B. Alan Wallace, 06 May 2016

This morning, Alan integrated all theories and practices we’ve been doing during these last five weeks. He started by coming back to the pith instructions from Panchen Rinpoche yesterday: examine very closely the way of existing or the way of abiding, the way you appear and the way you apprehend yourself. And then he explained that the way of abiding and the way of appearing are different things, giving two examples: (1) Robert de Niro, as a very gifted actor, appears in many different ways - a villain, a loving father, a father in law - but there is a certain way of his acting that abides as his trademark; (2) fire manifests in many ways - red, yellow, blue, torch, candle, supernova - and yet, it’s always hot, burning. We ourselves appear in many different ways even in one lifetime, let alone in many lifetimes - some very agreeable, pleasant and others just repugnant. But in all cases, what is the common denominator? What is abiding, every single day, in all of our manifestations, from the most angelical to the most demonic? What is abiding in each of us individually? In a dream, there is nothing but the appearances of our own minds - what is the commonality? And then, Alan related this to Loving Kindness. Like in a lucid dream, but in the waking state, when you’re a vidyadhara, viewing all phenomena from rigpa, all sentient beings you see are you - all sentient beings, in the whole spectrum, from hell realms to pure lands, are creative expressions, effulgences of your own pristine awareness - all beings are seen with equal purity as displays of yourself. Alan highlighted one element of Buddhaghosa’s analysis of the Four Immeasurables as enormously important to anyone who wishes to more deeply and more broadly experience loving kindness - what is the proximate cause, what is that triggers, catalyses, arouses the sense of loving kindness? It is seeing the lovable quality, the lovableness, the endearing quality, the quality of the other that makes the person worthy of affection, of warmth, of love, of loving kindness. Alan says that we should memorize this for the rest of our lives. If we don’t see that, we may go through the routine and we can behave altruistically without being altruistic. Shantideva highlighted that the six perfections are always an inside job, they are qualities of the mind, not qualities of behavior - what we see externally is only the manifestation of that. Where is the lovable quality? What abides? If we point any of the greatest villains of history, they are never grotesque all the time - think of one of those people when he or she was 3 years old, and maybe falling in love, or tending a garden. Nobody can be that constant and nor can we. We can get in really bad moods but not all the time. So where is the lovable quality? If our loving kindness is going to be based upon the way of appearance, then it is going to be a fair-weather loving kindness. It will never be immeasurable loving kindness if it’s responding to “how are you appearing today?” It can’t be that way. It has to be something deeper - the way of abiding. In the Mahayana tradition we have two routes - Maitreya / Asanga and Manjushri / Shantideva. Viewing all beings as our own mothers works very well for people who believes in reincarnation and also that all beings were our mothers in past lives, but in the West it may not work so well. Even if we accept, it can get very abstract. So there is this other route. Shantideva starts out arousing the sense of the equality of self and other, proceeding to Tonglen and so forth. Then we come back to Panchen Rinpoche teachings, the wisdom track, examining close how you abide - what is constant from moments of your worst behavior and your most sublime behavior? Those are all appearances, come and go - what abides through the course of your life? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed to it: our deepest impulse is caring. In the most sublime and worst moods you’re doing what you’re doing because you care, and that’s hardwired, you can’t change that. Our consciousness will still be caring even in the bardo, and it’s a common ground. Sometimes the way we express our caring is very harmful, very biased. But caring is right down to the core of buddha nature. The Buddha achieved enlightenment, stood up from his seat in Bodhgaya and set out in his long walk because of caring. Europeans went to Africa in the XIX Century, enslaving, killing, torturing because they cared about their families, not about the Blacks, of course. But when we see a person expressing caring without being disfigured on the way out we say: look! This person is so caring! And when a person like this comes to mind, loving kindness comes, because it is a lovable quality. And then we see other behavior that is still driven by caring but it has got toxified and we find it horrendously evil. But it’s coming from the same. So Alan wrapped up. We can develop loving kindness in shamatha, achieve shamatha by way of loving kindness - it is a loving shamatha, we achieve shamatha in a subjective mode of viewing that is loving. Alan gave the example of a mother gazing at her child sleeping peacefully, and then love, warmth, caring flow effortlessly. She may just linger there. She doesn’t need to think ‘may you be happy, may you find the causes of happiness’! All techniques are really to bring forth what she’s already got, she’s already resting in shamatha in loving kindness, for some minutes. Then, she looks to another bed in the room and her child’s best friend is there for sleep over. And this child is so similar to her child, equally precious, and naturally gazing to this child, loving kindness is there. Maybe she goes to the window and looks people walking up and down the street and loving kindness is flowing there. And then she sits quietly, with nobody in mind, and she can still dwell in loving kindness. Whoever should come to mind is already a recipient. She has really broken down the barriers - someone who has treated her harshly comes to mind and she sees right through the mode of appearance to the mode of existence. And this person too is worthy of loving kindness. It’s a matter of depth. Caring is always the common ground and it is deeper than the outer displays, which are like the weather - they come and go. Loving kindness is rooted deeper in reality. Now merging vipashyana with loving kindness: can we direct our awareness inwards and see someone who is worthy of loving kindness? Yes! We can penetrate through the myriad modes of appearances to the way we deeply abide, and we see it’s just pure caring, and we are deeply caring persons, everyone is, and therefore lovable. Robert de Niro, Buddhaghosa, Panchen Rinpoche - shamatha, vipashyana, loving kindness, bodhicitta - all the same story.

