Latest / Lama Lena Teachings / [#2] Naked Awareness Spontaneously Arising (Apr 2025)

Transcript

[#2] Naked Awareness Spontaneously Arising (Apr 2025) · Lama Lena Teachings

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good morning all of you.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: This will be the continuation of the text that we started last month.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Naked awareness spontaneously arising.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's all Dzogchen is, isn't it?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Naked awareness not clothed in a story Or a name, not even the word Rigpa or awareness.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Arising of its own accord without you having to do anything to create it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that was your Dzogchen teaching.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's all in there.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: .
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  SPEAKER_03: .
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  SPEAKER_03: .
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Kāgyu Lama Nam La Soluva Dev.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Ochen Lama Nam La Soluva Dev.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Nruchen Lama Nam La Soluva Dev.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Kaginwari Lama Nam
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: La Soluva Dev.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: Shakya Lama Nam La Soluva Dev.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: .
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oops.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's because I didn't have the mic on, guys.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm fixing it.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: I just accidentally pushed up.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: How's the sound now?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody in stream tell me.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Can you hear me?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Still too low.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Would you check my microphone that it's turned on?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: That little blue thing is lit.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: What is those?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: It should be a...
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, checking now.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Can you all hear me now?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, now is good.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Come on guys, come through in.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: You say now is good.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm waiting for somebody out there to say that now is good.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, they say now, Martin says now it's off.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm watching the Slack in-stream coming through.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Can you hear me?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Translators, people in Slack, somebody post in Slack if you can hear me or not.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: In-stream.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Martin can hear me now, so probably everybody else can.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, ho.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my fortunate sons and daughters, listen.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Even though that which is usually called mind is widely esteemed and much discussed,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: still it is not understood or wrongly understood Or it is understood in
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: a one-sided manner only.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Since it is not understood correctly just as it is in itself,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: but rather the understandings are all about how you think it should be,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: how somebody else said it might be, what you read it would be.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's not just in itself.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's stories.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Remember we said naked awareness.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: See if you can put down everything you know about mind.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: All the stories you've heard about what it is, where it is, what it's made of.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Just let go of those.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: There come into existence inconceivable numbers of philosophical ideas and assertions.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Furthermore, since ordinary individuals do not understand it,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: do not transcend the understanding of it,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: they do not recognize their own nature,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: and so they consider to wander among the six destinies of rebirth within
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: the three worlds and thus experiencing suffering.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: You see,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: y'all think you're some little bitty person And you get caught up in your hopes
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: and your fears for that particular person.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's an illusion.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: You're bigger than you think you are.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: There is a lot more to you than you are aware of.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: In the Yaqui Indian lineages, they call mind totality of self.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's just another phrase, another name.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Even though the Sravyakas and the Pratyeka Buddhas wish to understand it in terms
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: of Anatman doctrine,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: that's in Sanskrit,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: even though the Southern schools wish to understand it in terms of the doctrine
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: of no self, Still they do not understand it as itself.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: How many of you have been told that you're not real?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you are.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: You're as real as anything else.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: And for all intents and purposes of your experiences,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: your thoughts, your feelings, and your perceptions,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Even though you have twisted them from the reality.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know how you do that?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: When you have a sensation of your sixth sense organs,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: any one of them,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: something, usually a bunch of them, like you see and hear something.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it even has a smell.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe there's a tactile thing, you shake hands.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: It has a texture.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're having sensations.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: You interpret those sensations as a specific something.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's a dog I'm petting.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, dog needs a bath.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's your interpretation.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: You think that all the trees are trees.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Have you not noticed that sometimes there's a tree in a place and
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: then another day there isn't a tree in that place, it's in a different place?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever noticed this with buildings or shops you try to find again and it was
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: on the left last time and now it's on the right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: You got to make a U-turn to get there because you drove right past it
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: because you were looking on the left.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Your perceptions are your sensations
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: combined with the story you tell,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: the name you give, whatever you perceive.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: The moment you see something, you think a word, you name it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's the beginning.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: You now have a whole bunch of connotations of everything that was ever similar
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: in your life that you saw.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that leads to whether you like it or don't like it, how you feel about it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a story about who it belongs to and how it got there.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: So you do a lot of complex things around a visual sensation, making it into something.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think you all think this is my coffee in a thermos.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: None of you realize that I spiked it this morning.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually very good whiskey.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's nice thing about opaque thermoses.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody knows what's in them.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe it's the essence of light I'm drinking.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Whiskey is a little more believable or not.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: What could be in it?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: You make congestures, you have assumptions.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: This all leads to a perception.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: What you perceive is going on around you.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: A stack of perceptions.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, perception is you have a feeling about it as well.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got a sensation, a thought, and a feeling making a perception.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got a stack of perceptions making an experience.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then you will interpret that experience as traumatic or funny.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or interesting, or a problem, or a challenge.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you will be changed by your interpretation of that experience one way or another.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have had experiences that due to my interpretation I found funny
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: That someone else having the same experience might find dramatic.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: I have also had experiences that I found dramatic.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: That someone else having that experience might find funny.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: You are becoming changing by your experience.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Your experiences change you, falling in love, falling out of love.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Interacting with people, reading a good book, music.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: This all changes you a little bit.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you become more and more a personality.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the personality grows and changes.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we say matures, but that's just a nice way of putting changes.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: All of this is going on in mind.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: All of these creations, imaginary creations.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not that you're not real,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: it's that your perceptions are distorted by your past experiences.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody rings a bell every time you serve food,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: you're gonna salivate when the bell rings, just like Pavlov's dogs.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's been other nastier experiments done
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: If one time you accidentally threw away a piece of paper that turns out
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: to be vitally important and suffered many unfortunate repercussions from having done
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: so, you may experience fear whenever you throw garbage away and become a hoarder.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: It can happen.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see how you create?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: The world around you.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And how the world around you creates yourself.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that you don't exist.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's that you exist as a clump of experiences which you made up.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: But you very much do continue to exist as that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's called mind streams.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's what connects one moment to the next,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: to the next, to the next, one life to the next, to the next, to the next.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Still not understanding mind as it is in itself.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Many become
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Attach to their own personal ideas and interpretations and hold them closely.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe you have an interpretation going on that it's scary out there.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: That right now it's a frightening place to leave your house and walk down the street
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: because people might think badly of you.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because one time you walked out there and you wore something really stupid, everybody says.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you thought it was pretty cool,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: but there are people who will,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: especially when you're young, feel quite free to criticize you unnecessarily.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: That leaves some of these changes.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or you read too much news.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Which,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: because we are trained to look at things that might be dangerous for our survival
