80 Developing Pure Vision & the Power of Equanimity

Spring 2016 – 80 Developing Pure Vision.

Olaso. So, I hope you had a refreshing day yesterday. Mine was very full, so I wanted to give you just a little snapshot or a short video of my experience at this laboratory, a virtual reality laboratory.

It was a Saturday so the 100 researchers who are normally there were not, but the, the founder of the laboratory, Massimo, Massimo Bergamasco who founded back in 1991, he’s my friend and host, so he brought me in and then he had two of his colleagues there and we went directly to what they call the cave. And it’s not a cave [laughter]. It’s right in the middle of this extremely high-tech, you know, laboratory, but the cave is maybe, maybe 5m x 5m, maybe four yeah, maybe something like that, a room with three walls and so you come in where there’s no wall and there’s no ceiling but there are a lot of projectors up there.

And then… and Massimo and I both came in there, we had to put on little coverings over our shoes and then just putting on the type of glasses you put on when you go to a 3d movie, very low-tech, very ordinary, just 3d. Then they turn on all the projectors and we went from… they ran one program after another, where you’re looking around and I can see, I can see Massimo, he can see me and the both… we’re in this entirely different environment and then we’re being moved 3d through the environment like… I won’t give all the details because it would take up a lot of time but one of them, just one of them was… They made a computer generation of a region of Livorno, that had been heavily bombed during the war because Livorno was a major naval port. So the allies wiped out the naval port, they hit a lot of this city as well unfortunately. So… but they were able to reconstruct parts of the city, with computers that had been destroyed in the war.

And so I flew over a part of the city [laughter] and we went around and we went around. It was like being kind of like a hummingbird [laughter], but you can’t see yourself of course. And so we went from one scene to another. We did that for about a while, that was very interesting, rather realistic. Although you can see they become like the first Mac computers, you know, like they were really cool at the time and now they look like they were made by, you know, the Neanderthals [laughter]. This is the Neanderthal entry of virtual reality but this is really cutting edge as the early, you know, the early laptops and so forth were coming yet. And then we stopped doing that and then he put… he gave me a very high-tech set of goggles. So now the environment is irrelevant, because the environment is created entirely by the goggles, and he also gave me a little hard hat if I wanted to be kind of more interactive.

[02:59] And then we went through different scenes as well. But then I was on my own. But I could be interacting, so I’d see a 3d environment and they gave me two little tools to hold in my hand, which I would see my hands in virtual reality. And then I would engage interactively with, with items within the environment. So that went on for maybe half an hour, maybe 40 minutes where I was constantly in multiple virtual realities and of course knew that I was. [laughter] Why I say that is because we’re all in virtual reality and we don’t necessarily know it [laughter continues]. But I tell you the experience, when the most remarkable experience I had in the laboratory – and we had hours of wonderful conversation – was when I took the goggles off. And I’m not joking.

When I took the goggles off and then I was engaging with Massimo and his two fine colleagues, it was a very intense experience of virtual reality. It really was. It was just kind of like: “Yeah, everything Atisha said, everything bent. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah I knew it before, I’ve been doing this practice a lot but, whoa! This is what it’s like”. It was very intense. I’ve just the feeling that everything is just occurring in the space of the mind. At the same time there was no nihilism, there was no flattening of people to mere appearances. I mean this is Massimo, I’ve known him for years, you know. So, and these two other gentlemen seem like very fine, very open.

So, but the… the opening phrase from the Seven-Point Mind Training when starting the teachings on ultimate, ultimate bodhichitta –view phenomena as if a dream. Boy was that easy! [laughter] After being in an actual virtual reality for 30 minutes, taking them off like: “This is… I don’t have to try. This is just Yeah!” And then, the… after Atisha goes through the ultimate bodhichitta teachings on what to do in meditation, and as you’ll recall, you should recall, then [Tibetan 05:12] between sessions act as if you were in an illusory being. Act as if you were a character in, you know, a figure in virtual reality.

Because I was in a machine shop and anybody who knows me - this is like hilarious because you know there’s Neanderthals, five-year-olds and then the people who know engineering. I am right there at the Neanderthal between the Neanderthal and five-year-old, in terms of my mechanical ability and skill and natural giftedness, you know. Like how do you turn this this cellphone on? Forget, it’s not working, it’s broken. My cell phone is not working, you know. It’s kind of like “that’s where I am”. And so here I was fixing this complex machine and he invited me actually to put one box and then it blew up. He actually encouraged me to do that and blew up and I looked down at my virtual hands and they were singed. [laughter] This is why, you know, and this…they actually sold this software to a company, so they would be able to learn how to, affix these complex machines and show them if they did it wrong, then they would have an explosion and they would be, you know, blow themselves up. But it’s much nicer to do that in virtual reality rather than, you know, contrary.