Meditation is on loving kindness towards what abides in ourselves and starts at 41:08


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(00:03) Olaso. So this morning I’d like to be a weaver, to integrate more fully really actually all the aspects of the theories and practice that we’ve been doing over the last five or six weeks. Let’s return very briefly to the end of that pith instruction from Panchen Rinpoche yesterday. He doesn’t have a whole lot to say here as he’s guiding us into the vipassana on the nature of the self but he says examine very carefully, analyze closely with mindfulness with clarity the way of existing, the way of existing. Well it’s gnas lugs or gnas tshul the way of abiding, the way of remaining. Gnas means all of those and then snang tshul is easy, the way you appear. And then how do you apprehend, how do you apprehend yourself? I want to return there because the way of abiding and the way of appearing I would say are somewhat different. We’re going to go back to some familiar analogies from yesterday. Robert De Niro I think that it’s very widely accepted he’s a very fine actor very gifted and he’s manifested that through a great number of films over the years in which he’s played a wide variety of roles. He’s not always equally excellent but he’s very gifted and he’s always very gifted and he has been since the early age I think we agree on that okay. And so if you see from from scene to scene from but more importantly from one movie to the next the role he’s playing those are how he appears here is a villain, here is a loving father, here is a kooky father and uh you know father-in-law or what have you. But homogeneously across that board there’s a certain way of his acting that I think a real connoisseur should recognize. This is some in these different ways of appearing these are some of his trademarks his characteristics even though he may manifest in many different roles, which he does of course.

(01:56) Take one other example fire, fire. Fire sometimes red sometimes yellow it’s blue is a blowtorch it’s a candle it’s supernova it’s a kerosene lamp it manifests in many many many ways right clearly and in intensity of its heat of course some fires hotter than other fire but then if we ask so that’s that’s how fire appears in many many different ways and yet Robert De Niro is not different people. He’s not he’s not a woman here and although he was a young man in this role and he was an old man in that role middle age in that role but nevertheless he’s never a popsicle or a chipmunk. There’s some things that are abiding and that’s what you can see and then if you want to judge his career as a whole then you would take that what is that common thread right. And likewise in all of the manifestations of fire it’s always hot, it’s always burning right. If it’s not that then it’s not fire then it’s a popsicle or a chipmunk right. And so bringing this home now we ourselves appear in many different ways, each of us here right. Even in one lifetime, let alone from lifetime to lifetime which is clearly the big picture then we have the full spectrum, full spectrum from being you know demonic diabolical hell being, or a vicious serial killer to angelic and so forth you know in past lives we’ve covered, we’ve covered the spectrum, everybody has. Gauthama before he became enlightened before he stepped out on the path he covered the whole spectrum. So we’re all full spectrum sentient beings but in one of course in one lifetime, well no I think nobody here has been a serial killer and so forth and so on, nevertheless we have a pretty big broadband, bandwidth, yes, a bandwidth of how we’re appearing, how we appear from day to day situation to situation. Sometimes very mean-spirited some so generous sometimes hostile and vindictive and sometimes gentle and kind and so forth and so on so we appear in many different ways right.

(04:05) And in terms of our appearances some very agreeable for all of us here very agreeable very pleasant endearing and other times just repugnant, you know like ohh I can’t stand you, your behavior, the way you appear, the way you act, the way you’re thinking, the way you’re talking, yech, you know. At least that’s I’m talking first-person here and yet where is the common denominator? What’s the way of abiding? What abides just for one individual in one lifetime? What can you see as here’s Robert De Niro in this role as a young man and here he is and here he is here he, is but definitely you can recognize him right. There’s something common the way of abiding something that abides through and I’m speaking about him just as an actor not as in role as a father a husband a grandfather and so forth and so on. That’s something outside, I’m just giving that that bandwidth of him as an actor and here we are as sentient beings as human being this is the role we’re playing in this particular lifetime but within that of course while he is an actor he might not have been always an actor maybe he had a profession before then I don’t know. But here we are as human beings but within that context as human beings what is abiding? What is abiding? That every single day in all of our manifestations from the most angelic to the most demonic and vindictive and so forth, what’s abiding? What’s abiding right? And I’m going to relate this now to loving-kindness. But one fast last comment on that point when we speak of gnas lugs, gnas lugs, or gnas tshul, tshul, lugs means something very similar way of, mode of, we can speak of ultimate and relative. Ultimate is easy, it’s empty of inherent nature. That’s easy and that’s whether you’re a popsicle a chipmunk or human being or Robert De Niro, empty of inherent nature were finished it’s easy right.