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: as cavemen.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just there.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: If it might be dangerous, you check it out.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: So you know whether to run it, run from it or clobber it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: So clickbait.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: If it's scary, you're going to click on it and read the article.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you click on it and read the article, whoever wrote it gets points.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: They might be dollar bills, they might be something else, but they get points.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody's looking for more points, which means more clicks.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: So guess what gets the most clicks?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Something that will stress you and scare you.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: So in the news,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: all the stories that they want you to click on so that they can get some points,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: the author gets points,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: the newspaper that put it out gets points,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: everybody gets points if you click or poke or whatever it
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: is in your device.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because of that, they show you all the scary stuff.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you actually believe that that's the only thing that's happening,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what the only thing you're being shown.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to start experiencing the kind of angst a lot
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: of people are experiencing these days who read the news.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the news is crap at the moment,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: but they're showing you the crappiest,
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: scariest bits because that's what you'll click on.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Algorithms are like that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So by what you choose to click on, you create your new self.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Nyando has a wonderful time screwing with the algorithms by clicking on random subjects.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: They're totally confused.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: One time they thought her only interest was masters, mattresses and guns.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: They keep trying.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually fun to do.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: See if you can confuse your algorithm by clicking on just
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: the weirdest shit you can think of as it wanders by.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: We become attached to those attachments and interpretations,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: such as it's scary out there, the world's going to hell.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: All of these wonderful interpretations, but we kind of like them.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're a little juicy.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we clicked on it.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Being attached to those interpretations, you become fettered by these attachments.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you begin to behave and create the karma to experience these things.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so it makes its circle.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you do not see past the ever tightening circle of your thoughts which lead to your deeds.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're here today because you thought to come, right?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Your thoughts are a king of you.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: You do whatever they say.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: If your thoughts tell you to wear jeans today, you wear jeans.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: If they tell you to wear shorts,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: you wear shorts or a skirt or whatever, but your thoughts tell you to do it.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're enslaved by your thoughts.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: You obey them implicitly in spite of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you really look at it,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Many of your thoughts have led to your doing some really stupid things.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Famous last words.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Considering this,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: to be free in the totality of yourself is to be free of the tyranny of your thoughts
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: and feelings.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: The beauty of Dzogchen and Chagchen are that they have methods,
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: very simple things you can do for just a few minutes a day that will free yourself
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: from this tyranny and you will no longer be a slave to your self-doubts.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: They tried to tell me when I was young
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: that I was not good at math.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Top subject, I aced calculus.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was a girl and girls can't do math.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: And they believed it so strongly,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: they wouldn't let me in the top math group, even though I had straight A's in math.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they really tried to get me to believe it.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I have one advantage, I'm autistic.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Shit doesn't go in a normal way.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So most of the conditioning missed me and I still like math.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Not nearly as good at it as I was then, but that's part of getting old.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: What particular group of thoughts,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: each one of you think,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: what particular group of thoughts is hindering you reaching your current goals?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: I know mine.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: If I pay attention to them,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: if I get caught up in them, I am unable to get the laundry done.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Nyando.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I fell in.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then you think you're supposed to be perfect on top of this,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: so if you can't be perfect, you won't even try?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: How many of you fall in that one?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Give it up.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Perfection comes after not trying.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Not instead of trying.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Both trying and not trying are both doings.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Perfection is in a smooth coasting.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll teach you eventually.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: But first, we gotta get free of this goddamn thought tangle that we are chained to.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm talking about.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: The one that tells you to do everything you do.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: The one that tells you something bad will happen.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: The one that tells you, oh, if I just act sweet and soft, no one will hurt me.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Or else it tells you,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: if I just make sure they all know I'm bigger than they are,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: even though I'm five foot tall, no one will hurt me.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: See these two extremes you can go to?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is the tyranny of your thoughts and your belief systems.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is exactly what the text is pointing at.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: You see the Southern schools Which work primarily through renunciation.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Stravryakas and Pratyaka Buddhas, they keep sticking Sanskrit in here.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder who translated this.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Are mentally obscured by the attachment to subject and object.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: They believe that they are not.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: But they still see themselves as separate from everything else.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's a complex philosophy.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: It can get you to the point of snuffing yourself out like a candle flame.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: You can end your mind stream.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: There are a few who are so sick of samsara that they would like to do that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the Southern schools.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Renunciation, one meal a day, begging for a living, let go of everything.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: it is possible to cease to create ripples for long enough
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: that you complete your karma and the whole thing just dissipates.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's not the way we see it in the Northern schools, you see.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was noticed.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: In the lands where those methods don't work because it's too damn hard to stay alive.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: There isn't enough food to get fed going begging for a living up in Tibet.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: You better herd your yaks or farm your field.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Under those circumstances,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: it was noticed that it's not lack of self enactment It is lack of subject and object
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: that is the point.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: You think you're not me, don't you?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Just like I think I'm not you.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, strip those thoughts away.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you're listening to my words, they're going in, you're changing, I'm changing you.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: As I look into your face, And look at you listening to my words.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: It changes what words I will say.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: It changes the speaker.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: We are so interconnected that I cannot tell you in truth where I end and you begin,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: where you end and I begin as we interact.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, later you're going to go off and do something.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to go off and do something.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: They will be different things.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And different interactions will occur.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is the lack of true subject and object that I'm pointing at here that
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: the seven-inch schools often miss.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Just how influenced we are by everything.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because what do you think about?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: You think about what's going on around you.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: What you wish would go on around you.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: What you hope doesn't go on around you.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is where your thoughts twiddle.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then you choose to make decisions to get to what you want to go on around you
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: and to not get to what you don't want to go on around you.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't want anybody to yell at you.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody likes being yelled at unless they're drunk.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's because they feel like getting in a fight and that's a whole different story.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: But in general, sober folks in the morning really don't like being yelled at.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: So they will do things to avoid being yelled at, like wear clothes,
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: be clean.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you've been working in the garden,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: you really don't feel like getting all cleaned up before you run down to the shop
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: and buy a sandwich.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: They'll just wash off your hands so you stink.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: You've been working in the sun all day.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: No, you go and you have a nice wash up because you don't want the shopkeeper to yell
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: at you saying, get out of my shop, you homeless person.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of stuff not to get yelled at.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Say there's something we were supposed to do and didn't do it.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe if I don't mention it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: this is how we choose our deeds according to our wants and not wants.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Look at your own life, how you do that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: The first stage of freeing yourself from the, how do I put this?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's what the text is talking about,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: but I'm trying to talk about it also in plain modern English.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: You keep your attention focused on yourself.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: This causes shyness, pride,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: self-abdagnation.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: Tibetans...
