62 Taking Responsibility for Skilfully Addressing Obscurations

B. Alan Wallace, 04 May 2016

Alan reminds us of Padmasambhava’s pith instruction that makes the path to enlightenment so easy - to observe one’s mind. However, for most people this is not sufficient to progress as we have obscurations, particularly conative obscurations that are difficult to be rid of as we are all so busy, despite that for many of us our survival isn’t dependent on such busyness. Alan reviews the operation of some of the types of obscurations including the conative; attentional including the categories of laxity and dullness and of excitation and anxiety; cognitive such as the acquired delusion of scientific materialism that prevents taking introspection seriously, and the conate delusions. In responding to the bias of modern science regarding these cognitive obscurations, Alan mentions some recent research that concludes insects are conscious and Alan congratulates New Zealand has passed a law or declaration that animals are sentient beings. These developments are welcome in that they represent an overturning of the hundreds of year’s old mesmerising idea of Descartes that animals don’t possess consciousness.

The last type of obscuration – a big one – that prevents our practice development is the emotional. If the emotional obscurations and imbalances can dominate during our wonderful retreat environment, then what will it be like when we return to our regular post-retreat lives? Alan illustrates the range of methods to address an obscuration involving depression. Good mindfulness-based researchers and therapists have discovered that for severe depression, meditation instruction is useless and only skilful psychiatry and use of antidepressant drugs can ameliorate the symptoms. Then once the symptoms are being well managed, the use of talk therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy are effective. However subsequent to depressive symptoms being reduced there can be a remaining prevalence of general unhappiness and anxiety. So then for someone exposed to Dharma the teachings of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) and Buddhaghosa’s Four Immeasurables provide a profound set of skilful means for addressing emotional obscurations. However it must be recognised that other than for the initial stage of treatment for severe depression, the responsibility for overcoming the emotional obscurations increasingly depends on the individual’s own development of skilful means. For the Dharma practitioner, the same approach to taking individual responsibility applies in taking adversity onto the path. Then with the practice of settling the mind in its natural state, one can simply rest in the stillness of one’s own awareness and watch the mind heal itself. Alan says that vipashyana meditation can be exhausting and stressful with its demanding questions. In going deeper into the practice there is an increasing need to broaden our base of relaxation.

The meditation practice is initially guided on returning to the still point via the foundations of shamatha by directing the light of awareness on the body and mind, attending to the breath continuously, and mostly grounding the awareness in the tactile sensations. As the conceptual turbulence of the mind gently subsides, then gradually slide the emphasis into primarily being aware of awareness and peripherally noting awareness of the breath.

After meditation, Alan says that we each uniquely bring our body and mind to the retreat, which means that we each have our own strengths and limitations. Our new base camp or default mode post-retreat should be one of more detail of attentiveness and quality of awareness of people and situations as presented without getting caught up in the mental afflictions.

Meditation starts at 26:00


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Transcript

Olaso. So, I keep on coming back to this pith instruction, the pointing out instruction from Padmasambhava where he makes the whole of Dzogchen, in fact the whole of the path to enlightenment sound so easy. Just observe your mind. Observe your mind. And I’ve reviewed already so I’ll only very now very briefly review, why for most people that’s just not sufficient. Because it’s like staring up into a cloud bank you know wanting to see the sun and just looking at a cloud bank and you can just kind of continue in that marmot like gaze for a very long time and actually not perceive because the obscurations are not being cut through. So a very very brief review. There are conative, these are formidable, I mean this is really what’s preventing most people from setting out on a spiritual path. Whether it’s a Christian contemplative path, or Taoist, or anything else conative, conative obscurations. It’s just not a priority. We’re so busy, people everywhere are busy. Busy busy busy busy and they’re busy with what they value and of course if it’s their survival is at stake, basic survival is at stake, then all we can have is compassion. I mean any sense of superiority is absolutely out of place. But then there are many of us for whom our survival is not at stake. You know. And yet we’re still busy busy busy as if you know our very life depended on you know completing this crossword puzzle, or this video game, or you know this that or the other thing. So conative, it’s an enormous obstacle. It gives rise to that type of (? 01:44 Tibetan phrase) it’s called. I’ve referred to it, that kind of laziness that’s fixated on worthless behavior, just pissing away time, killing time. So that’ll do it.