(06:04) But then we have the relative gnas lugs, the relative way of abiding and then we have a lot of differences, a lot of differences. From one human being to one sentient being to another and so on. So what’s abiding? What’s abiding? Now on this relative level which is where all the tremendous diversity is, the richness, the range, the color because emptiness is simple as emptiness of inherent nature right. But in terms of the manifest level, the relative level, phenomenal level, what is abiding? That’s an interesting question I think to examine as we as we introspectively examine our own presence here on the planet and throughout the course of our lives, what is abiding in each of us individually? I find so interesting dreams and especially lucid dreams where when you’re in the midst of a lucid dream, you are viewing everyone in the dream, let’s say from the perspective of the substrate consciousness because that’s where you just came from. You know if you’re in deep dreamless sleep and you’re lucid and then you come from lucid dreamless sleep into a lucid dream you’re just born awake like a tulku into that dream. Then and you then you just see from the first person you see yourself or somebody else from the first person you see from that perspective that’s not caught up and absorbed into, with cognitive fusion, into any of the persona within the dream you’re viewing every person including the one that you’re kind of identifying with here but not too seriously because you’re lucid and everyone else. You know something about every person there, every person there, they’re all you. There are no intruders, nobody hopped the fence and jumped into your substrate right. They’re all you and so welcome to yourself in the broad bandwidth.

(08:06) Maybe you have a long and very rich dream in which there are villains and there are heroes and gorgeous people and disgustingly ugly people and and there are you know, let’s just stick with people for the time being, human beings let alone animals and devas and other spirits and so on. But to view all of them and see what but to recognize simply what’s obvious from that perspective it’s just obvious, there’s no one who jumped into my dream here who is not me who is not an expression of my substrate consciousness. And moreover they’re all equally me. I’d like to think the nicer ones are more me than the nastier ones but they’re all equally me right. Because there’s no, there’s nothing coming from outside. Again it’s not only no no nobody else jumps into the dream but there are no extraneous influences like I was having this dream and then I got some of Amy’s cooties came in and and she influenced some of my characters. It wasn’t really me it was hers you know. Well that’s silly it’s silly you know if we have cooties there are cooties if you don’t speak American English I’m sorry. Cooties means like something yucky disgusting get girls have them, according to young boys. But that’s interesting though isn’t it, within the dream you’re viewing, everybody you’re viewing is yourself, it’s a society of your mind to use Marvin Minsky’s term. But literally it’s populated only by reflections refracted and like like light refracted like these are all refracted appearances of yourself and no one else. That’s interesting. So, to develop loving-kindness within a dream would be to see the commonality between all these appearances and knowing that in fact they are all you.

(10:01) From the waking state, from the waking state our waking state if you view if you if you’re a vidyadhara and you’re resting in rigpa right you’re resting in rigpa, you’re a vidyadhara so that’s your job now, your job is no job. Your job is not doing, your job is simply dwelling free of activity without activating your sentient being mind, this particular sentient being mind. You’re simply viewing all phenomena from the perspective of rigpa. That’s where you have open presence right, viewing from ripga, that’s the dzogchen view. From that perspective all sentient beings you see, are you. All sentient beings are expressions, creative expressions, effulgences of and here’s the emphasis, of your own pristine awareness. Not God as somebody else, not Buddha Shakyamuni or Buddha Maitreya, no nobody jumped the fence into your Dharmadhatu and into your into your rigpa. They’re all equally and without exception nothing other than displays of your own rigpa. And that goes for the most vile people who have ever manifested on planet earth, and there are some pretty vile ones we know. As well as everybody the whole spectrum from hell realms to pure lands and they’re all equally with equal purity, equal purity, equal purity seen as displays of yourself. So we recall a quote that I’ve already cited in our notes for this retreat from Dudjom Lingpa, that is Padmasambhava, the Vajra Essence, saying that rigpa is ultimate bodhicitta. Realize rigpa, view reality from the perspective of rigpa you are viewing reality from the perspective of ultimate bodhicitta and relative bodhicitta spontaneously emerges from that. You do not need to look elsewhere to generate in some contrived dualistic grasping kind of way, bodhicitta. If you’ve tapped into rigpa it comes up for free. It’s freely manifest because it’s simply an expression of the relative, is an expression of the ultimate.

