folded the couch this morning.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: I knew Tian wasn't going to do it.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I should have done this.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I should have done that.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: And how does that benefit anyone?
25:20
SPEAKER_02: Don't bother.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: You make this so hard for yourself.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: Grabbing and shoving at your thoughts.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Simply allow the mind to remain in a state like the sky.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Let the wind blow freely.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Let the next arising arise freely without you expecting what it's going to be
25:52
SPEAKER_02: or trying to steer for what it should be.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Magic, sorcery magic and much
26:00
SPEAKER_02: of shamanistic magic is about steering.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: You do magic for health.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: You do ceremonies for health.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: If somebody's Feeling upset about a past trauma,
26:16
SPEAKER_02: you do ceremonies to get that off them.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: And you do ceremonies for this, and you do ceremonies for that.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: And yes, this sort of controls things a little bit, but there's always a flashback.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Go read Edgar Allan Poe's The Monkey's Paw.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: That actually refers to karma
26:46
SPEAKER_02: and the way things inevitably go down if you do too much magic.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: And how do I know this?
26:58
SPEAKER_02: When I was with the Hindus, I learned the points of magic.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: I'd studied different shamanisms before.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: So I got these magical powers.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: I had all these Hindu Sadhu disciples that followed me around.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Even if I left before dawn to try to get away from them,
27:16
SPEAKER_02: they'd find me again because I could make food.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: If you walked along with me and I was feeling a little hungry
27:25
SPEAKER_02: and you started talking about what you wanted to eat,
27:28
SPEAKER_02: funny things would happen like we come around a bend in the path
27:32
SPEAKER_02: and find it all laid out in leaf plates on a rock.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Everything that had been mentioned.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: So since I seem to be so good at producing food or anything else I wanted, mind you,
27:45
SPEAKER_02: in those days I didn't actually want anything.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: That's part of the trick to it.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, to make a long story short, I wished up two lovely bookend guys,
27:58
SPEAKER_02: one dark and highly educated
28:03
SPEAKER_02: and one blonde and French and somewhat dumb.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: But pretty.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: And I actually got them to move in and not fight, which was an accomplishment.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: I had a magical wardrobe of silks and things.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I ended up working three fucking jobs to support all this.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: Those guys were expensive.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: The mansion was expensive.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: The dry cleaner was expensive.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Three fucking jobs.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: I worked as an engineer in the daytime designing a highway.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: I managed a restaurant in the evening,
28:41
SPEAKER_02: which was actually a front for my forgery business, which I did at night.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: And this just to support the man, the mansion, the cook, the dry cleaner.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: Man, you can get yourself in over your head with that shit.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: It's working my ass off.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: On the way to my day job on my bicycle, there weren't cars in that place at that time.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: That was Nepal 50 years ago, or not many.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: So I'm on my way to work at my day job as an engineer, which paid relatively well,
29:21
SPEAKER_02: but boy, was I living high because I'd got it all by magic.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: And I had to stop to let a herd of buffalo go by to the slaughterhouse.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: And on the corner across from me,
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Was a one-eyed old woman with a big tit,
29:41
SPEAKER_02: but only one of them.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: And there was a red dog beside her and she pointed
29:48
SPEAKER_02: at me and the red dog looked
29:51
SPEAKER_02: at me and the two of them broke out laughing and cackling.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: And I thought to myself, fucking hell, she's got a point, whoever she is.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Later I found out who that was, but at the time I had no idea.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: So instead of turning left across the street after the Buffaloes came by to go off
30:14
SPEAKER_02: to my office, the engineering office where all the Canadian designers were and me,
30:24
SPEAKER_02: I rode straight out of town.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: And I rode on the tracks between the rice paddies.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: And I went further and further until you couldn't take a bicycle anymore.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And I left it there, make use for somebody.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: And I kept walking into the hills.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: I finally came to the top of the hill.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: It was an old farmhouse up there and nice garden.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: And in the garden was a round old monk with a big grin.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: He was sitting there by himself in the garden, and I said to him, oh, hello.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And he said, hello.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: He spoke a little bit of English.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: And I said, you're Tibetan, yes.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: Do you guys have in your lineage anything that doesn't wear off,
31:15
SPEAKER_02: having had the experience with magic?
31:18
SPEAKER_02: And he said, yeah, we do.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: I said, can you show it to me?