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Keep their attention focused on staying alive up there.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: They have no room to beat themselves up for mistakes.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: You make a mistake and don't change the grass in your shoes often enough.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the world will give you frostbite and beat you up.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to do it yourself.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So they don't understand this self-dislike.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: That comes up from time to time for Westerners.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we all experience it.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not good enough.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm fat.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because I act stupid.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because I didn't get that done.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: this is the first place your thoughts trap you by self-focusing.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Unwrap it.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little tantric exercise I'm gonna show you here that helps you unwrap
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: the thoughts from around yourself.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at somebody's aura, it's kind of close into the body.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look at the lines in the aura,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: they wrap because the lines follow the focus of attention.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: The lines is your channel body, but it doesn't end at your skin.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: It goes out about this far,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: a little farther for some people, closer for others at different times.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: But you wrap your channel body around yourself because you're paying
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: so much attention to yourself.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: The first little bit of freedom you can feel
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: is to unwrap that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a stretch exercise of your channel body Where you breathe in
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: through your nose while stretching your arms and your legs,
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: but also imagining that all the channels in your body
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: that are wrapped around you unwrap and reach out past the orbit
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: of Pluto, past the galaxy, as far as you can imagine.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you like astronomy, you can probably imagine pretty far.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you're a flat earther, Past the edge of the earth, out past the sky.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: So like this.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Go on, try it.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: How do you feel right now, stress-wise?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Little bit lighter
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: than a minute ago.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: This relaxes the wrap.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Feel free to do it often.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: I especially recommend it after you've been involved in a toxic situation.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Been ranted at unpleasantly by a person.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: So you're shaking.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: Had something happen and you're left a little, that's a time to do this.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: It will just settle you back down.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to pull them back in.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just reach them out and relax.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: They'll come back in, but they won't be as tight.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: The Madhyamikas.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is the Gulub lineage he's talking about here in their philosophical approach,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: thought approach to Dzogchen.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Same place they're going.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: And here's an example
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: of input Now you're going to have thoughts about it.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's going to have thoughts and feelings about it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for helping us have an example of this,
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: how we think and feel about occurrences.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: The Majamikas are mentally obscured by their attachment to the extremes of the two truths.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Majamikas believe, in Majamika philosophy it says, there is a real
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a real relative reality.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: So tables, chairs,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: and all the things you see are part of a real relative reality,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: which is not the real reality.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a whole big debate in Majamika and between Majamika and which is called Ochen.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Between Ochen and Chagchen.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Chagchen is Mahamudra, about whether or not there really is a real relative reality.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I had a Galupa teacher, Majamika teacher, who addressed it this way.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: It is said that if there is a real relative reality, no one but a true Buddha can see it.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you can't see it,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they can't see it and have never before seen it and will never in
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: the future be able to see it until full enlightenment.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Who cares if it's there or not?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: But he was quite a yogi, more than just a teacher.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that is a belief system.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Maja Mika leads you through a set of belief systems.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of them.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Until they fizz you like a computer at the end
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: that has got a non-followable circle
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: and it gets into a circle and fizzes.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just as the Zen system bores you into it,
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: you sit against a white wall until all your thoughts are reruns
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: and you finally stop paying attention to them because you're so bored with
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: the damn things.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then for a moment you see past them.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they can't constrain you to see what they really are.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: It works.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: A bit time consuming, but it works.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Majumiko also works, takes a dozen years, minimal.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in a hurry.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to die soon.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I have a dozen years yet.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in my mid-70s.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: The practitioners of Kriya Tantra and Yoga Tantra are mentally obscured
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: by their attachments to the Sev Sadhana practice.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's Yidam practice we're talking about in the lower levels.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: Kriya Tantra is where you perceive the archetypes as being external and you ask them
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: to save you.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like you picture your head in Tara's lap when you're scared and all
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: of these things really good, but it's kind of like good for little kids.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beginning place to start.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yoga Tantra is the beginning where you identify yourself with the archetype.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the process of the self initiation of becoming the archetype is,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: don't worry, we'll get somewhere soon, is an attachment.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: All the Tantric ritual is an attachment.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: It works, eventually.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: But it depends on ritual and repetition.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: The practicers of Mahayoga and Anayoga,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: that's Dzogchen and Chagchen,
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: are mentally obscured by their attachments to space and awareness.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've had students who I've given a teaching, okay, what's your experience?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: And they know all the words.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: Space of awareness is my experience.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: What the fuck does that feel like?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, what was your experience, not what the book said it was supposed to be?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna get a grade in my class.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I only divided you up into beginning,
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Intermediate and advanced Dzogchen because there were too many to fit in one group.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: So space and awareness are attachments.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Rigpa, the seer.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Feeling yourself as the seer who sees itself.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: All of these words and instructions for Dzogchenpa become a trap.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: You have to step past even Space,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: infinite openness of awareness, space,
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Dharmakaya nature of mind,
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: step through it
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: into the ineffable, indescribable on the other side.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And with respect to the real meaning of non-duality,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: since they divide these space and awareness into two, They're having an oops.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: They fall into deviation.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: I translate that as oops.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Awareness and space are not separate when the awareness
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: relaxes itself.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: It is made of space.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot separate those two.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you fall into the words of trying to talk about it.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where we're stuck here.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: You see, this is a text.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Texts have to be in words.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And none of these words are true.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: If I want to show you that cushion over there,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: do you see the one that's right there in the middle of the room?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Would everyone please point at that cushion?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Would someone describe it please?
