06 Mindfulness of breathing and Death and Impermanence

Fall 2013 Shamatha and the Bodhisattva Way of Life

06 - Mindfulness of breathing and Death and Impermanence

Olaso. So we’ll return to mindfulness of breathing, once again, now with an explicit emphasis on the gentle, gradual, persistent cultivation of stability, which is really getting the mind to calm down, maintain a continuity of attention, a flow of mindfulness, but without the habitual response of contraction, of tightness, getting like that. Okay?

[00:00:31] So that’s really the skill here. This is distinct from the type of attention that is almost universal in the world, and the type of attention that scientists have studied quite extensively and gotten a lot of insight. But it just about always entails strong sense of ego, of goal, of contraction, bearing down, trying hard, getting worn out, and then needing some rest and relaxation afterwards.

[00:00:55.17] And I’ve known yogis, and some of them I only know from afar, that will go into samadhi for hours and hours and hours on end, you know, and come out fresh as a daisy. And during the meditation being really focused, okay? And there’s a very simple answer for that. How does that happen? It’s coming out of relaxation. It’s coming out of a sense of release rather than contraction, right?

[00:01:18.25] So in this practice, this particular practice of mindfulness of breathing, in this particular phase, especially, it’s like an analogy of creating a vacuum. So you may have a glass vial with a little entry, entryway for it and an opening. And one way to create a vacuum, very simple, is to fill the vase or the vial entirely with water, turn it upside down, and then suck all the water out, but fill it up to the brim and then suck all the water out. And then what you have left is a whole lot of not-water, which is in the vacuum, right? And that’s kind of what we’re doing here. And that is the idea in this particular phase. It’s going to be different later on. But in this particular phase, it’s an ongoing flow of doing. Right? An ongoing flow of doing—that is, from moment to moment throughout the entire twenty-four minutes, we have a job to do, okay? There’s something to do. And what we are doing is filling your attention, filling the attention with the sensations of the breath. So do something, focus on them, sustain that, continue doing that, doing that, focus on the sensations of the breath, and be so continuous in that. And by continuous I don’t mean tight. I just mean an ongoing flow. Be so continuous that if some little rumination, some wandering thought taps on your mind and says, “Hello, hello?”, without even saying anything, it’s kind of like “I’m sorry, I’m really busy. I really don’t have any time for you right now, because I’ve got a full-time job here. You know, I can’t give you any attention because all my attention is here, so sorry.”

[00:03:01.27] And so you’re just filling your mind with this nonconceptual flow of tactile sensations of the breath, right? Filling it. And as soon as you waver, then you apply the antidote. But there’s the ideal. Now, where we’re going with this is, having filled it, what you’re doing is, you’re filling your awareness with a nonconceptual flow of experience with the sensations and so forth. And then we’re gradually going to go from there next week to settling the mind in its natural state, where you’re resting in just the flow of being, attending to the activities of the mind. And then we’ll go from there to releasing even the activities of the mind and settling more and more into just a pure flow of being and not doing anything at all. Okay?

[00:03:47.03] Just being aware. And as you go deeper into that, as we look at the teachings of Padmasambhava, in this regard, the shamatha without a sign, it’s quite interesting there, that in the classic teachings on shamatha of a wide variety, it’s always utilizing and refining two faculties. You know what these are. Mindfulness and introspection, right? Mindfulness, you focus on the meditative object, introspection coming in, orthogonally—that is from, like, an angle.

[00:04:18.18] So if you’re—what is your name? Paulo, thank you. So, if Paulo is the focus of my mindfulness, I’m maintaining this ongoing flow of attentiveness, focus on Paulo, but then my introspection is coming in orthogonally and attending to the flow of attention and recognizing, “Am I going like this? Am I getting dragged away into excitation? Or am I kind of going like you know, losing the clarity, drifting off, getting nebulous?”

[00:04:46.05] And so, this is the quality control, this is the quality control, monitoring, checking up for as long as useful, right? And refining that ability, so you go from coarse, medium, to subtle excitation, coarse, medium, subtle laxity, until neither even subtle laxity or excitation arise, in which case you can then disengage your introspection, let it go dormant, and then it’s just a pure flow of mindfulness. Right? That’s where we’re going.

[00:05:15.23] But what I find so interesting about Padmasambhava’s teachings on the shamatha without a sign, or awareness of awareness, is that he makes no reference to introspection at all. You’re just resting there right in the very nature of awareness. You’re so close. It’s so intimate. It’s so nuclear, right from the very inside, that you really actually don’t need some other mental faculty to come in and check up on it, monitor it, because you’re right there at the core. Right?

And so when you really come to rest in that awareness of awareness, and you’re really not doing anything, you’re just staying home. You’re just staying home and being there, and letting awareness then descend. And that’s exactly what the word is: letting your awareness descend right down to its relative ground, to the substrate consciousness. And you’re not doing anything to get there. You’re just releasing everything that would obstruct you from getting there. So it’s very much of a discovery mode, very much a discovery.

[00:06:21.09] So, but where we are now in mindfulness of breathing, we will be utilizing the main engine of the practice, so to speak, and that’s the mindfulness sustaining that flow, really looking out for continuity, attending to the whole body of the breath, and we will be utilizing the introspection.

So now we are gently and persistently exerting a bit of effort to sustain that flow, but not so much effort that we start to contract, okay? Just enough to kind of nudge it back. Okay, good. Let’s try it!

[00:07:19.27, bell rings, guided meditation begins]

[00:07:45.15] Let your awareness descend into the field of the body right down to the ground. And then fill the whole space of the body with mindful presence, nonconceptually, without visualizing, without cogitating, resting in this witnessing mode of awareness.

[00:08:50.28] Establish your baseline, a default mode of relaxation, feeling your shoulders relax, soft and loose—very important thing. Feeling all the muscles of the face, including those around the eyes, soft and relaxed. Establish that as your baseline so that introspectively, when you now and then monitor your body, while practicing shamatha, you’re checking to see whether you’ve strayed from this baseline of settling your body such that it is relaxed, still, and in a posture of vigilance.

[00:10:01.18] Then, likewise settle the respiration in its natural rhythm. Get the taste of allowing the breath to flow unimpededly, effortlessly, without any kind of regulation whatsoever. Get into that flow of relaxing deeply and more deeply with each out-breath, utterly releasing the breath all the way through to the end. And with each out-breath, releasing any thoughts, memories, or images that may come to mind.

[00:11:07.17] As we follow this progression of settling body, speech, and mind in their natural states, we are moving in a very familiar trend of Buddhism, from the coarse to the subtle, from the outer to the inner, as we now settle the mind in its natural state, at ease, carefree, releasing all thoughts and concerns about the future and the past. Loosely, in a mode of release and relaxation, allowing awareness to come to settle in stillness in the present moment.

[00:12:40.08] Now, once you get the taste of the immediate experience of your awareness resting in its own place, without movement, without grasping—its own place, once again, not being spatially located, but just where it already is, before it latches on to some object or it’s carried away by some thought.

[00:13:32.08] And while resting your awareness in its own place, direct the luminosity, the clarity of your awareness to the sensations of the rise and fall of the abdomen with each in- and out-breath, the bare tactile sensations.

[00:14:37.21] In this practice, you’re seeking to be continually aware of this ongoing flow of sensations, of the rise and fall of the abdomen. While mindfulness is focused there, simultaneously, you’re aware of being aware of the sensations of the breath.

[00:15:17.28] You’re aware of your awareness, holding its own ground, not getting caught up or identified with the sensations of the breath or carried away by thoughts, holding its own ground, while at the same time illuminating and knowing the sensations of the breath as they’re experienced in the rise and fall of the abdomen.

[00:17:37.15] Just as there is an ongoing flow, an uninterrupted flow of sensations correlated with the in- and out-breath, there, at the level of the abdomen, likewise, let there be an ongoing, unbroken flow of mindfulness, continually engaged—a full-time job—as you arouse your attention with each in-breath and relax, while yet maintaining the flow of mindfulness with each out-breath.