(01:54) One can spend a whole life always focused outwards thinking that’s where one’s all of one’s happiness lies. And that’s where all the sources of one’s suffering lies. And so hedonic fixation. That as you recall is the first of the five obscurations. Right? First of the five obscurations is conative. They were just too busy focusing elsewhere. And then the second one, the attentional, we see two. Two of the five obscurations are there. Right. Laxity and dullness, excitation and anxiety, so there they are. That’s the attentional. And then the cognitive I commented first of all that there are acquired delusions such as belief in scientific materialism. That prevents one ever from getting around to introspecting, to looking within because it seems to be impossible or illegitimate or completely misleading. And then there’s the connate type of delusions which can also be a major obscuration. The, but the bias of modern science altogether and it’s a very understandable bias. But they’re building on success and how can one blame anybody for doing that. But I was sent an article this morning that gave a synopsis of a paper just submitted and published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science where two scientists, brain scientists, having identified regions or activities in the interior of the human brain that seem to be correlated with consciousness. Then they studied insects brains and they found that in insects there is an interior of the insects brains generically it seems show some activity correspond neurologic activity corresponding to the neurological activity of the interior of human brains. And therefore the conclusion of the paper was, insects are conscious.

(03:54) Yeah. First of all I want to congratulate New Zealand. Where’s where’s Kathy? There’s Kathy. I’m serious, I’m not being sarcastic. I want to congratulate New Zealand because my wife sends me these nuggets, this was the nugget for this morning. New Zealand has recently apparently made a law or made a the government of New Zealand made a declaration that animals are sentient beings. (whistles) Good! Good! Why it took them until 2016 to come to that conclusion, not so clear, but it certainly beats Descartes. Who’s mesmerized modernity for 400 years now saying animals are not sentient beings. They are not conscious. And the delirium from that really has ramifications, echoes all the way through the 20th century. So, it’s wonderful and you know no sarcasm, not even any irony intended or implied. That a country has acknowledged that animals are sentient beings. It’s good, big step in the right direction.

(04:59) So, but the notion that so this paper on insects are conscious, that’s also good. It’s also good. It’s annoying, because it would be so convenient to think that animals aren’t sentient beings. So then you could clean up all the ants with a sponge and swat flies and all of that. If they were, I mean, in a way I kind of wish they were because I would like to swat those ants too. (laughter) I mean it’s so much easier. I don’t know if they’re invading your room but they’re all over the place in mine. You know. (continued laughing) And my reptilian brain wants to go (sound) (laughing). Lunch. And then my frontal cortex which is well trained in Buddhism says Hi Mom. Hi Mom. (retreatants laughing) I’m going to protect you, going to protect you, do my very best. Take care. So, the Buddhist side is winning for the time being. But one understands you know that well understands why one might prefer to think that they’re not sentient beings and yet you know if they walk and they act and behave like sentient beings then it is a pretty logical conclusion even if you don’t know the brain correlate. But where the, this synopsis of this PNAS article concluded was that well it seems that because they have comparable neurological activity to human beings and we human beings know we’re conscious therefore they must be conscious too. It’s reasonable logic. I think they’re right in fact.

(06:32) But what’s interesting here is, they said and now that we’ve discovered this we want to probe much more deeply into insects brains and maybe we can then gain, shed light on the origins of human consciousness. (laughter) You know this reminds me of you know the people, Stephen Hawking and his wealthy colleague that want to spend 100 million dollars sending a rocket outer space to find some aliens who can tell us who we are. You know. Maybe they can tell us about the origins of humans, of consciousness and the human mind and you know. When we find them. So the fixation on looking outwards is really intense. They’d rather spend a 100 million dollars on a rocket that might bump into a UFO with whom they might have a conversation, and the and the extraterrestrial will tell us who we are. They’d rather spend, than just sit in their room and turn their awareness inwards. You know. And they’d rather study insect brains rather than actually examining consciousness to see maybe that would shed some light on its origins. You know. And what was quite remarkable about this synopsis was that the author of the synopsis said, it still seems highly unlikely that insects or even other animals are self reflective, self aware, that is they’re aware of being aware. You know. Acknowledge that and then said and now let’s go study those insects brains to figure out the nature and origins of consciousness.