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Someone else.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're all gonna have different descriptions and we're all pointing in different directions.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Take your texts like fingers.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't look at what the text says, look where it's pointing.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: When you follow a teacher,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: if you ever choose to follow a specific teacher,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Don't try to copy their personality.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Most of us are nuts.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: We begin practicing because we noticed we were nuts and it bothered us.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: Through many years of practice, it stopped bothering us.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Don't try to put it on.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: It won't fit.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Look where they're pointing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: All of Trungpa's, Trungpa loved to fancy clothes and dressing up.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Trungpa loved drinking whiskey.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: All his students got dressed up and drank whiskey, except for one nun.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: She's a nun.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: She can't get dressed up, and according to her vows, she can't drink whiskey.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: She turned out to hold his lineage, Pema Chudin.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not who he expected.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: He kept choosing guys, because that's the Tibetan thing.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: First one died of a oops.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Misunderstood that when you do a mantra to keep your yaks from straying,
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: it goes with the rope, not instead of the rope.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: It keeps the rope from fraying And that was a little misunderstanding that is
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: a Tibetan goes without saying, so Trungpa never said it.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: And hence, his first lineage holder died.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: His son took over, but Pema Chudin caught it.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because she couldn't wear fancy clothes, drink and fuck everything.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: If these two,
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: space and awareness,
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: do not become one without any duality,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: you will certainly not pierce the veil, attain Buddhahood.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of your own mind, as is the case with everyone, samsara and nirvana are inseparable.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're all scrabbling to get out of samsara.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And into some, oh wow, bliss, nirvana.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Remember the first teaching on impermanence?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: If it begins, it's gonna end.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: There is nothing you can think of in this whole wide world that had a beginning
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: that will not someday end,
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: including this planet, this sun, this solar system, and this galaxy.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Someday the oceans will dry up.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: Someday the land will fall.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Someday the sun will go nova and this will be a burnt out cinder.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: It had a beginning, it gonna have an end.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: So there is no way of coming to a moment in time And leaving samsara to go
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: into nirvana because it would have started at a moment in time.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: You've heard me talk about all Buddhas
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: of the fourth time.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: All Buddhas of the fourth time are
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: all sentient beings in the three realms.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: There is no differentiation.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, within time, there is differentiation.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's, ooh, great Buddha.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: And there's everybody else.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: In this moment.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: But there is a moment before Guatemala was enlightened.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Before he was, enlightened means, noticement, not acquisition.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: He did not acquire enlightenment.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: He did not achieve enlightenment.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: He simply noticed his existence in the fourth time, which was always there.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Until you let go of the expectation of acquiring something,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: You will not be free.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: You don't leave samsara.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: It simply stops hurting.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: You don't enter nirvana.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: You notice you have always been there.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: It is your true home.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: The totality of yourself exists in the fourth time.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about long bodies.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: The shape of you from beginningless to endless time is your long body,
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: including everything you've ever been.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to read a cool book about Mandareva's long body,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: read her biography, her autobiography.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's got all past lives and current life, and it's really beautiful.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Highly recommend it as a reading.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Nonetheless,
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: because you persist in accepting and enduring attachments and aversions,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: you will be lost and wander in samsara.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's the chasing stuff and the running away from stuff that keeps you too busy
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: to notice who you really are.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, after I get the laundry done, then I will sit down and look.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, after I pay these bills,
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: After work,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: there's always something you're chasing and something you're running away from.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Poverty.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Chocolate.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what traps you in the circles of distraction.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you're running away from your own mind.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: Video games are really good for that.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of looking through what hurts and seeing your real mind,
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: you're so afraid of what hurts inside there that you won't even look.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Run away, do something else.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: And don't we all do that at times?
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore,
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: your active dharmas,
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: your practices that you do, and your inactive dharmas,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: both need to be abandoned.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: However,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: since self liberation through seeing nakedly by means
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: of intrinsic awareness is here revealed to you,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: you should understand that all dharmas can be perfected and completed In
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: the great total self liberation.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, whatever practice you do can be brought to perfection within the great perfection.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: When it says you should abandon all dharmas, it doesn't mean shove them away.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's a big difference between And
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: remember I keep telling you that the secret is
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: to hold your mind loosely,
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: gently practice, loosely, loosely practice.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can get a nice high off the intense concentration of a sadhana
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Can knock you into a bliss state when you finally let go in the dissolution.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: But that's gonna wear off pretty soon too.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, the basis is to relax.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Practice gently and lightly if you choose to practice.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Touch life gently and lightly if you choose to practice life.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Slow down.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Think of sloths, they're beautiful.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: You ever see them in the wild?
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're all over Costa Rica.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're as common as squirrels here.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: You see them slowly reaching for the next branch.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Really cute.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I do retreats for people in Costa Rica because it's not an expensive place
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: to live in or get to.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's fun.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: So in all of this,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: I've been telling you this last chapter what it isn't,
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: what mind and awareness isn't.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: As for this sparkling awareness,
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: which is called mind,
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: even though one says it exists, it does not actually exist as a thing in a place.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: On the other hand,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: as a source,
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: it is the origin of the diversity of all the bliss of nirvana and the pain
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: of samsara.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: Mind.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Look at your own mind.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: The thinker of your thoughts.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: The feeler of your feelings.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: The judge.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: The assessor.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: The one that likes and doesn't like.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: The one that tells you stories about every moment and what's going on.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: This is your mind.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Pick a thought, any thought.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: How about persimmons?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Shall we think of persimmons?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: A persimmon tree,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: no leaves,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: just bright orange fruit hanging there in the winter,
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: ripening, ready to fall, to be eaten.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: Can you see that in your mind's eye?
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the picture?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: That tree ain't gonna fit between your ears.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: That picture is not solid.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: Actually,
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: it's transparent because you can see the wall in
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: front of you even though you see
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_03: the picture as well.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Relax your eyeballs.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let your gaze settle at a point two meters in front of your nose,
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: straight on, and then let go of that point.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Look past the persimmon tree,
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: which exists in a sort of a sky like nowhere.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's your mind.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: Don't talk to yourself about it.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: You will limit it.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Even to say sky like nowhere is limiting.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: You will not be able to hold the gaze of it for long.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: So re-glance when it slips.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is where your thoughts dance.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: It is an acquired skill, acquired by simply doing it again and again.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever you're thinking, scary thought, happy thought.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: To look through its transparency at mind itself.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you do not follow a thought, they will dance freely.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's only when you grab onto one of them and start like,
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Petting it and making it a cup of tea and entertaining it,
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: that it will then entertain you.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the next thing you know, you're in a story, a fantasy.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do a plan.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: Plans are fantasies.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: I've never seen one of them come through the way I intended it.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: Have you?