[06:26] So, and then I can just say, just to summarize about five hours of conversation, six hours, an enormous interest and openness, not only among Massimo, who is a Tibetan Buddhist nor old friends, but among these two colleagues, and one of them, a neuroscientist, yeah he was Andrea, and then I think it was… I think was Giuseppe, he was running the, all the programs of virtual reality, seemed very very nice but I didn’t really get a chance to speak with him. But… but I did have chance to speak with Andrea, who’s one of the researchers in the laboratory and his area is EEG and neuroscience and looking at consciousness and deficit or deficit problems, Alzheimer’s and so forth.

So they… they’re really trying to make their research practical to help people in myriad of ways. It’s not just, you know, very esoteric stuff. But we spoke at length about the possibility of doing research here at the Castellina Marittima property. I will very likely be doing research together, next year in the spring retreat, taking place right here. That’ll be basically it for May of next year. They’re very keen to do that, very keen for long-term collaboration and then with this fellow, Andrea, who I’ve corresponded with about a year ago but never met him.

Then I was just speaking with Massimo and him and I was just telling them I turn to Andrea especially and said: “Andrea, I’m not asking you to believe what I’m about to say, but I’ll tell you I believe on what I’m about to say. And I told him about this yogi in the south of Bhutan, who is very accomplished in samadhi and can generate a virtual reality leopard and deer with his mind that other people can see.” And he is: “Hmmm.” [laughter] And I said: “You know I said I’m not asking you to believe it. I’m saying this is having been, you know, involved in Tibetan Buddhism before five years and has earned my trust.” But I said: “You know, the thing is to see either true or false, it’s not like ridiculous or amazing, it’s just true or false. And if it’s true or false then perhaps I could work with the Lama who told me of this and maybe we could bring a team of scientists there then study it, you know.” If you’re willing to show to Tibetans why not to Westerners? So that was the day. It was very interesting.

[08:38] And then but then, you know, it was also… I could see this is really early, the early stages, because when I had this very complex big set of goggles, you know – looked like zombie – on my head, yep, I had an umbilical cord you know, a big thick electric cord going back to the machine. [laughter] And so I couldn’t go very far because I’d feel as kind of pulling back my neck. And I thought well obviously that has to go. You know, you want to be able to move much more freely.

But then I had a glimpse into the future. I mean, you know, I can’t say how many years. I’m not a futurist, I don’t have any clairvoyance, but maybe it’s ten, maybe twenty thirty years ahead. But I brought something with me that, imagine this kind of goggle said of the future! That is now, you know, like what, like what a cellphone is compared to the computers back in the 60s, this is more powerful than any of them, right? Here’s a set of goggles of the future and also we know how technology is gotten cheap, better and better and better and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, right? So I’m going to show you a pair of goggles, that is state-of-the-art maybe 30 years from now. And really inexpensive. And what you can see with these goggles on is unbelievable! [laughter] I’m serious. You think I’m joking? I’m not joking. I mean 3d extremely vivid, virtual reality that you can repeat again and again. You can manipulate it, you can also tap into the substrate [laughter], while wearing them. [laughter continue] And they cost only 15 dollars. [laughter] And I reached into the future and pluck one out and right back. And here it is. Are you ready? [laughter] Here I go. [laughter] Woooooo. [laughter continues] It comes with an accessory. And the accessory is free. It’s called human mind. And so there we are, that was fun.

[10:49] And all of this, you know, I’ve been trying to weave all the way through and I’m not gonna start going into kind of a, you know, kind of a lot of citations. But it is important that we thoroughly integrate the whole notion of wisdom and method, the integration of the two. And so we have all of this as the wisdom side, right? It’s about developing shamatha and then exploring the nature of the mind, nature of reality and to which the mind is related. But all of it… and then seeing this virtual reality, seeing that all the people appear. It was so intense when I took those goggles off and I’m having this enjoyable conversation with these three individuals. That it was just, it was kind of like, it was… almost gave me a vertigo like: Wow, this is really virtual. And I didn’t say anything, I didn’t, you know, act weird or anything [laughter], but I kind of… [laughter continues] this is really intense, you know.