(12:11) And so insofar as you’re resting in rigpa then bodhichitta is there, bodhicitta is just the natural and the only realistic response to all sentient beings and of course it’s imbued with the four greats, with maha maitri, maha karuna, maha mudita, maha upeksha and of course the four immeasurable, they are all there, they’re all implicit in bodhichitta right. So tap into the one and you view the many with just sublime bodhichitta. Then we come back to loving-kindness that’s where I’d like to go this morning, extending out beyond the four questions now start to expand the sphere. I find Buddhaghosa’s analysis of all the four immeasurables the four divine abidings of (inaudible?) I find it just simply brilliant I mean breathtaking deep incisive loving and wise. And so I just want to highlight one element here which is enormously important for anyone who really wishes to more and more deeply experience loving-kindness. And more broadly not just for one’s loved one, one’s child, a spouse and so on but really to break down the barriers right. As Buddhaghosa so beautifully says to break down the barrier so it doesn’t the that flow of loving-kindness doesn’t go out and then stop you know biologically, biological imperative, evolution, natural selection it will flow out to family members, maybe flow out to your village, maybe flow out to your tribe, maybe to your species but and then it tapers off you know.

(13:54) Basically how similar how similar are you to me? When a mother says I mean you’re my blood that’s very similar. You’re my child that’s very similar share we share blood okay. Or in the Tibetan tradition Buddhist tradition bon, from the father of the bone from the blood from the from the mother blood you say that. So the father said you’re my bon, you know like that like the young right. So that sense of identity that we’re family what can I say I can’t give up on you we’re family you know because we’re so similar. I mean you’re me, I’m you, we’re bon, we’re blood, flesh and bone, flesh and blood but then of course then you’re not and they’re not. And then that’s where the barrier breaks down. So we get that we get that as a gift from that natural selection we get that as a gift from just you know biological evolution. But then to break down the barriers that’s where Dharma comes in and if there’s no Dharma then that barrier those barriers don’t get broken down, pretty much they don’t get broken down, then we have war. But from Dharma we break down the barriers. And so what is the catalyst then? What is the proximate cause? The language is often very technical look very quite arid and they look into the meaning of it it’s just totally juicy. What is it that triggers, catalyzes, arouses, in a very immediate way a sense of loving kindness? And it is I’m sure many of you will remember it’s extremely important if you’ve not learned it then I would suggest learn it and memorize it and keep it, keep the memory alive for the rest of your life. It’s seeing the loveable quality, seeing the lovable quality, the lovableness, the endearing quality, the quality of the other that makes that person worthy of affection, of warmth, of love, of kindness of loving kindness, that.

(15:58) If we don’t see that. If that’s not perceptible then we may go through the routine we maybe we may display behavior maybe genuine it maybe altruism but we can behave altruistically without being altruistic and that’s better than behaving maliciously. One can behave generously without being generous. Now that’s better than being stingy, but Shantideva highlights it’s it’s highlighted everywhere that the six perfections is all an inside job. These six perfections are all qualities of the mind, they’re not qualities of behavior. Behavior is their outer glow, but generosity is not how big your check is or how often you’re making gifts. If you’re living as a solitary yogi in solitude well you’re not going to be making gifts to many people but you may be simply an embodiment of generosity. And likewise ethics, patience, enthusiasm, meditation, wisdom it’s all an inside job right. And what we see is simply the outer manifestation of that. But if there’s no insight then there is then it’s not an expression, it’s not actually generosity in Buddhist view, it’s just writing a check or doing some work for somebody. This is a real, this is a real interesting point, deep point. People often don’t appear lovable. People often display attitudes and behavior they speak in such ways where the if we can we can surmise their attitude and they’re not lovable they’re really quite sometimes awful or trivial or petty or disagreeable and disgusting and so forth. The way people speak on occasion it’s just deplorable, really just awful you know. And the way people behave on occasion same of course of course of course and there’s just and that’s the end of the story. That’s this there’s there’s no happy face on that one.

(17:52) If a father is beating his child, there’s no happy face on that one. There’s no way well, like he means well. No. He’s beating his child you know. It’s deplorable behavior. So there is no fooling around here you know pretending there’s behavior, there’s speech, there are attitudes, there’s ways of thinking, intentions and so forth, that are really really really toxic. Root of misery throughout the world. So, where’s the lovable quality? And this is why I started with Robert De Niro and that what abides? What abides? If we find even if we point to even the greatest villains in history and we have some pretty big top items there. Individuals and communities where you look at their behavior and just, you almost faint. You just by the sheer grotesqueness of it yeah. Not all the time, not all the time. I’m not gonna give an example you can find you own example, whoever comes to mind. Think of that person when he or she was three years old and five years old and maybe falling in love or attending a garden or looking after his or her dog and so forth. Nobody can nobody can nobody can maintain that 24 hours a day throughout a lifetime. No matter how deeply damaged their minds are, nobody can do that. Nobody can be that constant. And nor can we. We can get into really bad moods, we can get into real ruts that are really quite harmful and toxic, but not all the time. So where’s the level of equality? If we’re attending to the mode of appearance, it’s gonna be like weather right. And that’s regarding ourselves until I mean when you’re an arya bodhisattva you’re set then you have a you know you have a green card and it’s fine. But until them as long as you’re an ordinary sentient being like you know it’s like, like somebody like me. You have your good days and your bad days.