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, plan a picnic in detail and then see what happens.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: All of this
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: arises in mind and dissolves in mind.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, there may be a real relative reality of whatever your sense organs perceive,
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: whatever your sense organs sense.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: But once it becomes a perception, you made it up.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: There was a blind man.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: Blind from birth.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: They transplanted something, maybe retinas or something into his eyes recently.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is like in the past 10 years.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: Medical.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: To give him sight.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: But he could not interpret the sensations in his eyeballs.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: He asked them to take them back out.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't let him see.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was just a confusing bunch of shapes and colors.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: He could not interpret that shape as a person, that shape as a table, as a chair.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then the six months or a year he had them before he got them
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: to take him back out,
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: he couldn't learn it.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: Same with deaf people who are deaf from birth getting cochlear implants.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of them don't want that because if you get it,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: it's going to take five years for you to learn to interpret the new sensation.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Into sound, words, music.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise it's just confusing when you lip read.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: So sight before it is interpreted may be reflecting a thing or not.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the moment that becomes a wall, that's an interpretation.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is why people walk through walls sometimes.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: They forget to interpret that sensation as a wall because they're flustered or something.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: They interpret it as a door and walk out it.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_02: You will notice as you practice Zogchen
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: that your interpretations aren't always quite the same as everybody else's anymore.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: Try not to get caught walking through walls.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's considered inappropriate.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Even though one says that mind exists, it does not actually exist as such.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: On the other hand,
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: as a source,
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: it is the origin of the diversity and bliss of nirvana and all the sorrow
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: of samsara.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: As for it being something desirable, it is cherished alike in all of the 11 vehicles.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: All the Buddha's lines think mind is really important.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: With respect to its having a name,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: the various names that applied to it are inconceivable in their numbers.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: Nature of mind,
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: mind itself,
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: big mind, semny, self, absence of self, shavriyakas, anathman, absence of self.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: Sita, Mind, Consciousness, Bodhisitta, Buddha Consciousness.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: So they call it, I would say, the Consciousness.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Praj, the Perfection of Wisdom.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: Some call it Buddha Nature or Buddha Seed or the Embryo of Buddhahood.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: In Mahamudra, they call it the great symbol, the great gesture, the great pointing.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's called the unique sphere.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: Dharmadhatu, the dimension of reality.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Alaya, basis of everything.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: Ordinary awareness.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: Your mind is what matters to you because it's where those thoughts
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: that have you trapped, shackled, occur.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: it behoves one to see,
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: to watch and see for oneself and not to take hearsay or somebody else's word for it,
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: just how those thoughts happen.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: How, where, and what are they made of?
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_03: But you all gotta do your own looking for that.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I tell you, I'll just give you another name.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I call it George.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're welcome to call it George too.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: Or Sarah.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: But do your own looking.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: Are there questions here?
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: Nyando also out there.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't seem to be anything out there.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: And if you change your mind or one comes up, just stick your hand up.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: We'll pass you a microphone so that the audience out there can hear you.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: So one question is,
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: what is the difference between spontaneously acting
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: to benefit beings versus reacting to and acting upon thoughts,
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: feelings, and perceptions?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Does acting spontaneously not incur karma?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_02: Acting spontaneously is karma.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: But for you to be able to do that, you can't be self-centered anymore.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: Normally, when we attempt to aid a being, well, we'd like to be noticed.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like to be thanked.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: If I give you something, you say, thanks, idiot.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or, why the fuck did you do that, idiot?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: While they put it in their pocket.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: You're not satisfied.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I've met homeless guys that do that.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: That was one who was my favorite.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'd always give him a couple of bucks,
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: and he's always saying, why the fuck'd you do that, idiot?
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'd stick it in his pocket.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_02: That was back in California.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Really cool guy.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: He used to also make sculptures out of garbage, some of which was really nice.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could have gotten him supplies, but he didn't want anything.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: He was having fun.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: So when you intentionally,
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_02: because you want to,
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: help others because either you think you should,
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: nice people do this,
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: or you want to be seen to be a nice people,
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: why do we return the grocery carts to where they're supposed to be?
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because we want to be thought well of by the strangers walking around there,
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: and if we don't, they're going to give us a hairy eyeball.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_02: If nobody was looking, would you return your groceries cart?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe not.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've hit them occasionally.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: When it is spontaneous, there's neither a you nor them.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_02: Remember I talked about lack of separation and did an example with someone sitting
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: in front of me as we interacted The separation wasn't really there.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: There wasn't really subject and object because we were constantly changing each other.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: In light of that spontaneous interaction can happen, but you got to get out of the way.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we're all in each in our own way.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot do spontaneous on purpose.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: Next question.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: Kids on TikTok have discovered what they call reality shifting.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've actually
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: seen this.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: How does
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: it work?
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like fun.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it just seems like some dream yoga chocolate realm version of Hogwarts.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the realities they try to shift to are the ones commonly known
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: in culture like Hogwarts or I guess the elven kingdom in Lord of the Rings or
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: that sort of thing?
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do that
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: as a first step.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: You got to do little things first.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: We did beans up with the yogis.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's an exercise some of us were given where you take a bag of beans,
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: some particular kind,
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: and you hide them in the back of your cave and you convince yourself they're
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_02: a different kind.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody watches what you hide.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: But then you yourself,
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: and then they don't think about it again, or it gets written down something.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure quite how they did that, because most people couldn't write.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think they remembered it, but forgot it.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_02: So they wouldn't interfere with other people's project.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: And after a year or so, we'd fish them out again.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if we did it right, they'd be the kind of beans we changed them to.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_02: You just periodically remember,
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_02: oh yeah,
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: say you put in chickpeas,
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: but you periodically remember that you had rajma kidney beans.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you fished them out, you would have kidney beans.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm a bit dumb on these things.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: started out where I had
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: soybeans.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I had too many soybeans because I'd been making soybean milk and cheese.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been making tofu and sharing it with the Tibetans
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: when we couldn't get any cheese because it was cheaper.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I put the soybeans in and I thought,
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_02: okay, I'm going to make them into chickpeas and I'll make some hummus.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: But then I thought, you know, it takes a lot of wood to cook.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I did that for a while.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: Believed it was chickpeas.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know those chickpeas I have back there?