[00:19:09.07] Once in a while, as needed, apply this reflexive awareness or introspection to your body. See that it remains relaxed. Check the muscles of the face. Check the eyes. If there’s any tightness, any constriction there, soften it.

[00:20:44.18] And now, very consciously introduce and apply your faculty of introspection, monitoring occasionally the body and the breath. But most centrally, monitoring the mind, the flow of mindfulness, and recognize as swiftly as you can when your attention is carried away, caught up in agitation, distracting thoughts. And as soon as you see that you’ve lost your mind, that your attention has been caught up and carried away, let your first response be to relax, not to tighten up, not to be frustrated or judge yourself. All that’s even worse than a waste of time. Let your first response be to relax.

Having relaxed, then release whatever captivated your attention, carried away, and then return to the object of mindfulness. So as soon as you recognize excitation, relax, release and return.

[00:23:33.10] We need to recognize that attentional balance. The middle way here is one of avoiding two extremes. One of these is excitation and agitation. The other one is laxity and dullness.

So with your faculty of introspection, be alert. Note as swiftly as possible when you become a bit vague. You start losing the clarity, getting spaced out, or perhaps even sleepy. As soon as you see this encroaching in upon your mindfulness, let your first response be to refresh your interest in the practice.

[00:24:24.07] Then restore your attention back on the meditative object with renewed enthusiasm. And then retain that flow of mindfulness.

So refresh, restore, and retain. In this way, balance your attention.

[00:26:38.24] Even while the sensations of the breath come and go, the abdomen expands and retracts in the midst of the movements of the sensations within the field of the body. Distinguish between these movements and the stillness of your own awareness, so that your awareness does not become immersed in the sensations, not identified with the sensations of the breath, but holds its own ground, without grasping, without movement, like an unflickering candle flame that illuminates the sensations of the breath.

[00:27:44.04] Maintain this flow of mindfulness, in which you are simultaneously aware of the stillness of your own awareness and the movements of the breath.

And let’s continue practicing now in silence.

[00:31:22.00, bell rings, guided meditation ends]

[00:32:14.22] Olaso. In this practice, I alluded to a theme that crops up in Buddhist epistemology, very clearly articulated by Tsongkhapa. I think it has actually very deep ramifications. And it’s very experiential. It’s not simply a matter of believing somebody else. And the assertion here is that as we are aware of anything—another person’s face, a room, a sound, a thought, pretty much anything—whenever there’s a vector to our attention, that we’re attending to something, the something that we’re attending to is called in Sanskrit a “nimitta,” or a “sign.” So it’s an object. It’s a target. So we have all kinds of signs, all kinds of things that we attend to—sensations of the breath, all kinds of things.

And Tsongkhapa’s point here, speaking for a whole school of philosophy called the Prasangika Madhyamaka school, is that as we attend to and know, are apprehending some object of the mind, in that very knowing of the object, which is very explicit—we’re really focusing on someone there, or let’s say a person—as we’re focusing attention on someone and knowing that person or that person’s face, there’s something else going on that’s built into the very process of knowing that object. And that is, in that very process, there is an awareness of knowing.

So there are multiple interpretations here, but I really think this is the most sophisticated and profound. And that is, what Tsongkhapa is saying here is that there’s not some other cognition that’s an add-on. Like, here’s one, and that’s just knowing Maria-Lena’s face. Okay, well, call in something else. And that is, how do I know if I looked at Maria-Lena? And then I wondered: was I aware of Maria-Lena or not? Yes. I’m aware that I was aware of Maria-Lena—that is, I remember being aware of Maria-Lena, right? Well, how is it that I can be aware, how is it that I can not only remember Maria-Lena’s face, but I can also remember being aware of Maria-Lena’s face, because those are two different knowings, right?

One is of a face, and the other is of a knowing of that face. Those are distinct. So where’s that knowing coming from so that I can remember not only the object, but remember knowing that object?

And one view is, well, that must call for another kind of cognition, another mode of awareness that’s reflexive, that’s poking in like that. And Tsongkhapa says, No, in fact, that’s not necessary. You’re cluttering, you’re conceptually cluttering what actually occurs in practice, in experience. And that is, in that very process of knowing, it’s already implicit, built into it, that I’m knowing. I’m knowing a face, I’m knowing the presence of a person, and right in that knowing, there’s already an implicit awareness of being aware of that, right?

[00:35:04.18] So very briefly—I don’t want to go into a lot of tangents, and I want to have time for discussion—very rapidly now, John Searle is one of the prominent philosophers of mind in the United States. He makes actually this same point. And that is, he comments—and I think this is really very spot-on, experientially, that when we attend to another person …So this time it’ll be Paulo’s face. As I do so, I can be very focused there. And the image that comes to mind as an analogy is, you all know what an abacus is, an abacus, where you have those little beads along a metal bar, a strand, right? So you can move those beads backwards and forwards, right? Everybody has a clear image, yeah? And so here, if I really hone in on, single-pointedly, almost like a missile tracking system locking onto, then the bead of my attention goes, whoop! Like that. And I’d be really focused, really focused on somebody else’s face and have hardly any awareness at all of being aware of that person’s face, just focusing on that person’s face. But now John Searle’s point here is that as I’m focusing, let’s say, on Paulo’s face, I can also now just move that bead backwards. And I can become more and more explicitly aware of being aware of Paulo’s face. So now some of the detail of Paulo’s face getting a little bit hazy, as I’m really getting more and more vividly aware, intensely aware of being aware of Paulo’s face.

[00:36:36.08] Interesting thing, very experiential, right? And so we kind of move it backwards and forwards, sometimes really honing in on an object, sometimes really honing in on the subject and the experience of being aware of, oh yeah, Paulo’s face, but overwhelmingly, well, I’m really being aware of being aware of Paulo’s face. You know? And I’m really aware of Paulo’s face. And yeah, I’m aware of being aware. So I think it’s really experiential there. Right?

[00:37:02.04] And so the point is somewhat similar. There are many, many differences between John Searle’s philosophy and those of Buddhism. But this point, I think to be very experiential.

And so in this practice now, let’s bring it right back to mindfulness of breathing. We’ll see how this sequence - our going from mindfulness of breathing to settling the mind in its natural state, to awareness of awareness is like Russian dolls. Like Russian dolls. And so the largest doll is where we are attending to the breath. We’re attending to the breath, right? And that’s really the primary focus. Sustaining that flow of mindfulness of the sensations, the rise and fall of the abdomen, for example, at the same time, not forgetting, not disengaging from the awareness of being aware. Awareness, the stillness of awareness, illuminating the movements of the breath, right?

[00:37:54.02] And then, so that’s the outermost doll, right? As we’re of course monitoring the mind with introspection. But when we shift, looking ahead of it, as we shift over to settling the mind in its natural state, then we withdraw from that outermost doll of the explicit and deliberate awareness of the sensations within the body, the sensations of the breath within the body. We withdraw from that to a smaller doll, where we’re now—the object here is not the tactile sensations, the sensory sensations of the breath. It’s rather the thoughts, images, purely mental, that are arising, at the same time as we’re attending to the comings and goings of thoughts, images, memories, even more subjective impulses, like desires and emotions. In the midst of that focusing of mindfulness, on the comings and goings and movements of the mind, we’re simultaneously aware of the stillness of our own awareness. Still sitting on his own throne.

But now the domain that it is illuminating is—not only is it not explicitly the surrounding environment, it’s not even one’s own body. One’s withdrawn into the inner caverns, so to speak, of just the mind, the stillness of awareness illuminating the activities of the mind.

[00:39:09.12] A smaller doll inside the larger doll, right? Because it was already there. And then we go into the smaller doll inside that one. And that’s where we withdraw the awareness even away from thoughts, images, memories—no longer interested. Sorry! No longer interested. I’m going in now. I don’t want to go out to play. And we withdraw it from that right into just sitting on the throne and being on the throne. The awareness withdrawn even from thoughts, images, and so forth, and say, “Whatever! No longer of interest.”