31:23
SPEAKER_02: He said, stick around, kid.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: So I did. That was Lama Tuktenyeshi.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: Back before Copan or anything, it was just a farmhouse and tents.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: So I stuck around for a few years.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: Understand that magic is all very nice and fun for a little while.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: Go read Edgar Allan Poe's Monkey Paw.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: It does tend to crash in on you in the end.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: So instead of grasping at the arising thoughts or shoving them away,
32:07
SPEAKER_02: instead of trying to manipulate reality in your favor,
32:16
SPEAKER_02: allow the mind to remain in open wide like
32:21
SPEAKER_02: the sky without hope or fear.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: Just there.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: Don't reject what happens.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Don't grab on and go, oh, more, more.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: The flow is happening anyway, whether you know it or not.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: So just relax.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing to be done about it.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: This is not passivity.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Remain aware, alive, and curious.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: Do not not have fun when fun occurs.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Do not not cry when sadness occurs.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm not telling you not to react.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you not to grab.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: There's a difference here.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: Since there is nothing upon which to meditate,
33:31
SPEAKER_02: there is no need to meditate.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Meditation is an attempt to control the mind.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: In the beginnings, when you're first starting, and you're doing Dzogchen light,
33:47
SPEAKER_02: like light beer, then you train your mind to meditate.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Because the alternative is chasing your tail and trying to catch it.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: When you train the mind to meditate, to rest in open awareness,
34:15
SPEAKER_02: it's only from that state, that experience,
34:18
SPEAKER_02: that you can understand what I'm saying when I say don't meditate.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't mean don't not meditate.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: There is no need to meditate.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: There is no need to avoid meditating.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: And since there does not exist any distraction here in the flow,
34:50
SPEAKER_02: you continue in this state of stable mindfulness without distraction.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: It is distraction when you grab.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: It is distraction when you run away or shove.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Grasping and shoving is the distraction which,
35:14
SPEAKER_02: since there is no grasper
35:18
SPEAKER_02: or shover separate
35:22
SPEAKER_02: from the grasping, shoving,
35:29
SPEAKER_02: and since the grasped thingy
35:34
SPEAKER_02: Or the shivered thingy was something you made up anyway
35:40
SPEAKER_02: in your mind out of thoughts, sensations, and feelings.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: What grasping could there be
35:57
SPEAKER_02: without hands?
35:59
SPEAKER_02: What will you grab?
36:07
SPEAKER_02: Subject and object merge in the middle of a verb.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: And there is only a verb.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: So grasping may choose to grasp itself.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: But nothing actually changes.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Flow continues.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: Feelings happen.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: Thoughts happen.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: Sensations happen.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Giving rise to a series of perceptions, which is called an experience.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: However, for an experience to be experiencid,
37:01
SPEAKER_02: there needs to be an experiencer.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Separate from the experiencing and the experiencing.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: And that duality is mind made.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: Don't trust it.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: You made it up.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: Since there does not exist any distraction here,
37:34
SPEAKER_02: You continue in the state of stable mindfulness without distraction.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: In this state, which is without meditation, without distraction,
37:45
SPEAKER_02: you observe everything with a naked awareness.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: Since your naked awareness is insubstantial,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: how can you possibly get clothes to hang on it?
38:03
SPEAKER_02: It's Always naked.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: You just pretend that it isn't.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: Your own awareness is inherently knowing, inherently clear and luminously brilliant.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: When it arises, it is called bodhisitta, the enlightened mind.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: Guys, bodhisitta does not mean compassion.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: Bodhi, gone, gone beyond in Sanskrit.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Sitta, consciousness, gone beyond consciousness.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: Compassion is a kind of pity.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: It separates...
39:02
SPEAKER_02: One who has compassion for another.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: I have compassion for that bug.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: Poor thing.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Bless its little heart.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: This is not real bodhicitta.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't think you can develop real bodhicitta by thinking at it.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: The only things I've ever found that help with this awareness,
39:39
SPEAKER_02: called Buddha Mind,
39:43
SPEAKER_02: is Tantra, if it doesn't arise by itself automatically.
39:51
SPEAKER_02: This is why I teach at Tantric Retreat,
39:55
SPEAKER_02: Kirim, on...
40:01
SPEAKER_02: Bodhisitta every few weeks, every month or two, because it's good for you.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: Being without any activity of meditation or striving,
40:25
SPEAKER_02: it transcends all objects of knowledge.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: Being without any distraction.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: It is the luminous clarity of the essence itself.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: Because in the Tibetan language, why we use the term luminous rather than lucid here?