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: It takes so much wood to cook chickpeas, I think I should turn it into dal.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: So then I thought it was a lentil, the yellow lentils.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that for a while,
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_02: and then I thought, God, and then somebody gave me a big bag of yellow lentils.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: I got too many yellow lentils.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to have yellow lentils come out of that.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: Go on, I'll do rajma, kidney beans.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway,
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: I kept changing my mind,
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: because, yeah, well, whatever, for different reasons that occurred over the year.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it was time to get him out, and I said, you know, I don't think it worked.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because I kept changing my mind and they fished it out.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the bag was full of Ziplocs of different kinds of beans.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_02: All the ones I'd thought about, well, the Tibetans had never seen Ziplocs before.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_02: They thought that was the coolest manifestation.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I had to share, give them all my Ziplocs to share.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: So...
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can shift reality, but you got to start with something that you really don't care about.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can't shift yourself into another reality, but you can shift the reality around you subtly.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: So pick something little in the back of the closet, like a yellow T-shirt.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't look so good in yellow.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm going to turn that into a red T-shirt.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_02: And leave it red.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: Don't switch around.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just always, there's that old red T-shirt in the back of the closet.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_02: I really should see if it still fits.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then don't think about it for a while and keep going.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then find out what color your T-shirt is after a year.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't keep thinking you're doing that.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_02: You have to really make yourself believe that it's red.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same way you turn the red cup blue in dream yoga.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do it while anybody's watching.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You put it behind your back and change your belief into what color it is
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: when you're dreaming, lucid dreaming.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then you bring it out from behind your back where neither you nor anyone else can see it.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you bring it around.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you did it right,
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: if you really shifted your belief,
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: But in order to shift your belief,
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: you have to not believe in the reality of your belief.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in order to not believe in the reality of your belief,
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: somewhere deep down,
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_02: you have to have seen your thoughts transparently in mind
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: and seeing what they're made of and how it works.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be actually pretty good at seeing through Your discursive thoughts.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise you won't be able to get rid of that niggling belief that won't follow you.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do not try to make the dead baby come back to life.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do not do anything like that.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, she got something.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: That was in Dharamsala,
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_02: a grieving mother whose baby had died,
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_02: who had had some training and knew about doing this.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Tried to do that and ended up with something,
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: but it wasn't her baby.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it should be things like an old T-shirt that you don't care about.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Something like that if you're gonna try reality shifting.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you can actually shift yourself from here to somebody's storybook reality.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_02: But if you like Hogwarts,
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: you can begin studying Wicca and magic and learn the kind of magic
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: that actually works.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you can shift your reality into a more magical reality.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's going to take a while.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: You have to associate with people who believe in that new reality that magic actually works.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to join a religion that believes in it and you have to associate
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_02: with those that believe in it and read books on how to do it that believe in it.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And slowly over time, you can nudge your reality into a more magical one.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: You may have to pick up a new language to do this.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_02: English and German are really bad at this.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I shifted into Tibetan.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: In Tibetan, all sorts of shit happens when I'm thinking in Tibetan.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Miracles frequently occur or I'll spot them when I'm out there,
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_02: up in my cave for a couple of months every year.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's normal.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's ordinary.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm thinking in Tibetan, hanging out with Tibetans.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm joining many in that worldview.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not that far.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like going into some book.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there are ways for kids to do this,
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_02: but what they're teaching or trying on TikTok isn't going to work,
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_02: except for as a dreamscape.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Where you all make a fantasy world together and then you go play
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_02: in it like you go out in the forest and you shoot arrows
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: and you pretend you're elves.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_02: That you can do.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Those are fun.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Did that make sense in regard to what they are doing there?
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: I believe so.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I believe so.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_01: The TikTok videos I've seen on this since,
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's also something about time running at different paces.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, that's true.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Time runs at lots of different paces.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Look how much can go on in one dream.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say you dream that a whole story about how you ended up in
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: the French Revolution and got your head chopped off and it ends
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_02: with your head chopped off and you realize that a book has fallen
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: from your headboard onto the back of your neck.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: In that instant from the book falling, the whole story happened.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Time runs differently in dream time.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Next question.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is the name of the stretch you demonstrated earlier?
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Stretch?
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just, that's all it is.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Solemnstretch.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sawstretch.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_02: That was a Lama Yeshe, too.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Galugpa line.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Lama Tupten Yeshe, an amazing yogi monk in the Galugpa line.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of his teachings are now online at FPMT, if you want to look it up.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: He did some amazing stuff.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_02: He has a book, When the Chocolate Runs Out.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent book and he has an amazing book on Tantra and on Tummo.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Both of them that are adjunctive things to read if you're doing either of these practices.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: He actually explains how they work.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Westerners want that.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Depends, don't give a damn how it works as long as it does.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Next question, Nyandu.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: One moment.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for it.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here we have,
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_02: how do I practice on a day-to-day basis,
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_02: recognizing my mind at all times or several times?
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: So somebody wants the basic how-to.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's good.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's tricks to make it easier.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you sit straight,
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you're young enough to do it in a full lotus,
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: if you can't do that in a half lotus, some can, some can't.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_02: It all depends on your body shape.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: I used to be able to stay in a full lotus day.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's how I sat.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I was living in a gom tree at the time, a little square box.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the things yogis do up there.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody lived in a gom tree.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody, some of the ones with arthritis didn't, they had beds.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's ever so much easier when your channels are in alignment,
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_02: which is sitting in a full lotus or a half lotus with your left hand down
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_02: and your right hand on top of it.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you bring these into your body at the dantian, about four fingers below the navel.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you have short arms like I do,
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_02: And a long waist, you have to put a pillow or something under it to hold it there.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_02: But many of you won't have to because you don't have short little arms and a really long torso.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes you have to make an adjustment for your shape.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Your arms should be loose.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_02: They say you should be able to hold an egg in your armpit.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Why you would want to do that, they never say.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_02: They just say they should be loose enough to hold an egg in the armpit.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Remember the thing I said with your eyes?