And seeing so vividly that all the appearances I had of these people I was speaking with we’re all arising in the space of my mind and they were not out there. They’re just appearances. And of course what makes this not solipsistic, not nihilistic, not wildly egocentric is the very clear perception or awareness that they have their own perspectives and I am… all the appearances of me are arising in their minds, and yet here we are. Each of us within our, you know, within our environment and yet interconnected and influencing each other. And none of us is real, all of us experience… be consisting of and seeing empty appearances. But, as in a dream, as in virtual reality, we’re clearly influencing each other, you know.

So relating this now to the fourth of the four immeasurables, – because it’s not a stretch, it really kind of fits very smoothly – what I like to do is go to the practice now and really have an unguided meditation so front-loaded. But so we all know equanimity, right? And that is this even heartedness attending to others where it’s really the culmination of the first three of the four immeasurables and that is with loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, viewing others equally with an equally open heart, unconditional loving kindness, unconditional compassion and empathetic joy. And then it’s the culmination, the grand finale of the three, of the four, four immeasurables.

And then we can step back and say well why aren’t we experiencing to that already? Why aren’t we? I mean all sentient beings have the same Buddha nature, all sentient beings have the same brightly shining mind as the substrate, that’s the ground of becoming for all sentient beings however they may manifest. And then so why don’t we treat everybody like that? That’s, that’s real, so why aren’t we treating everybody like that? And then the answer is very clear. And that is some people behave in very disagreeable, appear disagreeably. Some people, some people [are] physically very very unattractive or even repulsive, if you’ve ever seen people with leprosy and so forth, not attractive to look at and so forth and so on. And then some… and then much more, much more important, much more gripping than mere super visual appearance, but the way people behave on occasion. Is very very disagreeable. The kind of attitudes they express, sometimes the tone of voice, what they say, how they say, sometimes very disagreeable, right?

[14:16] And so, but where’s all that coming from? And it’s all coming from the what all that really matters. If we ask that: Where’s it really coming from? All that which is disagreeable in terms of physical appearance, as well as voice, as well as mental attitudes express, all that is disagreeable and, you know, all comes from delusion. Because out of delusion comes craving and hostility, out of delusion, craving and hostility comes all matter of unwholesome or non-virtuous behavior. And, karmically speaking, there are so many accounts of this in the sutras pertaining to karma. That if one engages on unwholesome actions and still manages one or another to get a human rebirth, that will manifest as one’s physical form. And the physical form will not be appealing, will be unattractive. And, you know, and the karma could have been hundreds of lifetimes ago. So it’s not saying this, but this is a bad person because they’re unattractive, it’s just see this is what’s ripening right now. And likewise when people behave in very disagreeable ways, maybe sometimes horrible ways. This all is an expression of one thing and that is delusion. It’s coming out of ignorance and delusion, right?

But then, so, to see through that, but then to see through all of that, there’s that – let alone rigpa – put just on that brightly shining mind. This is the ground state of this person when not, when not arising or manifesting in a way that’s warped, twisted, contorted by mental afflictions. Because that’s what mental afflictions do – the klesha, klishta. Klishta means to warp, to distort. So this brightly shining mind is transparency, it’s purity. When it’s filtered through the mental afflictions it gets warped and sometimes looks ugly or manifests with really harmful speech or terrible views, attitudes, beliefs and so on. But that it’s like the groundwater. The groundwater is pure. And that gets filtered through the mental afflictions and then, some toxic. And maybe even disgusting to look at, you know? So to see through that then we can cultivate equanimity.

And then, likewise, some people physically very attractive, sometimes just sheer physical beauty, but some other times or attractive as male-female, but sometimes it’s not just the physical beauty but they’re just so pleasing, you know, and this can be eight year old people, sixty, it’s not a matter of sexual attractiveness. So isn’t true there’s some people in all different kind of ages just very pleasant, you know, just agreeable. And if you see well this is, could this person, this man or woman be a model? No not that kind of beauty, but just so pleasant to look at. And sometimes the voice is so pleasant to hear, you know, and then of course the way people behave sometimes pleasant, agreeable, virtuous. You just want to be with them, because it’s just such a good feeling, right? But let’s focus on, focus on the, all of those. Where does that come from? It comes from virtue. It comes from virtue. Again go back to the teachings on karma, if a person lives a very ethical life, a very very generous life, a very kindly life, karmically speaking, then coming back as human being, the person comes back with great physical attractive, attractiveness, you know? It’s fruition of karma.