And really, I kind of feel that. I mean, life is a short story, this particular life, short story. So my personal history, my thoughts, my images, my memory - not that interesting.

If there is some element of my experience right now that continues through eternity; if that’s true, that something doesn’t get snuffed out, doesn’t just get obliterated or evaporate at death; if there’s an element of my experience right now that has that kind of continuity, that preceded this lifetime and carries on - I’d like to know about it.

And it’s not going to be found in my thoughts and my memories and my desires and my, my, my, my, my, because all that’s going to vanish. That’s going to be history, and it’s gonna be so much history, I won’t even remember it. That’s the bummer about reincarnation.

If we could at least learn from one lifetime to the next, it would be all cumulative: “Man, I really blew it last time, last lifetime, but gosh, I’m so glad I remember. And this time, I’m not making those mistakes again.” You know, every lifetime - better and better and better—that would be a nice game. This is kind of a crummy game. You make all the mistakes, thenyou die and then you get reborn, and you can’t even remember the mistakes you made.

If somebody else did this, if somebody else like God, or Buddha, or somebody did this to us, I’d want to sue him. And say, “This is not fair. This is really not fair. If I make mistakes, at least let me remember the mistakes I made and how I learned better, and I accumulate that knowledge and I carry on - that would be pretty fair. That would be a fair game. This is not so fair.”

But then nobody did it to us. So who are you gonna wag your finger at? I don’t like it.

[00:41:28.01] So, wrapping up, we’re coming from this ongoing flow of doing, of attending to, really doing something, attending to the sensations of the breath while holding the stillness of awareness, and then gradually we’ll withdraw into the mind, and then we’ll withdraw from the mind itself, just to that stripped-down, bare, naked awareness, that flow. And see where that takes you.

And it’ll be like stepping into an elevator and going right down to the basement. And that’s called, the basement is called “the substrate consciousness.” That can be really worthwhile. Really, really worthwhile.

[00:42:06.02] So before we go back to the text—and I’ll give a shorter talk on it today. There was a bit of background that I wanted to cover yesterday. We’ve now done that. But right now, any questions or comments about this shamatha practice? Because I’d like you to be very comfortable with it, very familiar with it. And I’ve shared this with a couple of you individually. I’ll tell you very briefly my aspiration for you, for these eight weeks. I always say this, and I’m going to say it again. That is, I have some aspirations, that is, what would I love to see happen for you, as you eventually come to the end of this eight weeks, and my aspiration very simply put is, I would really love it if all of you leave here with confidence. Confidence.

It’s not—I do not have in mind, “Oh, I hope you achieve the fourth stage of shamatha, or the third, or the eighth, or that you’ll achieve this or that.” I don’t do—that is really not on my mind. But I’d really love it, when you leave this after eight weeks, that you have that sense of confidence that among these four methods of shamatha, you really have confidence in at least one. You’d know how to practice. You know that you know how to practice. You found it beneficial, and you’re inspired to continue. I’d be very happy with that.

And likewise for the lojong, the Seven-Point Mind Training, the Bodhicharyavatara—if you have a sense, “Boy, I think I got the hang of that. I really … I get it.” This is really important—to learn how to be a spiritual alchemist and transform adversity, transform felicity, just develop your great digestive power so that you can munch and assimilate whatever comes along and transform that into your own spiritual path. If you have that kind of confidence, then I figure, “Hey, mission accomplished.” I’m happy. Okay?

[00:43:40.23] So that’s what I aspire for. That’s it. So, questions or comments about this practice? Crystal clear? Or can I be of service in some way?

Yes, please. And to remind everybody: your first name, please. Thank you, and the microphone’s coming.

[00:44:06.13] This reminds me of one of those quiz shows, like “The Price is Right.” Lovely ladies. [laughter]

Cynthia: Cynthia.

Alan: Cynthia, thank you.

Cynthia: I just want to clarify that I’ve understood what you’ve just been speaking about. Are you saying that when I sometimes meditate, I’m very much aware of the conceptual notion of me, as the meditator sitting here. [Alan said: Yeah.] And then I make the effort to really make the experience so that I sort of feel as if I’ve got to go in to feel the sensations, not the conceptual notion of me, meditating.

Alan: That’s a very good point. And it’s very important.

Cynthia: Are you saying that what you’re saying, I got a slight feeling that actually, you were saying, “Don’t worry about that, because the actual awareness is an awareness, and you don’t have to,” or not?

Alan: Yes to everything. How about that? [laughter] Yes to everything. It’s very true that the concepts, the thoughts, the conceptual constructs of breathing, are very different than the raw, bare, immediate tactile sensations of breathing.

Likewise, the immediate experience, the immediate experience, without all the conceptual constructs, overlays, projections, images, and so forth, that we load onto our immediate tactile sensations of being embodied—the image of a body is very different than the immediate tactile sensations of the body. And likewise for the breath.

So we are seeking to release one. And just enough effort just to release it, not to try to stamp it out or push it out and so forth. But we are definitely seeking to release the concepts of the breath, the concepts of the body and so forth. And go into this mode [excuse me] of knowing that is as immediate as possible, as unmediated as possible.

And what we’re really seeking to do is to emulate the type of knowing that carries on even when the coarse mind, your psyche, my psyche, has dissolved.

When it’s dissolved into the substrate consciousness, there’s a flow of knowing there. And we can use different terminology, Gelugpa terminology: “subtle continuum of mental consciousness.”

But that’s a flow of knowing, right? But it’s not conceptual. It’s not discursive. It doesn’t talk. It’s not laying on conceptual constructs. It’s just … straight. You know? Exactly, very, very direct. And so it’s called “subtle continuum of mental of consciousness.” It’s called “bhavanga.” It’s called “substrate consciousness.” As far as I’m concerned, they are definitely synonyms, referring to the same phenomena.

And we’re seeking to emulate, to approximate that mode of knowing right now, even while we’re just starting out in the practice. The mind, the awareness is very much embedded in coarse mind, but we’re seeking to cultivate that—and not fall into dullness or oblivion. Right? That is exactly it—not falling, not losing the clarity.

[00:47:29.20] And so this is a crucial point of shamatha altogether. Again, strongly emphasized by Tsongkhapa, is that the shamatha practice must entail, if it’s correct practice, must entail an ongoing flow of knowing. Of knowing. It’s not just being peaceful. It’s not just being nonconceptual. Right? It is peaceful, it is nonconceptual, but it’s got to be knowing. And if it’s not knowing, then you’ve lost it. You’ve slipped into laxity and dullness, okay?

But it does get simple. That was a lot of words. But the actual practice is very simple. Just … just go right into it. And release anything that veils, clutters up the actual process of meditation.

[00:48:09.12] Cynthia: So there’s not a step of a conceptual understanding of it, because you know, I can understand what you’re saying. But my sense of it is that I’ve understood you conceptually. I don’t know if I know it, if you see what I mean.

[00:48:24.23] Alan: Sure, well, let’s step into a classic framework. And it’s classic because it’s enormously useful for many, many centuries. And that is, let’s take this simple practice: mindfulness of breathing. Okay?

And there are different modalities of it. Well, this is one. The first thing is to gain an understanding from hearing. So you listen to the extraction, or maybe you get it from a book. But here it’s actually a bit better. It’s oral transmission. That’s why it’s called the understanding from hearing and not the understanding from reading, because it’s better assimilated if you actually get it by somebody teaching it to you.

And so, the first level of understanding is: have you understood the instruction? Did you get it clear or not? If you didn’t, then you better go back and get that first, right? And that’s conceptual. There’s no doubt about it. I’m talking in a language. We speak the same language. My words are being embedded in your conceptual framework, and you’re making sense of it in terms of your language, your conceptual understanding. That’s where we start.