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Pick a point two meters in front of your nose, look at it, and then let go.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_02: The eye gaze is really important because your attention follows your eyeballs.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Some people like to take their glasses off for this.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Some people find it easier with their glasses on.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Suggest you try it both ways and see what's easiest for you.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you find the point.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Your mouth is slightly open.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Do not close your teeth.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Tees should be slightly open.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can even stick a little side tongue in there to hold them open.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Your tongue lies naturally on the roof of the mouth.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_02: You don't do the fancy stuff with it that you do in some other practices.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_02: But your mouth's lips are slightly open so that you can breathe a little through
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_02: the mouth, but mostly through the nose.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Your in-breath is shorter than your out-breath.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Can you see my chest rise and fall?
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now you let go of that point with your eyeballs, with your eye focus, so that your eyes become
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_02: I won't say completely unfocused,
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: but relaxed in such a way that your peripheral vision
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_02: and your central vision are equally clear.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Then you pick a thought.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_02: I am visual.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I make a picture of something bigger than a bread box.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_02: A tree, a lake,
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_02: one of those beautiful oak trees with the moss dripping from it that you find in
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_02: the park.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I look, I take my, with my attention, with my eyes in this no particular focus.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_02: They'll try to focus when you make the picture, leave them unfocused.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because you don't want to look at the picture,
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_02: you want to look through the transparent picture.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's something quite indescribable.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_02: We'll need to settle the Qi in our channels first to make this easier.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to take a deep breath in through the nose and blow it out slowly
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_02: through slightly pursed lips through the mouth, almost like a sigh.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Look through the picture.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Other pictures and thoughts will arise.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Leave them free to arise and vanish.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Do not stop them.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do not follow them or entertain them.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_02: See if you can look past the thoughts in such a way that they do not hook together
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_02: and turn into a story.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Thoughts will arise and catch your attention.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_02: You will catch yourself wandering off on them.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is normal.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_02: When you notice that you have become distracted,
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_02: simply return your attention to the indescribable openness in which
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_02: the thoughts arise and vanish.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_02: No single thought has substance or duration.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_02: When they hook together, they seem to.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't hook them together, they vanish in the moment they arise.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_02: So do not try to stop them.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sitting like this,
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_02: In the morning,
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_02: before you enter social media,
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_02: before you speak with people or read anything,
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_02: for a good 10 minutes,
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_02: maybe more, maybe less, start with three minutes.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Work your way up to 10 slowly without forcing it.
• 1:24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Allow it to naturally increase to 10 and 20.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_02: If you fall back asleep, drink a couple of sips of your morning tea or coffee and try again.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_02: If you become agitated and have no focus after five minutes,
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: get up and have breakfast, brush your teeth, do your things.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But have another few minutes later,
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps during your coffee break,
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps leaving early enough To stop somewhere in a park and sit for five minutes,
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_02: weather permitting, or a cafe.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you cannot find a quiet place to do this during lunch,
• 1:25:26
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps afterwards, when the day is coming to an end,
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_02: You can find a quiet place under a tree, somewhere that pleases you, weather permitting.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_02: After some time, you will not need a quiet place.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_02: You can do it in the middle of chaos.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_02: But in the beginning, first few years, let yourself have a quiet place, it helps.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_02: So repetition is the key, not length.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Many short sessions, four or five a day.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Let the morning one elongate.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to do an evening one, some people are night people.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Do it after you put down
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_02: your book,
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_02: your computer, your phone.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever you read on.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then just sit for a few minutes.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_02: This gets easier.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_02: It seems really difficult in the beginning, so don't try to force yourself to do it too long.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_02: You'll just get frustrated.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Two or three minutes.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe even one minute.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_02: But many times, take a breather in your active day.
• 1:27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Sit.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Go get a coffee and sit in a cafe.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Some cafes are quiet.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And just relax into this.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't feel forced.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_02: It should feel like sliding into the hot bath at the end of a cold, hard day.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_02: More like a hot tub than a bird dog.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know how bird dogs do.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_02: They point at squirrels, cats, lunch.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's how.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just repetition.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Don't force it.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_02: You'll tighten up.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_02: It has to be done in a most relaxed way.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you start forcing it,
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_02: you're going to develop a dislike,
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_02: a rebound, a dislike of the practice if you make yourself sit too long.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So don't make yourself sit longer than you can sit.
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Just take frequent breaks to do it in a nice place.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's good with chocolate.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you have trouble remembering to sit,
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_02: buy some really good chocolate and tell yourself you can have a square when you sit,
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_02: after you sit.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to sit for long, but don't eat chocolate anywhere except after you sit.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_02: You will come like the little monks.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever we have them doing ceremony, we always give them something nice in their mouth.
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Tea, candy, food, because little monks are always hungry.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_02: So they begin to associate pleasure with sitting and doing ceremonies.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_02: So when they're older,
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_02: they do it just for fun ceremony because it releases the pleasure endorphins.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Just as the piece of candy when they were little did or the piece of fruit
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_02: or whatever we have for them.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Fried bread.
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_02: The diet over there is not that wonderful for the monks.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Fried bread and chili pepper.
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you get in Bhutan too.
• 1:29:39
  SPEAKER_02: Next question.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_01: How does Zogchen make beneficial magic possible or better or effortless for someone
• 1:29:51
  SPEAKER_01: who is already experienced with magic?
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're experienced with magic, you know there is a source of that power, energy.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_02: In Zogchen, you come face to face with that source.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's not God.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Regardless of what you are trained in,
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_02: the archetypes,
• 1:30:17
  SPEAKER_02: if you're doing voodoo,
• 1:30:19
  SPEAKER_02: the saints you work with,
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_02: or the orishis,
• 1:30:23
  SPEAKER_02: if you're in a more traditional Yoruba,
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_02: which mixed with Catholicism to create voodoo.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you're doing that magic, you're working symbols, but you're working them in front of you.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Just as in Tantra,
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_02: where you work the symbols inside of you, it creates the same magical results.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes things done outside of you with your hands is stronger,
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_02: which is why we always do certain ceremonies and we have the dorji and the bell and
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_02: the mudras.
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_02: So all of this magic depends on the source, which is mind itself.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_02: When you come to know the source and recognize that source within yourself,
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_02: less ceremony gets the same bang for the buck because you can tap straight in rather
• 1:31:30
  SPEAKER_02: than having to use 20 different symbols to get there.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_02: I've got time for about one more question and then it's 12.30
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_02: and I think I should let the Gompa get cleaned up for the next folks.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_01: See what we've got out there.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Unless there's something in here.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, let me bring a microphone.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you need to use a microphone so that people out there and the translators.