40:54
SPEAKER_02: Because we could say it is the lucid clarity of the essence itself.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: An exact same meaning.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: But in the Tibetan language, we say in Western, to think is to be.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: I think, therefore I am.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: The Tibetan, it's much more I see, meaning I experience, therefore I am.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: They use to see, the verb to see,
41:22
SPEAKER_02: as all the senses, not just the eyes, to experience.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Very visually oriented culture.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: So the word for awareness in Tibetan is Rigpa.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: The verb for to see is rig.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: The ER suffix is pa. Seer.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: So the clear light is the light by which the seer sees luminosity.
41:57
SPEAKER_02: Refers to the clear light which has no source.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: It is luminous.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: So this, taking away the language conceit,
42:13
SPEAKER_02: refers to the aliveness, the lucidity.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: This ability inherent to think, feel and perceive.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: Referred to as clear light, clear mind,
42:35
SPEAKER_02: open awareness, clear, luminously clear,
42:39
SPEAKER_02: clear naked awareness.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: All of these words point to the same thing.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: Appearances.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: Being empty in themselves, you're making them up.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: Become self-liberated.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to liberate them.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: They liberate themselves, clarity and emptiness.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: Being inseparable are Dharmakaya.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: Since it becomes evident that there is nothing to be realized by means of the path
43:27
SPEAKER_02: to Buddhahood,
43:30
SPEAKER_02: At this time, you will actually behold
43:35
SPEAKER_02: the unshakable isness, Vajrasattva.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: Are there questions?
43:52
SPEAKER_02: This was the first bit here of real Zogchen.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: Can you swallow it?
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Or shall we go back to Dzogchen Light?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: There's not much in the way of questions this time.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: Figures.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: So one question we do have says,
44:20
SPEAKER_00: I recognize Tawa, very basic, empty aliveness.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: Past and future are not interesting.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Sky has mesh patterns.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: No special effects.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: So just be?
44:37
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Question to you who asked that question.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Are you satisfied?
44:50
SPEAKER_02: If you are satisfied, just be.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: If you are mostly satisfied but a little bit unsatisfied, keep practicing.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: That's the tell.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: When you actually see this, it is completely satisfying.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Appearances you see Our mind made.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: There arises sensations.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with vision because of Tibetan wood.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: Sensations of the eyeball.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: The eyeball has rods and cones.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: It's in the retina.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: The cones perceive color, but not shape.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: Just blurs of color.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: Like a rainbow.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: Everywhere.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: The rods perceive shape, but there's no color to it, like a black and white photo.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: Let's see. They go through some tsa, which go around here,
46:11
SPEAKER_02: down here to the heart, where they meet up.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: They go out the eyes.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: That's how the light gets in, through the tsa.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: So somewhere in this process, I think it's in a chakra back here,
46:31
SPEAKER_02: which is fairly bug instinct.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: It's by the brainstem almost, just above it.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: There's a chakra where it correlates color
46:46
SPEAKER_02: and shape into thing.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: In that moment,
46:56
SPEAKER_02: The ear element arises, the speech element,
47:01
SPEAKER_02: hearing speech, and names the thing.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: As soon as that happens,
47:11
SPEAKER_02: you see a candlestick,
47:19
SPEAKER_02: not a blur of colors and wax.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Some point in that process you will have named this.
47:58
SPEAKER_02: Whether you named it what I named it,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: Or something else doesn't matter.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: You will have developed a name for it as soon as you have a name for it.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: You're going to think about that thing, what it does,
48:23
SPEAKER_02: where it may have come from, how it works.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: Now you have a story on a sensation.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: A name, when a story comes up right as soon as the name's there.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: Almost no time in between.
48:44
SPEAKER_02: And then you feel something about it.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: You either like it or dislike it.
48:50
SPEAKER_02: You're either curious or you ignore it.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: Now you have a sensation, a thought, and a feeling.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: They're entangled.
49:04
SPEAKER_02: They make a bilbla in Tibetan, an entanglement in English.
49:11
SPEAKER_02: As such, this is a perception.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: You perceive, I perceive,
49:29
SPEAKER_02: a glass salt cellar
49:33
SPEAKER_02: of a special mold on salt
49:36
SPEAKER_02: that I picked up in England.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: Flakes, very nice taste.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: Try another thing.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: I'll bring it into your view.