[17:21] But if a, but I have seen this over the, you know, decades I’ve been around, there are people that I know who lived very virtuous lives, whatever their bone structure is, whatever genetics, you know, for their physical appearance but they’ve lived very gentle, loving kind, compassionate, virtuous lives. And what I’ve seen, time and time again, male or female, is that that’s just something so pleasant, so pleasing about their appearance, you know. And it’s kind of like more important than cheekbones and skin and I kind of like just, this person just like looking at them, you know. And then, you know, it has really nothing to do with sexuality, sex, you know, survival and procreation business. That is then, it’s expression of virtue in this lifetime. I’ve seen it. Many many times.

So but when we’re drawn to – is something I’ve thought about for a long time – it’s when we were drawn to physical attractiveness so back into some baseline hedonic. This person is very attractive, one can wonder why, you know. Why? Why attractive? Why drawn to? And I think a deeper reason than just sex, you know, propagation, I’m gonna pass on my genes, biological imperative. Because ugly people can pass on, you know, make kids as well as attractive people. They’re no better. If that’s the whole thing, to pass on your genes, just find a good sturdy woman and a man who can protect your kids. That’s all that matters, it’s all that really care, matters. Does she have good broad hip bones, you know, be able to birth the kids. And can [be] amenable, big and strong enough to beat off the saber-toothed tigers, when they come. It pretty much boils down to that, right? And they just bring that into 21st century.

[19:08] But then why the beauty? Why the beauty? And I have a very clear answer in my mind. Beauty is an expression, is the karmic result of virtue. It is, I mean, that’s the Buddhist view, true or false, that is the Buddhist view. And we’re drawn to virtue, we’re drawn to virtue. That’s it. And so we’re seeing the outer flow on us, sometimes unfortunately the physical beauty does not correspond inwardly to an inward beauty, and then after a while that wears really thin. That is, one is physically drawn to some person and then the better and better you get to know then, the more you distance. So look, it was a karmic fruition of virtue, but then you see the virtue isn’t being continued. And then unless all you care about is, you know, tactile sensations, you know, it’s just visual, sensual pleasure, then the sense of being enamored by this person, it weighs, it weighs, it really wears off. And that’s why you don’t care anymore. Because the person’s unwholesome quality of shining is overwhelming the physical beauty. It happens a lot.

So there we are. So, but here I think is the basis for our, the difficulty of attending to all, let’s just say, human being for the time being. The difficulty, the disagreeable is rooted in ignorance and delusion and the agreeable in all different, all different manifestations is rooted in virtue. But in the virtue it just means that the brightly shiny mind is not very veiled. And then the non-virtue, the ignorance, is more veiled but the brightly shining mind is the same. So this is where wisdom I think really is imperative. If we don’t have wisdom, we will we will be looking at the surfaces. Because we don’t… That’s all we see. And I think that for a lot of people that’s it. Who are the, how do… You met a number of people today, how were they? This one is very disagreeable, this one is very agreeable, I found this one extremely boring, this one is drop-dead gorgeous, this one was wow really ugly. And then that’s how they were. And you simply described all your appearances, you know. And then judge them as they are as I saw them. And this one gets an A, this one D-, this one this, this this, and you walk away and the world is all choppy, because it’s just made up of three types of sentient beings: attractive, unattractive and boring, you know.

And that is we just say it, we’re right back into exactly, we’re up to a neck in I-it relationship, of objectifying other sentient beings as if they were mere objects – we find some agreeable, some disagreeable and some boring, right? So here we are to cultivate simultaneously wisdom and unconditionallity of loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy. So please find a comfortable posture.

So I’ll give guidance just towards the beginning of the session and then it will be silent.

[22:36] The bell rings three times.

The one who has achieved perfect balance, neither abiding in samsara nor in nirvana, perfectly awake and non-dually aware of both, of course is a Buddha. So with the aspiration for the sake of all sentient beings to achieve perfect awakening, the non-abiding enlightenment of a Buddha, let’s settle body, speech and mind in their natural states.

[25:23] When we settled the mind in its natural state and we’ve settled in our closest approximation to resting in the substrate consciousness and viewing the mind from that still, lucid, relatively non-conceptual perspective, unstructured by human concepts are the most important discoveries of contemplative science and utterly unknown to the modern world. It’s everything. Rest in there. Awareness at rest in its own place, sustaining that flow of cognizance without distraction, without grasping.

[26:21] With the luminosity of your awareness illuminating the space of the mind but without entering into and cognitively fusing with and then reifying whatever appears to the mind, simply being aware of whatever arises with discerning intelligence as you direct your awareness now to the space of the mind and whatever arises therein.