• 1:32:01
  SPEAKER_01: So just speak into the front desk.
• 1:32:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering,
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've been noticing that I have a pretty easy time working with thoughts
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_00: when they're visualizations and like seeing through them.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been having a harder time when it's like auditory thoughts.
• 1:32:21
  SPEAKER_00: When it's words.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_00: When it's words.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I try and see like what direction they're coming from and it's sort of drip,
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_00: but it's muddy.
• 1:32:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:32:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that you can working with the visual thoughts, the pictures.
• 1:32:32
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Get so you can find your mind.
• 1:32:37
  SPEAKER_02: As the auditory thoughts occur,
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_02: they're happening in the same place as the picture.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things you can do is listen.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Here's some music in your head.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in your head.
• 1:32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Audioize instead of visualize music.
• 1:33:00
  SPEAKER_02: And find where it's playing.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_02: But that's just a nundro, the find where.
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_02: That just draws your attention from the thought in whatever form it's happening.
• 1:33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Past it into the vastness of mind itself.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Once you've found mind,
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_02: you don't have to go looking for where it is that often,
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_02: only on a bad day, where you just can't just sit down and
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_02: There it is.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see what I mean?
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_02: So practice with the picture.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Recognize that the words are not different from the picture.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same mind they're occurring in.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody else here?
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'll take one more from out there.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so one of our Spanish viewers asks,
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_01: if one has lucid dreams and flies and goes into the sun,
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_01: what does that mean and what consequences does that have?
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_02: It depends on your personal symbolism.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Interpreting other people's dreams, there's a whole Tibetan science of it.
• 1:34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Flying into the sun, into the great light, auspicious for your next rebirth.
• 1:34:46
  SPEAKER_02: But beyond that, I can't really tell you.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Let me have another question with some meat in it.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, give me a moment here.
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Can Tantra Yidam or Riwo Sancho,
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Serchem,
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Zogchen,
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_01: be used to make some people in our lives stop bothering us and forget about us?
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, but not the way you think.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_02: It won't affect them.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_02: It will affect your botherment.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_02: The way you get someone to stop bothering you is to stop being bothered by them.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's not them that's bothering you.
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's you bothering yourself about them, giving them free real estate in your mind.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Even when they're not there, they bother you.
• 1:35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Been there.
• 1:35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Have been bothered very specifically by someone.
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Not her fault.
• 1:35:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is I who was bothered.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Was my interpretations of her behavior that bothered me.
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows whether they were the same as her interpretations of her behavior.
• 1:36:15
  SPEAKER_02: She might have thought she was doing something totally different.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone is bothering you, they're not bothering you.
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Your interpretation of their behavior is bothering you.
• 1:36:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's your,
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_02: that's on you.
• 1:36:41
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, all of these methods will help you be less bothered by them.
• 1:36:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's as far as we're going to go for today.
• 1:36:52
  SPEAKER_02: An hour and a half is about my stamina and we need to let the Gompa move on.
• 1:36:57
  SPEAKER_02: I believe they use it in the afternoons.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_03: So we had a lot of translations going today.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Did we have Turkish?
• 1:37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not that I saw.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I know we had French, we had Spanish.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_02: We had Hebrew, German, and there's one more in there, Russian.
• 1:37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Hebrew, German, and Russian.
• 1:37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_02: And Georgian.
• 1:37:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you were listening to this in a language other than English,
• 1:37:57
  SPEAKER_02: Please be kind to your translator.
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're all volunteers.
• 1:38:02
  SPEAKER_02: I am not in a position to pay them.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's up to you to make them happy and to make them feel good about doing this.
• 1:38:12
  SPEAKER_02: So thank your translator.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe give them a gift if you can.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_02: That way they keep coming back and translating.
• 1:38:26
  SPEAKER_02: If any of you out there wish to become the benefactor to a yogi
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_02: and merge your practice with theirs,
• 1:38:36
  SPEAKER_02: because you're going through the time of life where you have
• 1:38:43
  SPEAKER_02: more time than money.
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, more money than time.
• 1:38:47
  SPEAKER_02: When you're a student and a kid, you have more time than money.
• 1:38:51
  SPEAKER_02: But this is the later Where you have more money than time and you hire someone
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_02: to cut your grass.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have time to do as much practice as you'd like.
• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in that stage for the price of a pizza and beer once a month,
• 1:39:07
  SPEAKER_02: you can pretty much benefact a yogi and let them and you merge practices,
• 1:39:14
  SPEAKER_02: even if you're not doing the same one.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_02: It isn't instead of practicing.
• 1:39:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it does act as a slight accelerant because of the Gawa and
• 1:39:28
  SPEAKER_02: because remember me talking about subject and object?
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, it's not as real as you think.
• 1:39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I think we are complete for this week unless I forgot something.
• 1:39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Standard Q&A coming up soon.
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and Working with emotions is not completely full.
• 1:39:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've got two coming up, one in April and one in May.
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_02: The April one is almost full.
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_02: The May one still has some slots in it.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_02: So if any of you wanted to do that,
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_02: you better practice your working with thoughts because that's the skill you need
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: to work with emotions.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be able to see the transparency of your thoughts At least
• 1:40:15
  SPEAKER_02: when you're sitting on a cushion
• 1:40:17
  SPEAKER_03: and want to.
• 1:40:19
  SPEAKER_02: No,
• 1:40:20
  SPEAKER_02: you don't have to see the transparency of your thoughts in the middle of a cop chase
• 1:40:26
  SPEAKER_02: or something.
• 1:40:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's much harder.
• 1:40:30
  SPEAKER_02: However, those are coming up.
• 1:40:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to sign up for it, sign up for it on the website.
• 1:40:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's like lists because we try to keep it down to a certain manageable number
• 1:40:43
  SPEAKER_02: for each one of these retreats.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_02: I can handle about 50 people.
• 1:40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Here.
• 1:40:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't have any plans in Lafayette at the moment.
• 1:40:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be doing stuff here.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Neil's got a bunch of stuff happening in Lafayette and Jan might come out and do
• 1:41:01
  SPEAKER_02: a chin raising cycle or something in Lafayette.
• 1:41:07
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_02: If Neil asks her, she will.
• 1:41:14
  SPEAKER_02: She needs an excuse to come visit.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I think we are complete.
• 1:41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Bye, guys.
• 1:41:27
  SPEAKER_02: See you next time.