[00:49:17.00] But then as we go deeper into it, then you’re taking those words—“mindfulness,” “introspection,” “sensations of breath,” etc, etc., “relaxation,” “stability,” “vividness”—those are all words. But then you’re taking those words like the finger pointing to the moon. Okay. So I’m going to say, “That’s the moon. All right, now, finger, okay. I think, yeah, that. And now I’m aware of the …” So there’s my moon right there, in that light, and there’s my finger. Okay, so I’m aware of my finger and the moon, and I’m seeing, “Yep, that’s what it’s about. Here’s the word. That’s what it’s referring to.” And so I’m using those words, and I’m saying, “Yeah, this is mindfulness. I get it. And yeah, I just used introspection. That’s what he called it. He called this ‘introspection,’ and that’s what he was pointing to. And yeah, I feel this, its softness, my shoulders, that kind of mellowness of the body. Yeah, that’s what he was talking about, that sense of ease and relaxation.”

[00:50:06.27] And so likewise for each one. And so now you’re in this in-between, kind of this in-between, where it’s conceptual because you’re still remembering the teachings, but you know, the referent of the teachings are in your own practice.

So in other words, you’re not just getting a lesson on shamatha, learning all the right answers, and then getting the right answers in a quiz without ever doing it. You know? You could, you could, you could score 100 on the quiz just by remembering it accurately and then regurgitating on the quiz. But of course, that’s not this.

[00:50:35.14] So there’s that intermediate, where you’re still remembering the instructions, but they’re pointing to your experience, and you’re really getting it: “Ah, now I know. There’s the word ‘chocolate.’ This is chocolate.” Right?

And then when you really get into the flow of it, then really, you don’t need the words anymore. You don’t need the words anymore. You’re in the flow of it. You’re practicing mindfulness. You’re not thinking about mindfulness. You’re attending to the sensations of the breath. You’re not thinking, “Sensations of the breath.” And likewise, introspection, likewise, “Relax, release, return." That’s useful. But then once you get into the flow of it, you don’t need to think, “Relax, release, return.”, You’re just doing it. Right?

[00:51:16.28] So there’s the sequence. So we have the understanding of hearing, the understanding from reflection, where you’re interfacing the words, the concepts with your actual experience. Then when you get into the flow of it, you just don’t need the internal commentary anymore, because you’re just in the flow. And that’s when it gets pretty sweet. Okay? Good. Good.

[00:51:41.03] Alan: Yes. Please!

[00:51:51.07] Alan: And your name for everyone, please.

[00:51:52.05] Scott: Scott.

[00:51:52.12] Alan: Scott, thank you.

[00:51:54.03] Scott: You were just talking about the strategy of relaxing, releasing, and returning.

[00:51:59.05] Alan: Yep.

[00:51:59.18] Scott: To deal with, I would imagine, coarse excitation.

[00:52:03.00] Alan: Yep.

[00:52:03.18] Scott: My experience of coarse excitation is that you’re fully sort of swept away, and you forget entirely the object.

[00:52:10.18] Alan: That’s right.

[00:52:11.13] Scott: And when I return back, after deploying that strategy, I find that there’s sort of an ongoing flow of what I think is medium excitation, the sort of bees buzzing around the object. And so I wonder, what’s the right strategy to deal with that? Is it also relaxing, releasing and returning? Or is there something else that’s better?

[00:52:30.02] Alan: It is. It is relaxing, releasing, returning, but on a subtler level. So yeah, it’s more of the same. And if we kind of collapse that down, if we go to some of the classic Dzogchen teachings on shamatha, they just use a one-liner: “Lhod!” [Tibetan 00:52:44.24] Loosen up! And then the rest is implicit, because you’re not going to loosen up and then space out. I mean, it’s kind of like, you know, they’re teaching to intelligent people. And so they know that it’s not just “Loosen up and then space out,” it’s “Loosen up so you can get right back to the object.” So I’m filling in a couple of words there.

[00:53:03.28] So that’s it. It’s basically the same antidote. But then it’s relaxing on a subtler level. So when you’re totally carried away, okay, relax that, you know, relax, so that you’re not totally carried away. But then, when it’s … Well, you might recall from “The Attention Revolution,”—and then my source is Gen Lamrimpa, because I spent a whole year with him, and we were practicing—that medium excitation is where, actually, your primary focus has drifted off to the rumination and so on and so forth. But you’re kind of humoring or keeping in touch with the sensations of the breath, like, “Yeah, yeah, I got you, don’t worry,” and then, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, no, I … blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah, no, I … blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You know so it’s primarily focus on the rumination but kind of like, “Yeah, I’m doing it, whatever.” You know, like that. Right?

[00:53:48.23] And then the final, the subtle one is where you’re really primarily on the object, but then it’s more like the bees or the like little mosquitoes or fleas buzzing around the head. And so you’re really there, but you’re getting the static, you’re getting the static. And even there, now it’s a real fine-tuning of relaxation, a fine-tuning of not being even dragged off to the fleas around the head, you know, the subtle excitation.

[00:54:16.00] Having said that, though, just a final comment. And that is the real value of learning the map of the nine stages leading to shamatha. Well, first of all, learning that map is learning—really, it’s learning how to handle a snake, really, a poisonous snake, you know, which can be very useful. You can extract the venom that can be used for antidote and all of that. But really, I’ve seen so many people get bitten by their encounter with their understanding of the nine stages, because they start taking each of those stages as a goal. And that’s the way, just take the head of the snake, and just okay, go for it. You know. You’re really screwed.

Not you - I don’t see any indication you’re doing this. But a word to the wise, that’s a real way to screw up your whole practice, is “Boy, I’m not on stage four yet. I wonder how long this is going to take. Crap! Let’s try harder. Man, I’m still not on stage four. Oh, and I slipped back to stage one. Oh, I can’t stand it. Let’s get at least stage two!” You know, like … [makes shooting sounds] How did you screw up your practice entirely? It was never intended in that way, but rather as markers that when you’re just starting out and you see that you just have very little continuity at all, that you don’t then beat yourself up. “Yeah, I’m on stage one. That’s what they say. That’s what it’s like on stage one.” You probably can only maintain a few seconds of continuity. So don’t beat yourself up, you know.

[00:55:36.20] And so those nine stages can be very, very helpful when you simply use them to monitor where you are in the practice and know what you may expect, what is normal on stages one, two, three, four, and so forth. And then what are the antidotes? What are the things to emphasize? And what I’m getting to is that until you’ve achieved stage four, in terms of excitation, be primarily concerned with just coarse excitation.

[00:56:05.09] That’s enough, be content there. And a lot of the practice of shamatha is doing it correctly, and then knowing you’re doing correctly, and be content. I think it’s in the Bhavanakrama, I think it’s there, by Kamalashila, that in his discussion of shamatha, and it’s been some years since I read this passage, but as I recall, he said, “Now, whatever the object is, whether it’s an image of the Buddha,” he said, “Now find your object, lock onto it. And now, relax a little bit. Don’t lock onto it and hold on as tightly as you can.” You know, get it. And now, just a bit. So you’re sustaining it, but not with full tightness like that, because the full tightness—that’s what’s going to wear you out, right?

[00:56:50.10] And so in terms of the coarse excitation, to see that you’re really, you’re not losing it and you’re not losing it for five seconds, and you’re not completely losing it for ten seconds, and fifteen, and twenty, and being content with that while also not falling into just flat-out dullness, right?

If you habituate yourself, familiarize yourself with developing this flow, you know, free just of coarse excitation, and you’re maintaining that sense of relaxation, then you’re really laying a foundation for then finessing it later, and then overcoming coarse laxity, and then you’re overcoming medium excitation, and you’re kind of pedaling back and forth, going subtler and subtler and subtler. But it’s important to not set your standards too high when you’re really not there yet in your practice, and that’s what those nine stages are for. Okay? Good.

[00:57:43.20] Okay. Okay, let’s spend a little bit of time, and I’m not going to fill the half hour. I’m going to try to cover a very enormously important topic. But you have notes, you have background, you have the text itself of the Seven-Point Mind Training, but this enormously important topic of the second thought that turns the mind, rotates the mind right about, 180 degrees. And that is this importance of impermanence, coarse and subtle impermanence, and especially with an emphasis on the impermanence of one’s own life, one’s own mortality.