[27:48] Now we shift from the shamatha practice to the classic practice of tonglen. As we continue with the, or initiate the tonglen practice which I think you’re familiar, I invite you not just to, in a way, continue the shamatha practice of allowing appearances to arise unimpededly, without censorship, without seeking to direct them or modify them. But instead of simply observing appearances as appearances when the appearance of any sentient being arises in the space of your mind, noting the appearance as an appearance but then making a cognitive shift. And that is by way of the appearance of whoever comes to mind, attend to the person – him or herself – attend to a sentient being. Even if that person has passed away, the mind stream is still there. If the basis of designation of the person is the subtle mind stream, then this person is every bit existent now as when he or she was alive.

See who comes to mind, observe carefully how they come to mind, whether is someone pleasant or unpleasant, agreeable or disagreeable, virtuous and non-virtuous or in-between. Attended the appearance, attend to the mode of appearance, observe the attraction or the aversion arising. Then as if you put on the goggles of the eyes of wisdom, by way of the appearances, attend to the sentient being, one who just like you wishes for happiness and freedom from suffering. Attend to that person closely until he or she becomes real to you. You have a clear sense of their subjectivity and then with every out breath, breath out the light of loving-kindness from your heart, embracing and engulfing, permeating this person with the light of loving-kindness. With every in-breath imagine whatever darkness of mental afflictions, obscurations, negative karma. Imagine this being drawn in as you breathe in, drawing in this dark light and dissolving without trace in your heart. So for the rest of the session let your awareness be free and loose. Whoever comes to mind invite them in and practice evenly, whether the person who comes to mind is agreeable, disagreeable or indifferent.

And let’s continue practicing in silence until the last minute or so.

[41:55] When you attend to one person after another and you’re about to move on to the next, see if you’ve purified your vision of the person you’ve just attended to, as you imagine drawing away and dissolving all the mental afflictions and obscurations and imbueing them and saturating them with the light of loving-kindness and purity. Before you move on, imagine them to be free. And imagine them to embody these virtues, flowing forth spontaneously, unimpededly from the ground of their being. So, one by one, purify your vision of every person who comes to mind.

[44:37] Expand the space of your mind in all directions. Breathe in, breathe out to all sentient beings, above and below into all the sides.

[45:26] Then release all appearances and aspirations and simple let your awareness rest as you’ve done before.

[46:39] The bell rings three times.

[47:20] When we do this type of practice, we may have this sense that, well, this is how I purify my way of regarding this person and this person and that person. That’s true. But much more deeply what we’re really doing is purifying our own minds. Because every person who comes up, as they appear to our own minds, are completely, every aspect, every every bit of information in the appearances of other people to our minds, every bit comes from our own minds and from no place else, right. No bits travel through space, no images travel on space. We have no idea what that person is. We cannot visualize, put it that way. And we’ll see no idea, we cannot imagine what is it like to be that person from their perspective. And in fact we don’t know. So what we do know is how they’re appearing to us. It’s always you-me you-me you-me they-me they-me you-me you-me, right. It’s always, I’m always to cook. And all the ingredients, all the colors are coming from one’s own mind.

So it’s not different than dreaming in this regard and that is if you meet really disgusting people and attractive and wonderful people in your dream, they are nothing other than personifications of different aspects of your mind, of course. And that’s no more or less true during the daytime than in dream’s state. Seems like it, that’s because we reify.

[48:56] We’re gonna spend a bit of time this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, but certainly this afternoon just doing a brief flyover, a scan of the so-called five pass and how they map onto the four yogas. Because, after all this, the reason I’m still teaching and not just in retreat all the time is for the sake of really trying to highlight the path, right? And this is a path of four yogas.

If one is complacent or satisfied, let’s say, with viewing other sentient beings, one can say, as they really are. And that is some are just nasty and some are really attractive and some are really great and… that’s what’s really going on. That’s what I see and everybody sees and we can point the big villains in the world, we all agree on the really incredibly attractive women and the incredibly handsome men. We all agree, must be true. So now let’s start practicing Dharma. You can, it will take you three countless eons to proceed through those five paths. And that’s if you’re lucky, the Dalai Lama said it could take seven, right? On the other hand, there is the choice of, with wisdom, learning how to cultivate pure vision as we do on the Vajrayana. And then you can go through those with pure vision, with the insight backing that, with stage of generation, stage of completion. Then you can collapse eons into years, I mean it’s extraordinary.