49:53
SPEAKER_02: Watch how fast you give it a name.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: Did we order more of this stuff, Nando?
50:19
SPEAKER_00: No, not yet. Do we want to?
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: Small amount.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: You've got a story about it.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: By now.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: And you've got thoughts about it.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: And a feeling.
50:41
SPEAKER_02: You might think it's pretty.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: You might want one.
50:45
SPEAKER_02: You might like to know what's in it.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: You might think it's pepper.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: Black Lava Salt from Hawaii.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: It's really nice on melons.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: Do you see how you do that?
51:13
SPEAKER_02: You made it up.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Or perhaps I made it up and got you in on it.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: You can make up the most amazing stories and get people in on them and believing it.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Look at the President of America.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: He's made some stories.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: Even... When it's obvious that's not what happened,
51:44
SPEAKER_02: he keeps telling the same story and a bunch of people believe it.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Who'd have thought?
51:53
SPEAKER_02: Be amazed. The story is the dreamscapes that people get other people in on.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: That's how cults happen.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Religious cults.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't work with Zogchett.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: Can't turn it into a cult.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: It's too slippery.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: Appearances being empty in themselves.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: As in appearances.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: Perceptions.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: You're making them all up.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: Unless you're going along with what someone else made up.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: It's all stories.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: None of them are real.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: When I tell you stories about my past as an example of something, well,
52:56
SPEAKER_02: I experienced it at the time,
52:59
SPEAKER_02: but all I can tell you is what I thought was going on at the time.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: I have no idea what really happened I doubt anything did.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: That was simply what I dreamed back then and there.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: And so the flow goes on.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Any questions out here?
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Quiet group.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Anything more out there?
53:35
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: One question is, apart from non-practice, how do we give this to others?
53:50
SPEAKER_02: You don't.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: What did the Buddha say?
54:10
SPEAKER_02: What I have seen is so profound, there is no way I can tell anyone about it,
54:15
SPEAKER_02: so I'll just sit here quietly.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: If you are this and you live it,
54:29
SPEAKER_02: it will affect those around you.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: Don't try to turn it into a religion.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: And certainly don't attempt it to share with anybody who isn't sucking.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: We say all the other teachers out there, wait for the suck, you're a straw,
54:52
SPEAKER_02: you're a conduit of information.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: Don't push.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: If they don't suck, don't tell them.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, you become like a missionary.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: And look at all the damage they did to this world and the people in it.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: Look at the poor Africans who have forgotten much of their own culture
55:26
SPEAKER_02: and think some of the British culture is actually theirs and create laws to support
55:33
SPEAKER_02: the British fear of gay people, of homosexuality.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: When within their culture, they had two spirits.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: In Yoruba, heck yes.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: Yoruba is East Africa.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what West Africa did, but it had something similar.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: It's only the Abrahamic religions that are scared shit of that.
55:59
SPEAKER_02: And yet the missionaries managed to convince them that that was a reality.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: And even though it's against their culture and they want to go back
56:09
SPEAKER_02: to their own culture, they don't know what it is,
56:11
SPEAKER_02: so many of them do
56:17
SPEAKER_02: not become a missionary.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: They do more harm than it's worth.
56:24
SPEAKER_02: Any other questions out there, Nyando?
56:26
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not going past this chapter.
56:28
SPEAKER_02: It's too much in it.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: To force people to intake another one.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: Nothing will stick.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: Another question is, how are we all having so many shared bilblas?
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Is it just labels?
56:47
SPEAKER_02: There's cultural karma.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: White Americans expect the results of what happened to the Native Americans,
56:58
SPEAKER_02: what was done to them by the white American settlers.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: That's coming back for you.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: It may not be your personal karma, in which case you won't be here when it hits.
57:15
SPEAKER_02: But it will hit the place and those in the place.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: The wars going on in the Middle East
57:27
SPEAKER_02: for the past 4,000,
57:32
SPEAKER_02: 5,000 years It's been that Anyway,
57:37
SPEAKER_02: it's been going on a long time and it's created enough karma
57:40
SPEAKER_02: that it just doesn't end.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it dies down for half a generation sometimes.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: You get some olive trees planted and then it's back.
57:53
SPEAKER_02: They've been doing that forever.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: The nomads, the sheepherders of North Africa and the settled farmers
58:09
SPEAKER_02: of below the Sahara have been fighting for thousands of years.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: The Sahara was much smaller when it started.
58:19
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, the goats eat everything.