[00:58:18.26] And this again is in terms of shifting priorities, developing more authentic motivation or what I like to call “conative intelligence.” And that is a cultivation of wise desires, wise aspiration, wise intentions that really will yield what we’re looking for. And that is greater satisfaction, well-being, happiness, fulfillment in life. There are many, many desires that will, almost like salesmen, they will say, you know, “Go for this desire! This will give you what you want: a new car. Go for this! This will, this will do it: more sex. Go for this: better food, and so forth.” We have a lot of salesmen cropping up in the mind, you know, a lot of, again, like inviting us to dance. A lot of desires come up, and each one holds almost like a promise. “Go with me, go with me!” And a lot of them are as dumb as mud, you know, really dumb desires, but they’ll come up anyway. “Oh, maybe I’d be happier if I started smoking cigarettes. It looks so cool. And people say they really enjoy the feel of it. It’s so mellow. And it looks cool too. That sounds like a good idea. Let’s try smoking!” You know? Seemed like a good idea at the time. You know? Well, there’s just one. There’s one, really one dumb idea, one dumb desire. And we have a whole lot. We get invited to dance with many, many unintelligent desires. Right?

[00:59:38.10] And so, the meditation upon, the saturation of the mind, and the realities of impermanence, realities about the reality of our own mortality, really is like taking smart pills—for aspiration, for priorities, and choosing the direction of our lives, and what is important, and what is less important. Really, as I commented yesterday, there are few things that have a more enormous impact on one’s private priorities, one’s worldview, and one’s way of life than a real deep insight, experiential insight that shifts one’s very way of viewing reality itself, one’s own life, one’s relationships with other people, and everything else. Few things have the impact of any really profound experiential insight into impermanence, on both the coarse and the subtle levels.

[01:00:31.04] And the reason this is emphasized is because probably, if I speak for fifteen minutes now, probably I will not impart any information to you that you didn’t already know. “Well then, what are you talking for? You know, you’re not going to tell us something new.” But the point here is, even though it’s not like, “Whoa, I didn’t know that,” it’s “Whoa, I wasn’t incorporating that. I wasn’t assimilating that. I wasn’t living that. I knew it up here, and it wasn’t coming down here.”

And this is a point that really is very core to the whole Buddhist worldview. The theme is “Du byed thams cad mi rtag pa” [Tibetan 01:01:05.12] in Tibetan, and that is, “All composite phenomena are impermanent.” And “impermanent” means they are constantly subject to change.

And while this is true, that is, that our human relationships, our health, our very identity, everything we acquire, everybody we meet, every place we live, everything, this whole world is like just a whole flow of flux. Nothing stable, nothing enduring, not even our own identity, right, in the midst of that reality. And I think that is an empirically establishable fact: is that everything that arises in dependence upon causes and conditions is subject to decay. And in fact, it’s not only subject to one day, but is from moment to moment to moment always in a constant, constant flow of flux, of rising and passing, rising and passing. While that is the reality of it, and we probably believe that already—it’s very good reason from physics, from various branches of science, and of course, Buddhist insight. A central theme of Buddhist vipashyana is to realize experientially not only coarse but subtle impermanence. While we probably accept that intellectually, as the Buddha pointed out, there’s a powerful tendency to override that with an imagination, a projection of things being more stable and enduring than they actually are. You know? And it happens an awful lot. It’s ubiquitous, it happens so frequently.

[01:02:39.05] It is an active misapprehension of reality to take that which by nature is unstable, in a constant state of flux, that is impermanent, not enduring, and just overlap that, say, “No, this is eternal love. This relationship is forever. Now I’ve got the car I always wanted. Look at it. It’s just perfect. Now I’ve got this. Now I got the status, the position, the job I always wanted. Now I’ve got my dream house. Now I’m in good health. Now I’m young.” And that one I can’t fool you at all, but, you know, that latching on to and feeling, “Gotcha! Now I’ve got what I want: this relationship, this child, this house, this acquisition, this status, this reputation, this quality of health, this way of looking, this way of appearance.” And so forth. And it’s just, it’s amazing that it’s flat-out delusional, and that it is so very common.

[01:03:39.17] And so if delusion is bliss, then what’s the big deal? But delusion is not bliss—even though it feels really good at the time to enter into, let’s say, a fresh romance and say, “This is the way it’s going to be.” Or I saw some—oh, my brother sent me an email just recently about how movies, I mean our two-hour movies, right? Anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half hours. But we know how long movies last, pretty much two hours, and they all end. That’s the thing about movies: they end, right? And the happy movies, the comedies, the good movies, they end. And then you see, “Ah, the couple, they made it, they got together!” And they’re kissing, or they’re hugging, or they’re walking into the sunset, and then: “The End.” End of movie. You know, always an end.

[01:04:35.03] And the tragedies are … And the happy ones are … Like that. But it’s the end. And that’s really a good movie. And it’s totally unlike reality, because there’s no end. But we glom on to things, our relationship and so forth, feeling, “This one’s a keeper. This one I really like. This one really makes me happy.” And they lock onto it as if there’s going to be something stable there. And our own identity, our minds, our bodies, our relationships. So for brutal truths, Al Gore talked about “An Inconvenient Truth” of global warming. Well, Buddha didn’t quite call it “four brutal truths.” But they certainly look brutal, if we’re hoping otherwise. And that is, anything that’s born dies. Anything that’s created gets destroyed.

[01:05:34.08] That’s brutal, if we’re hoping otherwise. Wherever there’s meeting, there will be parting. Whatever is acquired will be lost. And wherever there’s elevation to some high level of status, power, prestige, and so forth—whatever comes up will go down. That’s really brutal. That is, insofar as we focus our lives on the pursuit of hedonic well-being, and the pursuit of the avoidance of hedonic suffering—and by that I simply mean any kind of suffering, physical or mental, that’s arising in response to some unpleasant situation: stimulus, appearance, happening. So hedonic, hedonic, right? This felt really good; I really like this. This felt really bad; I don’t like that. Insofar as a life is focused on, invested in, the pursuit of hedonic happiness and the avoidance of hedonic unhappiness, these four truths are just awful. They ruin everything, because in terms of hedonic pleasure, whatever you get, well, its destruction is built into the very process. So be prepared to be disappointed already, because whatever you get, you’re going to lose, and if you don’t get it, then you’ll be pissed off. So it’s kind of like, “When do you want your unhappiness? Earlier or later?” Because it’s just going to be a matter of time that you will be disappointed, right? Because you didn’t get it, or you got it, but then you lost it. And that’s it. Or as Goenka, one of the favorite lines from him, I heard it almost forty years ago, thirty-nine years ago, when I took this course, is: whenever we grasp onto something with attachment—like this person, this place, this occupation, this status, whatever—we grasp onto something, feeling, “This makes me happy. This makes me happy.” And “this” is the placeholder, anything you want to put in there that’s your baby. “This makes me happy. Boy, I want to hold on to this. This really makes me happy.” Now that we’re grasping onto it with that mode, now only one of two things is going to happen. But it will definitely happen. You’re grasping onto it, and it will disappear. That’s door number one. Door number two is, you’re grasping onto it, and you disappear. And there’s no door number three. Like, “I don’t like the first option. I don’t like the second option. What’s the third option?” There isn’t any.

[01:08:08.15] So that’s kind of a pretty … so, if you want logic, that’s a pretty compelling syllogism for not locking onto anything,thinking, “Therein lies my happiness,” right? Because it’s a losing proposition.