(08:08) It really does sound like a joke like why aren’t you just looking at consciousness? You know. So, it’s a cognitive, it’s a cognitive obscuration that either refuses to acknowledge that introspection is possible at all which Daniel Dennett and many others say. Even John Searle says which is remarkable because he insists on the ontological primacy of consciousness that it can’t simply be reduced to brain activity. And yet he completely throws out introspection. It’s amazing the double think there. So, either refuting that it’s possible to look inwards. But even John Searle acknowledges it is possible to be aware of aware and then refutes introspection. It’s really very strange. If you’re unintelligent it would be very simple and easy but he’s not unintelligent. But then the much more widespread view of Anne Treisman, very very fine cognitive scientist at Princeton and she’s representative. I’m not picking on her. She’s representative of her whole discipline. And that is introspection, well it’s completely misleading. As is subjective experience altogether, visual perception and so forth completely misleading. Consists of illusions illusions illusions and therefore not to be relied upon. And so if it either doesn’t exist or even if it does it’s completely unreliable, will not give rise to any valid discovery. Then let’s get back to studying insects brains. And hoping some extra terrestrial can tell us who we are. You know.

(09:40) So, briefly there cognitive, there are acquired and there are conate obscurations conatively, cognitively, cognitively but there’s one more I think we’re already familiar already very very familiar with a third type of obscuration that really gets in the way of us being able to probe deeply inwardly and fathoming the very nature of let’s say the substrate consciousness, the very empty nature of consciousness itself and let alone finally pristine awareness. There’s one more type of obscuration. One more type of big barche, big obstacle that’s not simply conative, attentional or cognitive. Anything spring to mind? (responses inaudible) Thank you. Yeah you know my work, yeah. Emotional. The fourth. And is it not true. I have been listening to 36 of you on a regular basis and what I often hear is emotional stuff coming up. You know. I had a really bad day, I got really upset. I got really blissed out. I got really depressed. I got anxious. I received some news from home that really upset me. If that’s happening here in retreat when we’re pretty isolated frankly in a very congenial environment with very nice people and wonderful staff and so forth. If our minds are going topsy turvy in this type of environment I just want to remind you that three weeks from now you won’t be here anymore. And it probably won’t be as serene.

(11:05) So, emotional, emotional obscurations, emotional imbalances we all know what it’s like that you just you try to sit down practice shamatha and you say forget about it. I just I’m not even I can’t even pretend, my mind is just going, it’s just pulled every which way. It’s like a little paper cup out in a hurricane on the high seas, just pooh pooh pooh pooh. There’s no lighthouse in sight, just a little paper cup going blub blub blub blub. And so then that’s a big obstacle you say well you know, I can’t meditate. I can’t meditate. If this is true now then what is it going to be like when we leave here. You know. Where life is a lot rougher. Can’t meditate, l can’t meditate, my mind is too upset by pretty much anything. But emotional here they are emotional afflictions, emotional disturbances. People, studies done of people with very severe and acute depression. There are very fine studies John Teasdale’s, Zindel Segal and Mark Williams at Oxford University. And they’re very fine people I think all of them very keen on mindfulness based stress reduction and mindfulness based cognitive behavioral therapy. And they I think very compassionately concerned with how do you help people who are severely depressed? Hands pressed, thank you. I have no expertise there. And that what they have found, it’s no surprise, but it’s an important finding, is that when people are suffering from severe and chronic, especially acute acute severe depression you can teach them meditation all you like they won’t be able to do it. They just forget it. You know. It’s like if you know tie a two hundred pound weight to somebody’s ankles and say now try swimming here’s how, here’s how you do the breaststroke, here’s the back stroke and here’s the Australian crawl.