58:24
SPEAKER_02: So the desert people Move south looking
58:29
SPEAKER_02: for things for their animals to eat.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: And the settled farmers don't want the animals eating their crops.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: And so conflict.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: And that's been going on for a while with bad karma on either side.
58:51
SPEAKER_02: So everybody suffers war there.
59:03
SPEAKER_02: The British Empire has fallen and has further
59:08
SPEAKER_02: to fall because what goes up will come down.
59:19
SPEAKER_02: So group karma, family karma,
59:28
SPEAKER_02: if you are born to a Jewish family, your blood remembers.
59:33
SPEAKER_02: The Nazis.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't forget.
59:41
SPEAKER_02: Whether you consider yourself Jewish or not, there are memories in the blood.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: Group karma.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: More coming.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: Of all the
1:00:03
SPEAKER_02: Groups of which you are a member by race,
1:00:09
SPEAKER_02: by culture, by family, by chosen peer group.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_02: Each of these has its own way of seeing things.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: Some families are pessimistic.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: Some families are not pessimistic, but they speak pessimistically, least the evil eye spot it.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know that culture, you'll think they're pessimistic. They're not.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: They just keep the evil eye off by never saying good things.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_02: You'll find that through some of the southern Chinese cultures and some
1:00:46
SPEAKER_02: of the Middle Eastern cultures as well, but not all of them.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: Not in Italy so much.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: Or France.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: So you've got your cultural karma, your family karma, your linguistic karma.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: You can only think things that fit in English.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: English is the only language you speak.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: When you learn a second language,
1:01:10
SPEAKER_02: any of you who are truly bilingual can think a lot more things.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_02: Try thinking for one day in one language and making plans and seeing what happens.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: And then do it in the other language for a day.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: I get up to the weirdest shit when I plan it in French compared to when I plan it in English.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_02: I just get kind of lungy when I plan shit in Tibetan.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: So really it's cultures and groups and things.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: We're not in this by ourselves.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_02: If the people in your house are all depressed,
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: how long do you want to think it'll be before you join them?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: If you take a depressed person and you put them with 20 people who aren't,
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: they'll generally pull them out of it.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: You got to leave them there long enough.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: There is an interesting experiment in Sweden about 30,
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: 40 years ago that I was reading about where there was a bunch of people
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: with depression that nothing worked on.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_02: So they put them in a hospital and they didn't feed them or give them enough blankets.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: They had to steal them.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: And if they got caught, they got an electric shock.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_02: They got over their depression quite quickly trying
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: to survive and work together.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: And actually they weren't all depressed after about six weeks.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_02: They were pissed off at being in this nasty hospital,
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: but it worked because survival.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: There's no time for depression when something's shooting at you or you think it is.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: Works on paranoid people too.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: You give them actually something real happening and they don't have to make it up.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_02: They just want to be important.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if the CIA is listening to you through the fillings in your teeth so much
1:03:43
SPEAKER_02: that you have to line your hat with tinfoil, you must be important to them,
1:03:48
SPEAKER_02: mustn't you?
1:03:53
SPEAKER_02: Other questions?
1:03:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: Another question is, how does Rigpa relate to personality?
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: Completely different.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: Personality is experiences.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: Experiences form the personality.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: Experiences are simply a bunch through time of perceptions.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_02: It's what makes an experience.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_02: You have a series of perceptions.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: And it makes a story, which is an experience.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_02: So your personality, which is constantly changing, there isn't really anything in there.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_02: It's just flowing because, I mean, surely you're not the same person you were at 12 or 14.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: You better not be not exactly the same.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: So as you change, you have a different personality.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing there that sticks.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: It's changing all the time.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: It changes when you die. You get a new one.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_02: A new one arises.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: A new one arises in each moment.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: Your personality is slightly different from yesterday.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: Your personality is just a combination of the story you're telling yourself
1:05:13
SPEAKER_02: and the emotions attached makes a mood,
1:05:17
SPEAKER_02: a series of perceptions, some experiences,
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: and it changes.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: Awareness is always there.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't change.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_02: There's always somebody looking out from behind your own eyes.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: Just the looker.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_02: Not what it thinks.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: What it feels.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_02: What it sees.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_02: Just open looking.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: So the experiencer,
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: the seer, doesn't change.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_02: But the personality aspect, which is also awake and aware and not separate
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: from the awareness, but not the same as the awareness, it's the moving part,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: the changing part.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: For a space-time continuum to exist,
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: there has to be both that which moves and that through which it moves,
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: space and matter.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: So personality, this is an analogy, is like matter moving.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: And awareness is like the space through which it moves.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_02: Unmoving, unchanging.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_02: Does that help?