[01:08:22.15] So it raises very deep issues about, what shall we aspire for? What is of value? And so if we return briefly to this theme from yesterday, this “precious human life fully endowed with leisure and opportunity,” it’s a real mouthful, but so enormously pregnant with meaning and implication. In the context of such a life, then we can ask, what is of value? And within the context of human life, whether it lasts twenty years or sixty or eighty years, if we just look within that framework, like within the context of a nonlucid dream, okay? It’s got a beginning that we can’t quite remember, because I don’t remember what it was like to be born. But I’ll know when I’m getting dead. I’ll be aware of that. So I don’t remember the beginning of this life, but I think I’m going to be, I hope to be there, eyes wide open, when it comes to an end. But there will certainly be an end, and I’ll know it when it happens. And so there we are, within this framework. So here’s where I was conceived and born eventually. And here’s the end. Within that framework, that timeline, short or long—still short by other perspective—we can ask, within that context of one life, what is of value? What’s worthwhile? What’s worth pursuing? What’s worth giving our energy to or investing our lives into? What?

[01:09:47.13] And I would say within that framework - lots of stuff. Lots of stuff is of value. Like going .... There’s a nice phrase that I know from Matthieu Ricard because he uses it a lot: “Living a colorful life.” Living a colorful life. It’s a top priority for a lot of people.

“You must live” - can I do his French accent - “You must live a colorful life.” [laughter] That’s a terrible accent. [Commenting on his own attempt at speaking with a French accent] You know him. But you know, a rich life—that is, “All the best restaurants in town - I’ve been to each one of them. I’ve been on vacations. I’ve seen all the continents. I’ve had so many cruises and flights. I’ve had a wonderful sound system. I’ve had many romances. I’ve had this, and I’ve had this, and I did skydiving. I wanted to know what that was like. And bungee jumping—what would life be without some bungee jumping? You know, wouldn’t be quite as colorful. You know? And I’ve had tattoos and had them taken off. And I’ve lived a rich life. I’ve done so many things.” Right? Very cool. Such a person—you write a biography, and other people will want to read it. “Oh, I wish I had such a colorful life!”

[01:10:56.22] So within the context—“And I made more fortunes, then I lost fortunes, but I made another fortune,” you know? “Wow, how cool! What a colorful life,” right?

[01:11:10.15] All very cool within the context. But if you’re, like, I’m looking at the palm of my hand, and you’re looking at your death right there. “Hello, death. Hello, end of my life. Hello, oh, we’re getting closer, aren’t we? Hello, I can touch you!”

When you’re facing death like that, when you’re right looking at it in its face, and you know it’s going to swallow you very, very shortly, when you’re facing death straight on, eyes unblinking, now that you’re looking right there—“Hello, end of my life”—now what is of value? Bungee jumping? Tattoos that came on and off? How much food you’ve eaten, how many vacations you’ve had, how much success you had in your work, how many romances you had, and so forth? How many hedonic pleasures you’ve had?

As so many—I think Shantideva makes this comment, and many others do. When you come to the end of your life—if you could remember your life, because sometimes, you know, amnesia may set in—can’t even remember all the good stuff that happened. Which is really a bummer, you know, because that was kind of all you had to hold on to. But even if you can remember, you know, you’re dying with a clear mind, you can remember: “Wow, I remember all the cruises I had, and all the romances I had, and all the good food I ate. Wow.” He said, you know, whether you’ve actually had those experiences or you merely dreamed you had those experiences, there’s no difference. Not from that perspective. Because they’re no longer real.

[01:12:50.07] They really … It just doesn’t matter whether they were dreamed or you actually experienced them in the waking state—same ontological status. They are no longer. Whether you dreamed it, whether you lived, it doesn’t make any difference. Or you’ve probably seen science fiction movies. It’s come up once in a while. What was the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger, where they actually, you know, with some science fiction technology, they actually infuse memories into your brain, into your mind of some kind of experiences you never had. Right? Or they blot out experiences that, you know, they don’t feel … you know, you don’t want them, you know, so they kind of edit out memories that are no longer useful, and they put in memories of experiences that never even occurred. Right? Well, something like that.

[01:13:38.26] When you’re facing death, you had a colorful life, or you had a bland life, an exciting life or a boring life, a happy life or an unhappy life, a productive life or not a very productive life. What’s the difference? You know, when death is right there and you’re just about to say bye-bye to your life, now, what’s of value? Is anything of value at all? Or is it all equally nothing? Just zip, nothing at all? And if the materialists are right, from your own perspective, I’d say it all goes flat. From your own perspective, it’s like, “Well, I’m going to become obliterated anyway - so what the hell does it matter? It doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t matter what I did, from my perspective, because in a little while, a few minutes, I’m going to be nothing at all.” So from that perspective, I really do think materialism is thinly veiled nihilism. And the implications—all one has to do is follow the implications, and it’s not very far away.

[01:14:41.08] If that hypothesis is wrong—and you can tell I’m absolutely convinced it’s wrong—if there’s continuity, now the question of what is of value is a very different kind of question than within the context of a life. From the continuity of consciousness, carrying on—especially when we bring in the theme that the quality of my life, what I’ve done with my life, actually sowed a whole field of seeds in this continuum of consciousness, and I’m going to see those seeds ripen in the future—now, what is of value? What was of value in my life? And you see that it’s like that, like the image of the Lord of Death with his scythe, you know, the Western image, the dark cloak, and all of that, and the scythe, that scythe like the big blade. It’s like this blade comes off. And it just, it cuts down, it mows down so many things that seem to be of value within the context of life. And now they just all got beheaded. That is, they have no value at all—how much food you’ve eaten, how many pleasure trips you’ve had, how many times you’ve had sex, how many good meals you’ve had, and so forth. It makes no difference whatsoever. But we can ask, what does make a difference, what still is of value as you’re facing death?

[01:15:58.25] And the answer can be summed up in one word: Dharma. And I don’t mean Buddhism. Buddhism is one very rich, powerful, very profound current of Dharma. But, no, Dharma. Dharma. Right? The cultivation of virtue, the refinement of the mind, the cultivation of wisdom, compassion, offering our very best to the world. You know, that still matters. What we’ve offered to the world—in terms of practical activity, what goodness have we brought to the world? You’re facing your death, and it’s three seconds away. That one you can say, “That was of value. It doesn’t matter, and either way, that was of value.” Right?

For sure, a whole bunch that I did value earlier on, now I see had no value at all, but that has a value. To what extent have you cultivated the mind? Balance, clarity, wisdom, compassion, virtue—oh, that’s really of value, because that’s the one thing you’re carrying with you: your mind stream. Whatever you do with your body—fat body, skinny, attractive, whatever—well, you’re going to leave that one behind. That’s going to become manure. It could be some fertilizer, something, or just ashes, if they burn it up. That’s not going to be any value at all. But that mind that carries on with all of the configuration of consciousness from the cultivation of the mind, which carries on, that will be of value, really big-time value. If you actually fathom the nature of consciousness, if you’ve known it, if you’ve tasted it, beyond your mind, beyond the configurations of your mind, your mind, man’s mind, woman’s mind, and all of that, if you’ve penetrated through that short story that we call “my mind” within the short story of “my life,” if you’ve penetrated through that, through the practice of shamatha, I mean, this is really simple. If you penetrated through that and you’ve actually ascertained and you’re dwelling in that subtle continuum of consciousness, if you’ve made your home there, and you know you’re at home, you’re consciously resting in that substrate consciousness, having released all attachment and identification with your mind, your memories, your personal history, your thoughts, emotions, desires, and so forth—if you see those, it’s just kind of like fluff that’s dissolving into the sky, while you’re resting in that luminous, cognizant flow of your own primal consciousness within time, relative, not ultimate. But if you’re resting there, and there is death coming, you know, three minutes away, and you’re resting there. That’s your home. And you’re not identifying with your body, and you’re not identifying with your mind, which is soon to be history. You’re just resting there.

[01:18:52.03] Who dies? If you’re not identifying with anything that dies—the body is going to die. The mind is going to fade out. But if you’re not identifying with your body or your mind, your personal history, your personal sense of “I am a man. I am an American,” what have you, if you release all of that, and you’re just resting there in that cognizant flow, nonconceptual flow of just being, resting in that flow of awareness, that’s going to be a smooth transition. Really smooth. And the sense of “Oh, I’m dying” won’t come up, because nothing that is dying is you. And nothing that is dying is anything you’re identifying with. So it’s just kind of like a shell falling away. And then there’s just smooth continuum of consciousness. And that’s just shamatha—just shamatha, mere shamatha, let alone if your insight goes deeper than that.