(13:00) Well, that’s all very fine. You can be the best swimming instructor in the world but if they’ve got two hundred pounds of weight around their ankles it doesn’t matter what you say. Right. I think that’s a pretty close analogy. And so a person like me, then is quite useless. Because you know quite useless. I don’t even know talk therapy. But even talk therapy may not be so helpful. So for such people then antidepressants may be the most helpful thing for them. At least manage the symptoms so they don’t want to commit suicide. So they’re not completely debilitated by the depression. Bring in the anti depressants and let it be you know administered, prescribed by a highly skilled psychiatrist who knows which of them. There are so many of them. But which might be most effective. And then watch to see if it’s effective. To go ahead and shoot the messenger, ameliorate, diminish, calm these acute debilitating awful awful symptoms of severe depression. Thank you. I have nothing to say except for thank you. You know. But I can’t help there that’s for the people who have this expertise which generally Buddhadharma teachers don’t have. But then once they have done their work and the depression is no longer severe and acute, it’s more moderate, then talk therapy may be the most helpful route. I think it is the most helpful route that can actually lead to healing, overcoming, being free of depression and not simply systematically and perpetually suppressing it with drugs. So, that’s where I think highly trained psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, psychotherapists really are doing an enormous service. And they have skill sets, that Buddhadharma teachers generally don’t have. Some are both, I’m not. But they are really, then they’re really helping to get to the root of the cause and they’re speaking subject to subject human being to human being, a compassionate therapist to someone who is really in need of compassion and wisdom. So, that’s really wonderful. Right.

(15:03) And then if things are really getting pretty well managed with that, maybe you don’t need therapy maybe just once in a while a little check up, but you’re pretty well coping but still not very happy, maybe depressed, bit anxious but you know you really are managing, you don’t stand out. Then teachings like what we find in the Bodhicaryavatara, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life by Shantideva, oh so many methods. It’s a whole pharmacopeia, whole array truly of really skillful means. Budhagosa’s teachings on the Four Immeasurables if you really go to his source there. Ah so brilliant. Especially, I mean just so brilliant. So, there’s from the Theravada tradition. Classic from the Indian Mahayana tradition, classic there’s so much wisdom there that maybe you know one might explore in conjunction with a therapist, especially one who is familiar with Buddhism or contemplative practice and go deeper and deeper. And be more and more self reliant. So, when you’re relying on drugs you have no self reliance, you’re relying entirely on your psychiatrist and the pharmaceutical industry. I mean you’re completely disempowered, but you’re already disempowered, they didn’t disempower you, but there’s nothing I can do at all, please let me open my mouth swallow the drug and hopefully that will help. So, for the time being the subject is completely disempowered and there’s utter reliance on taking refuge in the psychiatrist and the pharmaceutical industry. But then when you get your head above water so to speak, then you may take refuge in your psychotherapist and get some good talk therapy. But then you know you’re taking responsibility. Isn’t it the case the subject the patient the client has to you know now we’re dealing with you as an intelligent capable human being that’s suffering. But you’re not going to just get the healing you know like throwing a rock at somebody. Oh, thank you, you hit me I’m feeling better. It’s not going to be just the therapist makes you better, you have to be participating.

(16:56) You have to be involved. You have to be taking responsibility and participating in an intelligent creative conversation to get to the root of the depression. Was that okay? Because we have a professional psychotherapist here with decades of experience.

(17:10) So, and but then similarly if you’re going to Dharma teaching you know one of the wonderful geshes here at Lama Tsong Khapa Institute and elsewhere, dharma teachers all over the place, whether Theravada, Mahayana and of course outside the Buddhist tradition. Then this can be more group therapy. You know it doesn’t have to be one on one. You know. Okay I’ll sit down with you teach Bodhicaryavatara, okay you’re finished now I’ll teach you Bodhicaryavatara, that can be group. And then once again it’s really obvious you’re not going to just be healed by Shantideva or by the book or by the lama or the Buddhist teacher. The teacher is revealing to you, showing you the methods where you can now take more responsibility. So, no responsibility basically when you’re just taking the drug, more responsibility when you’re dealing with a therapist, more personal responsibility when you’re acting as a dharma practitioner. And knowing that now I need to recognize when anger arises, when craving, jealousy arises and I’m going to apply these antidotes from Shantideva and so forth. And I’m going to change my mind. I’m going to modify my mind. I’m going to transform adversity onto the path. Seven point mind training not just transform it into the path but when adversity comes along that’s going to be my vehicle. I’m going to hop the adversity came along and kidnapped me anyway. Okay thanks for the ride now I’m going to ride to, where I want to go, rather than where you want to go, because you want to go around in circles and just keep me in that loop forever. And I’m going to take the same car adversity and I’m going to drive it. I’m in the driver’s seat now and I’m going to take adversity onto the path and go to liberation instead of just more suffering. So, now more responsibility on the side of the individual.