(19:53) And so if our loving-kindness as we direct loving kindness to others if it’s going to be based upon the snang tshul, the way of appearance, then it’s going to be fair-weather loving kindness. Like a fair-weather friend you know friendly when the person is nice and then not and so forth. So it can’t be that. It’ll never be immeasurable loving kindness if it’s responding to how are you appearing today. Like if your spouse and you wake up in the morning you look over at your spouse okay what’s it going to be today? I have to see whether I love you today you know. Well I guess that’s not a marriage, that’s just kind of whatever something else. So it has to be something deeper gnas tshul, the way of abiding, the way of abiding. So, I want to wrap this up it’s I’m eager to get back to the practice but I want to tie all of this together, the wisdom teaching from Panchen Rinpoche, the teachings on loving kindness from Buddhaghosa, our day to day practice in retreat. And then I’m giving you your traveling papers and that is what can you bring to the airport, shamatha probably not so much right. And onto the airplane and and with your family back into the city back into the job what are your traveling papers? What can you carry with you that you can know? It’s like you know like a credit card you can just use it anywhere whether you’re in Oollen Bato or you’re in Rio de Janeiro or you’re in Sydney, the credit card you can pretty much use anywhere. The four immeasurables you can use anywhere right, you really can. In solitude and with the most difficult people you have ever encountered in your life it’s you that’s what you can carry with you, your traveling papers, the lovable quality.

(21:32) In the Mahayana tradition you have these two routes, Asanga route, Maitreya, Asanga route and then we have the Manjusri, Shantideva route. And the, the Maitreya, Asanga route that’s all right we are about to launch out on the on the path of cultivating bodhichitta and the first point is just a statement of fact. That all sentient beings have been your mother every single one has been your mother at some time in the past and mothers are loving and caring and we owe them an immense debt of gratitude. So look upon all sentient beings as being your mother and in so doing you’ll view them with the same sense of endearment of gratitude of affection of warmth as you do your own mother. And they’re all equally your mother whether they’re reptiles or villains or heroes and so forth. And so get cracking, view all sentient beings as your mothers. Okay. This works very well. I mean it’s worked for many many centuries in India in Tibet and so forth. For those who have a very deep conviction that what I just said is true, for starters, that yes it’s you know they just yeah that’s true, you appear differently, I don’t recognize you from past lives, but yes. There are people who just say that’s true of course you, you know so let’s carry on. That’s one necessary, one necessary thing, if you don’t think it’s true then you got got no basis. It’s like saying let’s start with a fairy tale then proceed from there. So that’s one point. But the second point also is poignantly evident when Tibetan Lamas and others teach Tibetan Buddhism in the West and they, I’ve heard this so many times, view all sentient beings as your mother and a hand pops up, you don’t know my mother. She is so neurotic and she was awful and and I’ve gone through years of therapy trying to get over the way she you know displayed her mental afflictions all over a kid like you know projectile vomiting and if I viewed all sentient beings as my mother I wouldn’t like any of them. (laughter) So, so, there’s not a whole lot of wiggle room there. So that was problematic. It may not be the most effective route to go. Might it be helpful to really try to develop loving-kindness for your mother, seeing through the neuroses and so forth and so on and seeing and seeing until you, yeah it would be a very very good idea. That’d be part of the deep healing.

(24:08) You may want to go to a therapist for that and very seriously. But it’s, but if it’s extremely difficult relationship or maybe cold maybe the mother was just cold. Not all mothers are loving maybe just cold. In, in Great Britain in classical times, not that, not that British women are cold at all but you know I’ve known summer British aristocrats and the way they the parents I think loving parents would just ship their kids off to boarding school at an early age and they’d hardly see them you know. How exactly you would develop like a five-year-old or ten year old develop the sense my mother really cherishes and loves me and so forth when you almost never see her? And you’re being raised by other people who may beat you a lot, is that okay yeah. So I’m speaking I’m not picking on the British I’m just saying there’s a whole culture in which this was really quite common and so then we understand take that and then take just an ordinary family in Tibet a hundred years ago. They would look at that and they would just they would slap their forehead but you know how’s that possible? Except they would also send their boys off to monastery. Except if their child turned out to be a tulku, but even then because I’ve known a lot of tulkus and a lot of a lot of monks in the Tibetan monks who were shipped off to the monastery when they were young you know. You’re the second son you’re not gonna inherit this land there’s not enough land to divvy it up just like in the English system all of it goes to the eldest son. Well that was the same thing in Tibet all goes to the eldest son otherwise it you’d have you know 10 square metres from after just several generations and everybody would starve. So it has to be given only to the oldest son.