[01:19:57.14] So what’s worth doing? All the good that we do in the world, whether it’s for animals, whether it’s human beings, helping the elderly, helping the environment—that’s all of value. That’s all good. And those seeds will ripen to a very, very good crop. Very good harvest in a future life. Good for this lifetime. Good for a future lifetime. Good for both. Good for self, good for other. All good.

But we do have this capacity, not only to do good in the world, which is ever so important, but also actually to know what’s going on. One of my favorite phrases from—oh, the time is going so quickly. But one of my heroes before I encountered Buddhism and I was looking for some refuge, somebody that made sense, something that really provided some direction for life—I had two people: John Muir, the great environmentalist, the great nature lover, he got me. And the other one was Henry David Thoreau. And one of Henry David Thoreau’s great comments, which I only paraphrase now—I haven’t memorized it—but his rationale for going off into Walden Pond, out into nature for two years, pretty much solitude and utter simplicity was, he said, and I paraphrase it poorly, but he said, “Whether life is bitter or whether it’s sweet, before I die may I come to know what it is, and not come to death without having known what happened.”

[01:21:18.03] So he said it much better than I did. I really should memorize. But I haven’t. But there it is. But we do have that ability, before we die, to actually know what happened. I can think of very few things more important than that. To really know, who are you? What’s the nature of the mind? Is there a dimension that carries on? If there is, let’s not just believe in it; let’s know it. Lama Zopa Rinpoche was asked this question: “Is it necessary to believe in reincarnation in order to achieve enlightenment?” He said, “No! You have to know it.” Well said. So true.

[01:21:59.15] So there it is. It’s a high-stakes game, if we want to call it a game. It’s a high-stakes situation. As soon as we take it seriously that there is no easy exit from reality, that we are here for keeps … We’re here for keeps, for better or worse. But we’re here for keeps. And so what do we do with that? And I can’t think of anything better to do than to know what’s happening and live accordingly.

[01:22:30.13] That’s a short talk on impermanence. Big one. Really, really big. But if we fathom that, it really does start shifting priorities and what we still think to be of value. That’s an empirical fact. And finding what is of greatest value, what is of greatest value. And what can we, as human beings, with our intelligence, our imagination, our memory, our creativity, what’s the greatest thing we can do? Given our opportunities.

[01:23:01.29] So when I first met His Holiness one-on-one in 1971, this is—he made a few points to me. All of the points left an indelible imprint on my mind. That’s when I knew I had found my guru.

And one of them was: The greater understanding you have, the greater intelligence-hyphen-understanding you have, the greater your responsibility. And he was speaking of himself. He was only thirty-five at the time, I think, or maybe thirty-six. Thirty-six. So young. But he was referring to himself. He said: Myself, the greater understanding, the greater knowledge, intelligence, just means more responsibility, that then more is called—that is, we’re called to do more. We have kind of more responsibility to do more, the more we understand. So that’s that.

[01:23:58.25] So, questions or comments about anything thus far?

[01:24:11.03] Alan: Yes, please. Peter.

[01:24:26.21] Peter: I’m Peter. It’s a conceptual question. On the one hand, I understand the notion but not the experience of resting in the substrate, and how that might be a useful thing approaching death, for what will be swept away is everything but the substrate.

Alan: Right, yeah.

Peter: The thing that I don’t understand is why the cultivation of virtue has a continuum into the next life if the seeds of that action are in the psyche, which will be eliminated.

[01:25:09.02] Alan: Accha. Accha. Yeah.

Here is a fundamental difference between the Buddhist view of mind and body versus that which is just ubiquitous. I think it’s hardly even questioned in modern science, specifically neuroscience, and that is, from my reading, and I read fairly extensively, everywhere it’s said, memories are stored in the brain. Images are in the brain. Emotions are in the brain. Thoughts are in the brain. Brain, brain, brain. They’re taking all these objective experiences and saying they are actually located inside the head. There is actually no evidence of that at all. So it’s actually quite remarkable how almost everybody believes it, and with no evidence, because all we actually know is that there’s correlations between neuronal activity and subjective experience. But the notion of these being actually located inside the brain—there is no evidence at all. But here is a very interesting one. And it’s related to your question. And that is the notion that there is information inside the brain, that these neurons—and I’ll speak a bit anthropomorphically—these neurons are talking to these neurons, and this information is being transmitted here, and this neuron picked up this information, and this configuration of neurons is holding this information. And of course memories are stored in this part of the brain and that—the whole issue of information is really fascinating. Is there information in your computer? Because now the brain, of course, is likened to a computer. It’s an organic computer, right? Big, big metaphor. And so let’s just switch over. Here is the computer. It’s pretty actually much better than the big ones twenty years ago. There’s my computer, my cell phone. And so, is there information in there? Is it configured? Does it have software? Does it have photos in there? Does it have music? Does it have emails and so forth? Well, of course! That’s a working cell phone. Of course it does. But then we can ask, because this is still related to your question; I’m not drifting off. So of course, anybody would say, and it’s quite right they’d say, “Yes, of course. This is not maxed out yet. The hard drive is not full, but there’s a lot of information there. I mean, just having the image there shows there is information. Padmasambhava is my screen saver.”

[01:27:15.09] But then if you looked inside there, objectively, and you started looking at the actual physical contents of what’s inside this little computer, you’re not going to find any information at all. You’re going to find chemicals, you’ll find electricity, that’s all. Objectively speaking, there’s no information there at all. John Searle made this point also, that there is information in the computer only relative to the people who put it in and get it out, right? But if you take out, if all sentient beings in the universe suddenly died, and I mean all of them, there’d be no information there at all. There’d be chemicals and electricity. That’s all there actually is in there: chemicals and electricity, using our conceptual framework of that. So, yes, there is information, but relative to those who put it in. And likewise, there is information in the brain relative to consciousness. But there’s no information in there at all, let alone images, thoughts, emotions, and so forth.

[01:28:16.02] And so, we come to the substrate consciousness. I was kind of spiraling in on your question. Number one are the seeds, the seeds of virtue. We engage in an act of generosity, and seeds are stored. Are they stored in the psyche? The answer is no. They were enacted by way of the psyche, by intention, by recognition, and so forth and so on, sure. Without the psyche, then you’re walking around in the dark. You don’t know anything.

[01:28:40.17] So, the actions are committed by way of the psyche—intention, recognition, motivation, and so forth and so on. But the seeds are not stored in the psyche. If they were, then if you had brain damage, or you had amnesia, then those seeds would all vanish because the psyche, it’s gone, you know. You’ve lost your memory. You’ve lost this. There are so many ways the brain can be damaged, and then aspects of your psyche just aren’t there anymore, right? So if the seeds were stored in the psyche, then they would disappear with the psyche itself. Well, they don’t. And that’s not where the seeds are stored.

[01:29:17.02] And nor are they stored in the brain. That’s kind of silly. They are not stored in the brain. The brain is more like a keyboard than a hard drive. And that is, damage the keyboard, and you can’t get to the information. Have Alzheimer’s, have senile dementia, have brain damage, and you may not be able to access your memories anymore. Or you may not be able to access vision because your visual cortex is blown. May not be able to access a wide variety of mental activities because they arise in dependence upon the brain. But that doesn’t mean they are stored inside the brain. So the seeds are not stored in the brain. They are not stored in the psyche either. Nominally speaking—I have to be very careful here because it’s ever so easy to reify, and Tsongkhapa especially is very keen on not doing that. The seeds, nominally speaking, we can say, are stored in that subtle continuum of mental consciousness. Okay? The substrate, or the substrate consciousness. But once again, if you had—so this is going to be a thought experiment—here comes a subtle stream of consciousness. There it goes, running through time, okay? That’s my subtle stream of consciousness. [Zip, zip, zip, zip] through time: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Like that, right?