(18:49) And then we have settling the mind in its natural state. Where the same emotions are coming up, the same ones, anger, sadness, despair, anxiety, low self esteem, and so forth and so on. The same ones are coming up. But imagine the spectrum where the person starts out with acute and severe depression gets the necessary drugs to handle it then goes for talk therapy gets a lot of benefit, doesn’t need the talk therapy so much maybe just once in a while, goes to Bodhicaryavatara for example, Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, drenches the mind in that, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey again. I remember this so clearly because he taught us this back in 1972 after finishing the Lam Rim, he spent oh eight months or so with a detailed line by line, verse by verse clarification of the whole text. It was brilliant. And when around the time he finished at least we were well into the text he said to us, it was in the one year course there were just eight of us in this course 1972. He said, if you, if you are practicing Bodhicaryavatara, and you can’t see some really beneficial change and greater happiness and diminishing of mental afflictions by engaging in the practice of this text, you should just take your mind out and hit it with a rock. (laughing) Bad mind. Bad mind.

(20:11) And Kathy, I think it must be that you gave me the photo of him. That just, that was absolutely him. There’s, I would like to show it to everybody. But shows him debating in the annual debate. Did everybody see it? Okay, Kathy has it. It shows him in the every year around New Years, then in the main temple, I’m rambling a bit here but this is so much fun. In the main temple in Dharamsala, then they would have an annual debate with hundreds of monks attending and then some lay people coming in as observers/spectators. The Dalai Lama would be there, because this is, but it’s not an empty ritual. It’s a real debate. It’s kind of highest level intellectual entertainment. So, then His Holiness will follow everything. Every point of the debate, and then the learned geshes will follow everything, the lesser will follow a good deal of it, and then the lay people will basically say wow, they are really smart. They won’t be able to follow it much. But you see the look on Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey face. I mean it was just, it’s him. When I think of him there’s this, he’s debating and I can’t see who he’s debating with but I think I know, he was my other teacher, Gen Laso Gyatso. Gen Laso Gyatso, the abbot of the Buddhist School of Dialectics. So, I trained under both of them extensively. And they were like you know creme de la creme of debaters. Top notch scholars who had mastered the art of debate in Dharamsala. So they were called and they’re doing this debate. Well, it’s not just a ritual they’re going at it, but you look at Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, this is the face I can see because Gen Laso Gyatso is hidden I think in the photo. You look at Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey and he has this smile on his face that it looks like he’s about to burst with joy. And he’s going (Alan makes a facial expression) this is so much fun. And there’s my other teacher and he too, I know his face, even though I can’t see it, (Alan makes a facial expression for Gyatso) give me your best shot. (laughter) You know, that’s the flavor of debate.

(22:07) In the Tibetan tradition among the really you know the really good ones. It’s joyful. It’s light. You make a mistake you get, kkkwww, and you know and it’s and you keep moving it’s moving and it’s delightful. So, that really, that was wonderful to see. That’s intellectual tradition of Tibetan Buddhism I think at its best. It’s so sharp. It’s so joyful and it’s just permeated by compassion. Really. No deviation. But it’s very competitive. You want to win the debate. But you’re debating with somebody who you so respect and you love and admire that whoever wins it’s going to be fine. You know. So, that’s that.