(25:51) And yet I’ve lived with Tibetans so that I’m not speaking airy fairy or some kind of shangri-la kind of thing. And in not all cases but in many cases the sense of warmth and kindness and affection from the mother is still held and cherished but they also found surrogates in the monastery, not always and I don’t mean to put you know to paint this as all rosy it’s not. But I’ve seen it in many cases it really did work and the monks coming out very healthy loving warm grounded very very affectionate I’ve seen that in many cases. That’s my experience and I know that other monks and other people have different experiences and I respect that. So but without lingering too long most of us we’re not here in this room listening by podcasts we’re not raised with our mother’s milk, with a sense of reincarnation of karma, of all sentient beings having been our mothers. So it’s an article of faith and it can easily get very abstract even if we accept it it’s kind of like okay but it doesn’t necessarily really stir the heart. And then many people are fortunate enough to have very loving relationship with their mothers and then many not so much. So what about that that what about that other route, not that it’s better but it may be better for some people and that’s why both are taught. And that is from the Manjusri Shantideva route and there’s no reference there, that’s not the starting point to again where’s this connected to? How can we see the lovableness in the other person, how can we do that right? Well view as your mother if that works but if it doesn’t then you shouldn’t be out of luck just because you don’t have a very deep conviction in reincarnation and you haven’t had a really wonderful relationship with your own mother. You can’t choose those kind of things. So Shantideva starts out with a, with arousing the sense of equality of self and other. The equality of self and other then the exchange for self and other, and then proceeding on from there into tonglen and so on.

(27:54) Now this comes and now we come back to Panchen Rinpoches wisdom track, vipassana track, examine closely your gnas tshul, how you abide. How you abide. What is constant from your worst behavior moments occasions of worst behavior and your most sublime behavior, the most toxic your mind ever gets and the most sublime your mind ever gets. Those are all snang tshul those are all ways you appear right. Appear to yourself mentally, appear verbally, appear physically and so forth, they come and go. They’re like weather like weather, weather patterns right, they come and go come and go. What abides through the course of your life through all your moods all your behavior, from the most sublime to the most disgusting? What abides? And I think His Holiness Dalai Lama has pointed to it when he was asked in one of the meetings for which I served as his interpreter, and I mentioned it before. What’s our deepest impulse which is always there? Caring. Caring in your in your worst moods you’re saying whatever you’re saying because you care. In your most sublime moods and activities and so forth you’re doing what you’re doing because you care all right. And we can’t stop that that’s that’s hardwired, that’s ingrained you can change your mind anyway you like become an arhat, become a Buddha become you know an awful person but you can’t change that one. You can’t uproot it and you can’t abolish it. You can’t execute it because your consciousness will simply carry on into the bardo and it will still be caring in the bardo you know. So there we are.

(29:31) That goes deep we’ve gone right down to our root here deep roots and Buddha’s care and sentient beings care. So we see here common ground. Buddha’s are conscious, we’re conscious. We care, Buddha’s care, okay common ground no difference there. Sometimes the way we express our caring is very harmful and that goes for everybody. When we think of the biggest villains of history, of individuals and communities who have done the most just inconceivably awful things. They are doing it because they care right. Yeah, extinctions of whole people’s and so forth. They’re doing extinctions, the treatment of animals and so forth. They’re doing it because they care but of course the caring goes this far and then doesn’t. And all the awful behavior goes for the other side of the fence right. This itself, just the words here are meditating, I’m meditating. I’m just following this. What is right there in the Buddha nature right down to the core right down to the ultimate ground is caring. The Buddha arose the Buddha achieved enlightenment out of caring. The Buddha stood up from his seat at Bodhgaya and set out on his long walk, the long march, because of caring. Europeans went to Africa in the 18th 19th century enslaving, killing, torturing, bringing them back to work because they cared about their family right. Not, not about the blacks they didn’t care about them at all. They’re just stuff to use but they thought oh my family will if we have more slaves my family will prosper or take care of my children will develop civilization on this wild wild you know frontier and so forth. They did that out of caring too but the barrier so sharp so sharp.

(31:59) But when a person expresses caring without it being disfigured on the way out, it’s coming from Buddha nature right. It’s coming from there and then manifests in words, facial expression, behavior, and so forth. If from that root that sublimely primordially pure root, our Buddha nature. If it’s not disfigured, damaged, warped, toxified, on the way out and we see somebody displaying caring in a way that is really relatively untainted, undamaged then we say look that person is so caring. It’s such a sweet phrase in English I hope it translates well. They say, oh this person is so caring. That’s a really nice thing to say about somebody. This person is so caring. And as soon as you say that to think of anybody you know people when you think of such a person you think this person is truly caring, genuinely, really caring. When you think that and that person comes to mind loving kindness comes doesn’t it. Because it’s a lovable quality. This person, this mother so caring for her children, this teacher is exceptional so caring for her students. This politician really entered into public service to be of service really took it seriously this is public service to try to take care of the community, try to serve the voters, serve the population, serve the country. This politician is really caring. I love it when that happen it does it does you know. It can get shrouded out by all the noise of journalism but they’re there too. When we see that, it’s endearing, and then we see other behavior that is still driven by caring but it got toxified and then we find it horrendously evil. But it’s coming from the same.