It’s by seeing through the veneer and seeing through the essence – in Vajrayana of course you’re not just looking to the substrate consciousness. Here you must be seeing the emptiness of others and then looking right through to the Buddha nature. And of course, it’s not “other people are great and I’m terrible”, you’re developing self-divine pride, right. So you’ll see through the veneers, all the pleasant and unpleasant veneers of yourself, seeing all of those are just empty appearances, even your identity as a sentient being is empty of inherent nature. Seeing right through that, dissolving utterly, deconstructing your so whole sense, every aspect of your sense, body, speech and mind into emptiness. Seeing they’re just, however they appear, they’re just empty appearances.

So, basically, just turning off the program, I mean, we did this time and time again yesterday. We’re finished with that program book and then you’re another virtual reality and no one of them was any more real than the other, of course. Just turn off the program. When you see it’s a program, they got turned on with ignorance, turn off the program – it’s a choice you can make. And turn on a new program.

[51:35] Out of emptiness then arise yourself with pure vision, divine pride and then what makes Dzogchen powerful, as they will, there’s so many masters have stated, what really makes it powerful is the preliminary practices. It’s the guru yoga, developing that relationship with one, at least one person. One person, that will be, that will be enough, with one person, one guru. If you have more gurus and you can do that equally for more gurus, some of them incredibly lofty beings like His Holiness, some of them completely ordinary people beings like myself, but still in performing the role of a Lama for some people, but totally ordinary and then there’s an enormous spectrum between those two. If in that spectrum of a Lama who’s a very very ordinary person to one is absolutely extraordinary, if you equally, for Lamas with different degrees of insight and so forth, equally can deconstruct your conception of each one, this one’s ordinary, this one’s quite great, this is off-the-charts amazing, this is Vidyadhara. That’s how they appear to your mind, right.

Deconstruct all of those into emptiness. It’s genuine guru yoga. It’s not hierarchical. This teacher is pretty ordinary but still good, good for something. I can use him. This one’s pretty great, yeah this one’s quite good, this one’s amazing. I just oh I really prostrate to this one. This one is so incredible! If you’re doing that, you’re not practicing guru yoga, that’s called being a cheerleader. [laughter] Yeeeeee for the big lamas, booooo for the ordinary lamas, yippeeee – all the superficiality of a cheerleader. I like this one, he’s so profound but this one’s ordinary, he’s like me. You can, but you’re beyond back on the three-countless eon track.

So, to see through that in a pure vision, and then this preliminary practice, authentic relationship with the guru but this is Vajrayana guru yoga and then viewing and here’s and it just gets more difficult from there. Because then viewing exactly Asanga like this. I have, I think I hope you all know, a lot of respect for all of you here, I mean I’m listening to a lot of you and I know Glen is listening to those one-on-one that I cannot. But your dedication, the ethics, the sense of courtesy, the attentiveness, intelligence and so forth, really good, so it’s not too hard to then view your vajra siblings. We’re not literally vajra siblings here, we’ve not had an empowerment, we’re not all vajra brothers and sisters in terms of Vajrayana practice, for some yes, others not. But to develop that pure vision to vajra siblings, seeing each one as vyras and dakinis. That really gets powerful, powerful. And then all of these sentient beings as family, you know. That’s what really, that’s the kind of this massive engine that drives state of generation and completion, that drives shamatha and vipashyana, tregchö and tögal.

[54:40] If you’d say: “Ah, this is preliminary practice, get on with it”, you’re back to the three-countless eon track. Because you’ve left everything untouched, the guru is just a really nice person, very helpful, very articulate or whatever and Dharma buddies, well up and down, come si come ça, whatever, and sentient beings a bunch of schmucks, they really yuck. This is really samsara, degenerate era, I don’t like people much. Three countless eons, at best, you know. That’s when you’ve achieved this, the Mahayana path of accumulation, your clock isn’t ticking yet, the timer has not started on your three countless eons until you become a bodhisattva. So sorry, that was the bad news. So there was a time, oh yeah and then all sentient beings at its best, so that’s what gives its power. And then we can see why this equanimity is the basis for everything we do. Geshe Rabten taught me two practices: vajrasattva – clear out my junk and then this practice. Those are the two first practices he gave me, you know. Unburden yourself of all the junk you brought with you for the first 20 years and all the previous lifetimes and then here’s your foundation for all of your practice from now on. That was first time I had instructions from him one-on-one.

There we are. Enjoy your day. Act as illusory beings.

Transcribed by Sueli Martinez

Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti

Final edition by Rafael Carlos Giusti

Discussion

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