(22:54) Coming back very briefly then to the emotional obscurations that get in the way of our seeing who we really are. Of fully, I was going to say exploit, but I don’t like that word, utilizing our ability of self awareness which was referred to in this article on insect brains without ever suggesting that we might actually use that. You know, that’s so bizarre. But the emotional. Finally drugs, talk therapy, Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, settling the mind in its natural state where you’ve had this sufficient the preparation. You’ve done the ngondro the preliminary practices maybe starting with drugs. If that’s where you were five years ago that’s where you were. Fine. And you got benefit from it. And then you stopped doing it. And you look beyond it. And it’s good talk therapy, you didn’t need it you stopped doing it. And then you do Bodhicaryavatara until at least you can take a break from that and then you settle the mind in its natural state. And then whatever comes up you don’t apply any of that wonderful wisdom from Shantideva who is synthesizing an enormous amount of wisdom from the whole Mahayana tradition. You don’t use any of it. You just say this little light of mine I’m going to let it shine. (laughing) That’s what I learned when I was in school. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. And you just watch your mind heal all by itself without grasping without distraction.

(24:16) You watch the mind heal. Or after awhile you say yeah I can see the minds healing, good for you mind knock yourself out. Do it. But why don’t you just do it by yourself. (laughter) Because I just I just I just want to rest right here. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, I’m going to be that shine. I’m going to be that shine shine. Just rest there and let the mind solve itself out. Work itself out. Release itself out. So, we’re going to continue of course in the afternoon’s with vipassana within the pyramid of relaxation, stability, and vividness. It’s all about vividness. It’s all about vividness. This is why it can be so exhausting and stressful. This is why philosophy is exhausting and stressful because it’s all vividness. There’s no calm or relaxation in philosophy. Modern philosophy very stressful. This is very stressful. The vipassana, the kind of questions posing here, it’s demanding, it’s hard. It doesn’t come easily. It doesn’t come naturally. And so it easily makes it a bit hyper, a bit edgy, or even irritable. And so keep on coming back. So the higher we go with vipassana the sharper the edge of vipassana what I would suggest is deepen and broaden the base of the pyramid. Relaxation, relaxation, relaxation. And on that note let’s go to meditation.

(25:50) Meditation begins, bell rings three times.

(26:26) As an expression of loving kindness for yourself and with a deeper motivation of bodhicitta settle your body, speech and mind in their natural states.

(27:46) Keep returning to that still point the culmination of this process so it’s familiar, it’s home, you can rest there at ease, relaxed still and clear without an object, without doing anything.

(29:25) But now let’s return to the foundations of shamatha. Tilling the soil ever more deeply, cultivating a deeper and deeper sense of ease, of relaxation, of looseness in body and mind, without losing the clarity with which we began. So, direct the light of your awareness which is to say simply focus your attention on the entire field of the body, from the soles of the feet up to the crown of the head. Let your awareness permeate, saturate the entire field. Let it be the center of your attention, the primary focus, the field, the tactile sensations arising throughout the field and then more specifically those fluctuations you can identify anywhere in the field that are clearly correlated with the inhalation and exhalation. Attend to them, noting with each in and out breath whether it is long or short. Very simple. But do so continuously.

(31:32) Stillness and motion. We return to this theme in this very grounded way, the stillness of your awareness in a simple non conceptual, non verbal, non referential movements of energy throughout the body corresponding to the respiration. Rest in the stillness of your awareness while attending to the movements within the body. Relaxing deeply releasing deeply with every out breath, releasing thoughts, releasing the breath, releasing tension within the body.

(33:55) You may continue this session if you like beginning with the primary emphasis, like 95% emphasis, on really grounding your awareness in these tactile sensations. They’re relatively stable, relatively predictable you’re bringing your awareness down from the head down into the torso down to the ground. Very calming, soothing, stabilizing with just something like 5% resting in the awareness of awareness. So this approach is very helpful for deepening the sense of ease and stability, the stillness of the mind. As you flood the space of the mind with the non conceptual, non verbal fluctuations within the somatic field. This quiets the mind quite quickly. Takes you out of your head, out of your emotions. But then over the course of time as the mind does calm the conceptual turbulence of the mind gently subsides. And at your own pace when you feel like it you may slide the emphasis away from the objective pole to the subjective pole as you become more and more interested in and focused on your subjective experience of being aware, your experience of the tactile sensations within the body seem a bit more distant, like watching your flock of sheep out on an open plain. As you have that inner calm, that inner stillness, then you may if you wish, continue to slide towards the center 80% resting in the awareness of being aware and then only 20% peripherally. Just noting the rhythm of the in and out breath. This then is the Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing with a primary emphasis on resting in awareness of awareness and only peripherally taking note of, keeping in touch with, the rhythm of the breath, arousing with each in breath, relaxing with each out breath. Let’s continue practicing in silence.