(34:02) So, I need to wrap up, but I think we’re in deep waters here where everything comes together. You can develop loving kindness in shamatha, you can achieve shamatha by way of loving kindness yeah, very clearly taught. Buddhaghosa, straight forward, the answer is yes. All the way to access to the first jhana loving-kindness. The object of loving-kindness is not sentient beings, the object of loving-kindness does not love it, the object of loving-kindness is not loving kindness. That is when you are cultivating shamatha by way of loving kindness your object is not that is happy, how do you say, what you’re developing shamatha in is not on sentient beings and it’s not on loving kindness. You’re attending to sentient beings but the shamatha, the relaxation, stability, and vividness is in your subjective mode of viewing. That is loving shamatha, it’s shamatha loving, it’s in the subjective mode. So to one of you I gave the example a mother gazing at her one-year-old baby lying peacefully in the crib sleeping and the mother gazes at the child her beloved child maybe her firstborn and she just comes in the soft lighting just to check in with the child and she just see the child is sleeping peacefully, peacefully and she simply gazes. And with no effort just the flow of caring, of love, affection, of warmth, flows unimpededly, effortlessly and she may linger there linger there linger there and she doesn’t, it would be so silly, to clutter that with thinking may you be well and happy. May you find out the causes of happiness. May you flourish, may you find eudaimonic well-being too you know. It’s kind of like all of that talk and all the visualization and sending your child rays of light and so forth. All of the techniques are really to bring forth what she is already got, she’s already resting in loving-kindness. All the other techniques, all the other methods thinking imagining visualizing so forth is all just to bring forth that which she has naturally for her child.

(36:14) And so she’s resting as she lingers there for a minute to five minutes and so forth. She’s resting in shamatha of loving-kindness which is directed towards for child but then if she’s you know if she should very deep maybe she’s really deeply dharma practitioner as well then she takes her eyes off the child listening now let’s just pop it up and it’s a ten-year-old child but the same thing the same affection is there. And then she looks over and into another bed in the child’s room and it’s your child’s best friend who is there for a sleepover right, and no blood connection at all. But she’s just and then she sees this child and it’s so similar to her own child and she looks upon this child and it’s just seamless like and then who and the water just keeps on flowing. And here’s a child that’s equally precious and without having to think or reason or visualize just gazes upon this child sleeping quietly peacefully in bed and the loving kindness is there. And then maybe she goes up to the window and just looks at the street below and people walking up and down the street and cars going by and it’s flowing there right same. And then she just sits quietly with nobody particular come to mind and she can still maintain that right. It’s still dwelling in loving kindness and whoever should come to mind is already a recipient. Whoever it is, if she’s really broken down the barriers, if she’s really deeply realized, in the Brahman of loving-kindness. It was for her child, it was for the child’s best friend, it was for strangers passing along the street and then if she’s really broken down the barriers then someone who’s treated her harshly comes to mind and she sees right through the mode of appearance to the mode of existence and this person too is worthy of loving kindness.

(38:15) So it’s a matter of depth. The outer display is Robert DeNiro and I’m going to weave it all together. Robert De Niro, he’s playing a silly goofy goofy grandpa and here he’s playing another role another role another role, a different role, a different role from one film to the next and yet that which abides. Sentient beings are manifesting in this role and in this role. We ourselves manifest in this role and the common ground is we’re all caring and that’s deep that’s rooted in the ultimate ground you know. And when we see it come up and it’s untarnished, undesfigured from that it’s just endearing right. And then when we see it get tarnished and it’s slave-traders and now capturing villages and so forth. If we can see through we can still have that same sense of caring for the slaves as well as the slave traders because they’re all equal. And in this particular film these are the victims and these are the victimizers but they’re all seeking the same thing. And the ground is equally pure and we attend to the ground the way of existence the deep way of existence. What is common as a slave trader comes home and embraces his children and gives his wife a gift and then beats his slaves. What’s common? It’s caring. So the caring is deeper than the outer displays which are like weather, they come and go.

(40:02) So the loving-kindness is rooted deeply in reality and the appearances are arising like weather they come and go. So where this really comes back to where it’s a complete merger of the vipassana and the loving kindness is can we direct our awareness inwards and see someone who is worthy of loving kindness, someone who his lovable? And the answer is yeah, think so, sure. Penetrate through the myriad modes of appearances to the way you abide and where you deeply abide and the way you abide from your ground and you see it’s just pure caring pure caring. And you are a deeply caring person, everyone is and therefore lovable. So maybe something like that. Robert De Niro, Buddhaghosa, Panchen Rinpoche, shamatha, vipassana, loving kindness, bodhichitta all the same story. Olaso. Please find a comfortable position.