[01:30:32.21] And so if I should look at that subtle stream of consciousness, and I should try to find some information in there—memories, karmic seeds, and so forth—not going to find it. Similarly, if you whipped out your cell phone and said, “Hey Peter, I want to send you a photo of my grandson. He’s really a darling boy, very sweet boy. Ready? I sent you the photo of my grandson.” What’s actually emitted from my cell phone is an electromagnetic field. That actually doesn’t directly go to yours; it bounces off, but indirectly it gets to yours. And so that’s what traveled. It was an electromagnetic field, gets processed, gets sent down to yours, yours processes it, and, “Oh yeah, you have a really cute grandson,” right?

[01:31:16.18] And so we can say, nominally speaking, that the information of the image of my grandson’s face clearly was carried by those electromagnetic fields and transmitted over there. And then your system processed that, and then you look at your cell phone with your conscious awareness, and then you see, “Oh yeah, I see your grandson.” If you looked at the electromagnetic field, if you could look at it, like, “Whoop! There it goes from his cell phone,” you won’t find any child, any face, or any information at all. It’s just energy. That’s it. So if you’re looking for it inherently, is the image of my grandson or even the information of that image, can you find it in the electromagnetic field? You won’t. You won’t. It’s not there objectively. But at the same time we have to say the electromagnetic field carried the information. Otherwise how did it get from my cell phone to yours? But you look for it, you don’t find it.

[01:32:13.00] So the substrate consciousness is like that. The substrate consciousness that carries on from lifetime to lifetime—it’s carrying the information, your memories, karmic seeds, and all of that. But if you look into it, you don’t see it. So this is why it’s important not to reify. It’s not like spaghetti with a whole bunch of raisins embedded in it. You know, like, “Oh yeah, it’s storing them. It’s a storehouse consciousness, carrying a whole bundle, like a little train full of lots and lots of information.” You look into it, it’s not there, any more than there is information in there, there’s information in electromagnetic fields, or there is information in your cell phone. It’s not there. But bring a conscious awareness to it, and relative to your awareness of it, then the information, nominally speaking, is, “h, yeah, there is information. I just called it up, and yeah, it’s 6:04. We’re a little bit late for dinner, because I see it’s 6:04. There is information in my cell phone.”

[01:33:00.13] So it’s like that. Nominally speaking, in a manner of speaking, the memories are stored in the substrate consciousness. But not really. But were there no substrate consciousness, there would be no connection. There would be no coherence, no relationship between prior life and later life. And so what connects it? Stream of consciousness. You mean the information’s in there? Yeah, nominally. But if you look for it, you won’t find it. Where it gets so interesting, though, is you’re resting in the substrate consciousness. It’s hard for me to stop because everything is entangled, and it’s hard for me to put the guillotine down and say, “Okay, I just finished answering your question.” But I’m going to stop soon.

[01:33:42.10] When you’re resting in the substrate consciousness, what you’re aware of is the substrate, which is the sheer vacuity—open, boundless, with no center, no periphery. Sheer vacuity. It’s not emptiness. It’s not shunyata. It’s not ultimate truth. It’s just sheer vacuity. And that sheer vacuity is illuminated by the substrate consciousness, right? So when you’re just resting there, you’ve achieved shamatha, you’re just resting there in that just naturally flowing bliss, the luminosity, the nonconceptuality, very cognizant, but not cognizant of much. There’s not a whole lot happening, right? That flow of nonconceptual cognizance of knowing, you’re resting there, and you’re attending to this empty vacuity, the substrate, this field. You don’t see it populated by a bunch of information, like, “Wow, I’m sitting in the storehouse consciousness. There’s sure a lot of boxes in here.” It’s not like that at all. It’s empty. Right? It’s empty.

[01:34:40.09] But then, if you take that laser pointer of your attention and you focus it, out of that vacuity you see information. You see images. You have memories. You can have thought. You can have creativity. You’ve got a very powerful mind there. And so it’s an emptiness that’s not a sheer nothingness. That vacuity, that substrate is an emptiness that is brimming over with energy, brimming over with information. But you don’t see it just by looking at it. You have to bring attention to it and catalyze it. And then the information comes out of it. So that’s why nothing is lost, because you can have all the brain damage in the world, including having a hand grenade go off inside your head. That’s pretty major damage, I think. So in other words, the brain is no longer even a brain, it’s just, you know, organic matter in all directions. It doesn’t touch the seeds, because they weren’t stored there. They weren’t stored in the psyche that arises in dependence upon the brain. They’re not stored in the brain. Nominally speaking, they are stored in that substrate consciousness. And that substrate consciousness is, again, like a stem consciousness. It’s not yet configured as a human consciousness, let alone male or female, Hispanic or Anglo, but it’s ready to become anything. Ready to become anything. All it needs to do is become conjoined with some type of organism, let’s say animal or human, becomes conjoined with that, and then lo and behold, out of that stem consciousness emerges a configured consciousness, which we call a frog’s mind or a bird’s mind or a human mind. But of course, as soon as the material basis for that—the brain, the nervous system—as soon as that gets destroyed, that kind of mushroom, that effulgence of that particular mind dissolves back, and it goes into pure latency, pure potential. But the seeds are there. The memories can be retrieved. This is why the Buddha, on the night of his enlightenment, he said, “I recall the specific circumstances of life after life after life.” And that’s what was said just a few decades ago by this Drubwang Rinpoche: “I can remember all of them.” Staggers the imagination, right? But he’s tapping into that flow and then just directing his laser pointer where he will, and there it is. It’s all there.

[01:37:00.23] I really can’t even imagine a greater adventure than exploring the mind, and then that from which the mind emerges. And if it were just the substrate consciousness, that would be incredibly fascinating. But then when we see, oh no, that’s just the ground of samsara. That’s just the ground of your own continuum of samsara, one life after another. But you break through that—Oh! My goodness. Then you have just broken through time, broken through space. You’ve broken through all conceptual frameworks. Now you’ve really shattered, broken through. [01:37:36.26] Tregchö—you’ve cut through something that was very rigid and tough, shattered through that. And then you’ve gone, “Pow.”” Inconceivable. Inconceivable. The most marvelous thing here is that although it’s inconceivable, it’s not unknowable. That’s amazing.

[01:37:57.07] What shall we do with these few brief years or decades? What shall we do? So many even good things to do. There’s a whole bunch of rubbish that isn’t even worth doing at all, that has no significance at death, let alone that is bad. Then it’s even worse than a waste of time, because then you have those terrible seeds. So let alone all of that. But even in terms of good things to do. There’s such a myriad of good things to do that are worthwhile, that do have value at death. And the seeds from that will mature, our impact on the world is good.

[01:38:28.11] But especially I see this most searingly, most sharply in the Dzogchen teachings. Dudjom Lingpa especially—I keep on coming back to him, and you’ll hear a lot more about him. But I keep on coming back to him. And he said, you know, there are a myriad of physical virtues. Physical virtues. A myriad of verbal virtues, where speech is used in such benevolent, helpful, constructive ways. He said, “[Of] all the virtues, the virtues of the mind are the greatest virtues.”

And within the virtues of the mind, there is a wide variety of virtues that are caught in a dualistic framework of “subject over here, object over there,” and “I will do this for you,” you know, all of that. Many, many mental virtues that are locked into a conceptual grid, within the context of reified subject and object. Still virtues. Very good. But he said compared to those virtues, the virtues of knowing reality as it is, far transcends any mental virtue that’s operating within a nonlucid life of not knowing what’s going on and getting it wrong. So there’s clearly a sense of prioritization there. There are many virtues. But among them, the virtues of the mind being foremost. And within the virtues of the mind, knowing reality as it is and living accordingly, the greatest possible virtue. And that’s what lies in the palm of the hand right now.

So, dinnertime. See you tomorrow morning.

Transcribed by Melanie Erler

Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti

Final edition by Elmer Fan

Discussion

Ask questions about this lecture on the Buddhism Stack Exchange or the Students of Alan Wallace Facebook Group. Please include this lecture’s URL when you post.