(49:51) Meditation ends, bell rings three times.

(50:21) Olaso. So, all of us here in Tuscany, each of us uniquely of course brings our own uniquely configured body mind, the unique crystal, the snowflake, that makes each of us unique. Which means that each of us will bring certain strengths where none of us consists of only limitations, we’ll bring unique strengths to this that no one else in the group will have. And we’ll bring also limitations or obstacles, that’s the way it is. So we’ll not be progressing or developing in the same way. It doesn’t make any sense that we would. But the common ground for all of the diversity of the people here. Something that’s shared with all of us, we’re all living in 2016 and this is a stressful time to be alive. A stressful world to be alive in. Inundated with information, with tasking, with busyness and so on we all know it well. These are hard times and hard times for our children and in my case grand children to grow up, this is normal? They’re growing up in this is normal? To grow into this? That’s really tough. Really tough. And for many of them in the United States, Europe, Russia, Communist China no notion of dharma at all. Religion is superstition, religions bunk, religions cause of warfare, bad bad. I understand. I understand. But then there’s no dharma.

(51:52) And so the common ground is if what comes out of this eight weeks together, now three weeks remaining if what comes out of this is nothing more than creating a new pattern, a new ground state, a new default mode, of a sense of ease in the body and mind without getting dull, spaced out. A simple sense of presence, an inner calm, relaxed, attentive aware of what’s going on in the body and mind without being swept away by every current. And as we step out of this retreat setting in three weeks, aware of more vividly with more detail than most of us have right now. What’s going on in the world around us generally? And then in our own more closer environment, our family, friends, places that we’ll be returning to. If we can bring to that more complex environment where mental afflictions are often not even recognized as mental afflictions, they’re simply regarded as human nature. Which means nothing you can do about it really. Just don’t try to be excessive. You know. Don’t be too human. When we step into that environment if we can come with a renewed sense or get a new default mode, a new base camp, call it whatever you like, of being very attentive to those around us and situations around us without getting caught up in everybody else’s drama. Without withdrawing into disassociation, removal, isolationism the extreme of quiessence it’s called in Buddhism, but right there in the middle. Exactly this quality of awareness that we’re bringing to the space of the body and the fluctuations there and the same quality of awareness we bring to the space of the mind and the fluctuations there.

(53:54) Attentive. But then unlike the fluctuations within the body which are not sentient beings, there is nobody looking back. Right. And unlike these appearances and impulses in the mind that we attend to and nobody’s looking back. There’s no reason to ever be ridiculous categorical error to feel compassion for your thoughts, your emotions, your desires, that would be silly. That would be like feeling compassion for a glass of water. You know, silly. Misplaced. Right. So unlike the appearances arising in the body and unlike the appearances arising in the mind as we step out and engage with other sentient beings, there’s no question, in my mind there’s no question, we are attending to sentient beings by way of those appearances. And the appearances are not sentient beings. Appearances arising in the space of my mind as I attend to everyone here, those appearances are not sentient beings and they are arising in the space of my mind. But, by way of these appearances it is certainly true when you gaze into somebody else’s eyes they’re gazing back. Right. And that’s not an appearance to your mind. There’s more going on than appearances to the mind. There’s more going on than objects. Yeah. So I think it’s wonderful that New Zealand just acknowledged that animals are looking back. It might give us pause, to alter the cruelty. Enjoy your day.

Transcribed by KrissKringle Sprinkle

Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti

Final edition Rafael Carlos Giusti

Discussion

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