(41:14) Meditation bell rings three times.

(41:54) Making explicit to your deepest motivation of caring, manifesting fully in full blossom as bodhichitta, caring for all the world. Settle your body, speech and mind in their natural state.

(43:14) Come to that still point of awareness simply resting in its own nature, resting right where your substrate consciousness is, and resting right where your own pristine awareness is already present always abiding as the wellspring of all your aspirations and the fulfilment of all your aspirations.

(44:44) And note with this flow of awareness in which you rest, is not simply cognitive, it’s not simply a flow of luminosity and cognizance. It is indivisibly a flow of caring. It’s innate, it indwells in that very flow of awareness, it always has, always will.

(45:49) So we start briefly with the shamatha resting awareness in its own nature illuminating and knowing itself.

(46:43) Then you let the light of your awareness flow out to illuminate yourself as an individual as a person with a personal history with the personality the modes of behavior and attitudes. And you attend to these myriad manifestations of yourself, in many cases simply going about your life neither particularly virtuous nor non-virtuous, caring, wanting to get by, to succeed, to get through the day. But on other occasions this impulsive carrying is obscured, veiled and distorted, by delusion by craving and attachment by hostility hatred. It’s still the same stream, the same stream of consciousness but now it flows out and meets the world as toxic, harm to ourselves and others as out of delusion as we seek our own happiness, we destroy the causes of our happiness as if they were our foes. While we seek to be free of suffering always moved by this impulse of caring, out of delusion, we hasten after suffering. We cultivate and perpetuate the causes of suffering. But through all the obscurations, the ground is pure, saturated by caring, manifesting as loving-kindness, the one who abides is by nature pure, by nature simply caring, deeply caring and deeply worthy utterly absolutely worthy of finding happiness and worthy of finding freedom from suffering worthy of being free of all afflictions and obscurations of the mind. Attend to yourself as the one who abides over time, not static, not unchanging, a flow a flow of caring a flow of awareness a flow of clarity a flow of purity, adventitiously now and then obscured and then not obscured but always brightly shining. Attend to the one who is brightly shining, by nature pure.

(51:43) Attend closely, remember there the meaning of the word to attend, to look after, to care for, to tend to and watch over, tend to yourself in a spirit of loving-kindness and sustain that flow of awareness and if you find it helpful you may imagine the very source of this caring, your own Buddha nature, once again as an orb of light at your heart, with every out breath breathe out this loving-kindness. Let the light flow from your heart, permeate your entire being, body and mind with the aspiration may you be well and happy. May you be hedonically well with all your needs met and genuinely happy. With every out breath fill your whole being with this light of loving-kindness.

(53:55) And imagine here and now venturing into that realm of possibility, being truly well and happy, embodying such well-being, emanating such well-being, overflowing with such well-being.

(55:00) Then like a tsunami of loving-kindness a wave of loving kindness flowing out in all directions, breath by breath. Imagine this sphere of light this sphere of loving kind extending to the space around you, to those in front, behind you, to the left and right. Expand this sphere also above and below, whatever invisible beings may be there embrace them in this field, with every out breath extend this flow of caring, this full of loving-kindness, this field of light, breath by breath may each of us be truly well and happy. And imagine it to be so.

(56:52) For those here in this room expanding this field this sphere of loving kindness to embrace to include everyone within the room each one equally. Each one when viewed from the deepest perspective is you, in your myriad forms. And as you participate in this meditation wherever you may be and whenever, expand this field, this field, this sphere of loving-kindness out beyond the confines of your room, you’re building, your immediate proximity, out in all directions embracing everyone who comes within the field and be they human, animal, or any other kind of sentient being, may each one be well and happy, imagine it to be so.

(59:08) There’s an underlying theme here in the union of wisdom and method and that is however dark our attitudes, our mind, speech, bodies, behavior may be, the light of pristine awareness is greater. It’s infinitely greater. It overwhelms and banishes the darkness and we know the darkness is great we know the capacity for evil is enormous, but this is greater. It consumes all, transmutes all, heals all, liberates all.

(1:01:23) From this inexhaustible source let this field, this sphere of loving-kindness envelop the whole earth in a field of light. May all beings upon this earth above and below, each one may each one be well and happy.

(1:02:40) And let the light be limitless, extending out into the deepest regions of space, permeating all the myriad worlds wherever there are sentient beings may each one like ourselves be well and happy.

(1:03:57) And for just a short time release all imaginings release all aspirations, all objects of the mind, and simply allow your awareness to rest in its own nature clear and pure.

(1:05:15) Meditation ends, bell rings three times.

(1:05:34) Olaso. So, the interviews will be about 10 minutes late this morning. Enjoy your day.

Transcribed by Bob Hiller

Revised by KrissKringle Sprinkle

Final edition by Rafael Carlos Giusti

Discussion

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