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: Next question.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: If anybody has something over there, just wave, get my attention.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: Not yet.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of them.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: Real Zogchen, there's not a lot you can say about it.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: There's another question.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_00: If we don't grab and don't shove, does it affect what occurs?
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: And what is the advice if grabbing and shoving do happen?
1:07:23
SPEAKER_00: And how to be with the desires and fears and such?
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: Don't grab doesn't mean you can't have a cookie.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: Don't grab doesn't mean should a yogi notice that his sock is caught on fire
1:07:46
SPEAKER_02: by the resting and warming his feet by the fireplace,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_02: that he shouldn't immediately remove his foot from the fire and put it out.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: There is responsiveness,
1:08:03
SPEAKER_02: which is not the same as grabbing and shoving.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_02: Grabbing and shoving have expectation, intent.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_02: Reactiveness is simply within the flow.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if that helped.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_02: Keep asking if it didn't.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_02: Next question.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: You've talked about watching the display complete itself.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_00: What happens once it does?
1:08:53
SPEAKER_02: Try it and see.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_02: Thank you can get through the dance of Mara's sons and daughters,
1:09:10
SPEAKER_02: You'll be fine.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_02: They say at the very end
1:09:21
SPEAKER_02: everything you've ever wanted is offered to you.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: If you do not grab everything you've ever feared comes towards you.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_02: If you do not shove The whole thing opens.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: This is in the sutras wherein the Buddha tells his stories of Mara's sons
1:09:47
SPEAKER_02: and daughters dancing symbolically.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_02: Mara means illusion.
1:09:52
SPEAKER_02: He's the god of illusion in the Hindu system.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_02: Next question.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_02: Let's see.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_00: Can you kindly teach what suchness really means?
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: What is it pointing at?
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: I can't teach you that.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_02: Go look and see.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_02: All these words that point,
1:10:19
SPEAKER_02: what they point at, they're the closest I can get.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_02: Suchness means as things really are.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you that.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_02: Damned if I know what's real around here, if anything.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_02: The Galupas have a debate going on,
1:10:46
SPEAKER_02: I think with the enigmas or with the cargues,
1:10:50
SPEAKER_02: as to whether there is a real, or even internally in Majumika,
1:10:56
SPEAKER_02: whether there is a real reality or there is not a real reality.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_02: Some say That there is no real reality, only perceptions.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_02: Others say that there is a real reality of phenomena out there,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: but only the Buddha can perceive it as it is.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_02: My teacher Lama Yeshe used to say,
1:11:21
SPEAKER_02: if there is a real
1:11:22
SPEAKER_02: reality out there and nobody can see it, hear it,
1:11:25
SPEAKER_02: feel it or touch it, who cares if it's there or not?
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: Next question.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_00: One question is, how does Majumika lead to the same realization as Zogchen?
1:11:46
SPEAKER_02: Through the intellect.
1:11:47
SPEAKER_02: It's Ochen.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_02: It is the Galupa method of leading to the same realization as Zogchen.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_02: And it is highly intellectual.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: As if you are a computer and you're asked the unanswerable question
1:12:04
SPEAKER_02: and then the computer fizzes.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_02: You've seen that in sci-fi or I think there was a Star Trek where that happened.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_02: So it works on that.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: You believe it every step of the way and it takes you every step of the way
1:12:19
SPEAKER_02: to the intellect, to the deletion of the existence of intellect.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: And you're left sort of, well,
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so I am told.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_02: I have not studied Majumika that far.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_02: Three years. They say it takes at least a dozen years.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm a cave yogi, not a scholar.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: It's very suitable for scholars, and if you have a scholarly tendency,
1:12:54
SPEAKER_02: I would highly recommend it.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_02: If you prefer the equivalent in the Nyingma line, it's the Abhidharma,
1:13:02
SPEAKER_02: which I believe there's a teacher up in Canada who teaches that sometimes.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_02: His name escapes me, but you can fish around on the internet and find out who does.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_00: Next.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_00: In practicing, Treksha, Often occurs naturally,
1:13:26
SPEAKER_00: but then mind will seemingly get stuck in a sticky area and mind likes
1:13:33
SPEAKER_00: to play tricks.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_00: What is most important to remember here for practice?
1:13:38
SPEAKER_02: Laughter.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_02: You gotta laugh at it.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_02: Only laughter will give you enough relaxation to practice Sogchen.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: You need the humor, desperately.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_02: There's an old Tibetan saying, Dzogchen is like anal sex.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_02: If you don't relax, it won't go in.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_02: And humor is the lube.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_02: And you always need more lube.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_02: I did not make this up.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_02: One of my teacher's teachers that came down.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_02: Surprisingly, the one he carried out of Tibet, but that's enough of that.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_00: Next question.
1:14:46
SPEAKER_02: One more.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: I have been asked before by spiritual friends and teachers if I have recognized
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: the nature of mine.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to answer this question.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say yes or no.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay? Ask them who they
1:15:02
SPEAKER_02: think you are.
1:15:06
Thank you.
1:15:12
SPEAKER_02: The only answer to that is who?
1:15:17
SPEAKER_02: If they have made you up to be the high funky funk?
1:15:23
SPEAKER_02: Then they're gonna think yes, and if they haven't, then they're gonna think no,
1:15:27
SPEAKER_02: and those are thoughts anyway.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_02: So who cares?
1:15:34
SPEAKER_02: You really mustn't take your thoughts that seriously.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_02: Remember, more lube.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_02: Nge-wa-di-gi, nyor-do-da.
1:15:58
SPEAKER_02: Chichi Sahala, Goppa Harsho.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_02: As all those who have walked ahead of me, as all those who walk with me,
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: as all those who walk behind me will have done,
1:16:22
SPEAKER_02: I offer any merits created at any time, including at this time,
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: to all life whatsoever everywhere.
1:16:34
SPEAKER_02: We have a couple of in-person retreats coming up that I wanted to let you know about.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: There's one up in Canada starting early, early next month.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_02: So in a couple of weeks, I don't know if it's full or not, but you can check in.
1:16:51
SPEAKER_02: There may still be some rooms or some camping opportunity.
1:16:56
SPEAKER_02: And there's another one coming up that I know that's not full yet.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_02: And that's November 5th to 15th.
1:17:03
SPEAKER_02: Am I correct?
1:17:05
SPEAKER_02: 5th to 10th.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's down here in Louisiana out on the bayous.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_02: So if you're interested, sign up and go to the website.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_02: If you can put in chat, The contact for that one, which I think is either Lilith or Molly.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_02: Molly. So if you can put Molly in chat, that's for the one down here.
1:17:35
SPEAKER_02: If you do come down to that one, the weather should be nice.
1:17:39
SPEAKER_02: You want to spend a little time enjoying New Orleans as well.
1:17:43
SPEAKER_02: So don't just, you know, come down, have your retreat,
1:17:46
SPEAKER_02: but then plan to be around for a few days.
1:17:49
SPEAKER_02: Sample the city.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_00: And if you get lung, there's plenty of cure.
1:17:54
SPEAKER_02: Yes, sampling the city will cure your lung for sure.
1:18:01
SPEAKER_02: And I dare say that's about the extent of it then.
1:18:05
SPEAKER_02: Until next time.
1:18:06
SPEAKER_02: I think the next thing that's a big public one coming up is going to be Q&A,
1:18:10
SPEAKER_02: but I don't know when.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm leaving at the end of the month for Canada.
1:18:17
SPEAKER_02: For that retreat, so maybe when I get back.
1:18:20
SPEAKER_02: We haven't scheduled the next online step for when I get back.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_02: Bye, guys.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: Can we give a brief acknowledgement to translators?
1:18:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes. Thank you so much for reminding me.
1:18:34
SPEAKER_02: If you were listening to this in a language other than English,
1:18:38
SPEAKER_02: there was a volunteer translator that made that possible for you.
1:18:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't pay them.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_02: Nobody does except you.
1:18:49
SPEAKER_02: If you like, you may offer them a gift.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_02: You can find access to them on my website.
1:18:59
SPEAKER_02: And if you can't offer them a gift, at least send them a thank you note.
1:19:05
SPEAKER_02: Worth doing.
1:19:08
SPEAKER_02: After all, if they weren't here, you couldn't have heard it in your own language.
1:19:13
SPEAKER_02: You might not ever be able to hear it.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_02: So take care of your translators.
1:19:21
SPEAKER_00: They are of great value.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we are good.