81 Assessing Different Levels of Realization

81 - Spring 2016 - Assessing Different Levels of Realizations

Olaso.

[00.04] This session is going to be very dense. [Laughter]. Unlike most of my talks, which is light and lofty and feathery. But I’m not going to be critique … criticizing anyone, I really don’t enjoy that ever, and I’m not criticizing people anyway. No, that can be entirely constructive but it will be dense. And so I’m going to start with a, just a … repetition of a comment I made earlier, which I’ve actually never heard anybody say, but I still think it’s true. And that is within the three higher trainings of ethics, samadhi, and wisdom. When we’re starting out on the path, the cultivation of ethics, I am very convinced, is more transformative and brings about greater sense of well being, greater sense of ease, and overcoming quite a number of psychological problems even, more so than meditation, more so than my beloved shamatha. And one can really wonder well, why? I don’t really get that at all. Because it’s quite normal to think, it’s very easy to think and understandable to think, look, I’m, I’m already an ethical person, you know. I’m not going and doing terrible things. I’m a nice person. So I think I pretty well got ethics handled. So let’s just move on and let’s get into shamatha. That’s why we came here, meditation, let’s get on with it. Because ethics, I’m doing fine. I’m okay. You’re probably okay. Those bad people aren’t. But you know, we good people are fine. I understand that.

[01:43] But it’s like a person who has malaria. And during the periods when it’s not active, feeling I’m perfectly healthy. Except when I’m not, you know. And so when all like this right now, and I’m assuming, I’m kind of observing. I don’t see anybody kind of like, bursting with mental afflictions. If you are, you’re very discreet. [Laughter]. But right now, you know, nothing, hopefully really untoward and kind of aggravating, irritating, or, or none of you are finding me so intensely attractive, that you’re feeling craving and attachment. [Laughter]. I think we’re all pretty safe on that one. So in other words, this is good, you know. But what about when mental afflictions come up? What about that? I mean, you really, you know, in your face, like active malaria. How are we then, you know, and just coming back to the simplicity of the core, simplicity of ethics, or morality, as you wish in Buddhism, it’s non-violence and it’s benevolence. Non-violence, I would say, is really, of the overt and the covert. And overt violence, overt violence is very often coming out of anger, obviously. And as with harsh speech, is with physical behavior, but also harsh, contemptuous thoughts, resentful, hateful, malevolent thoughts. These two are actions, right? When we’re intending, we’re really focusing on somebody with real malice, and so forth. There’s clearly violence. It just hasn’t become public yet. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less malicious, or malevolent. So that’s … so to overcome anger, or at least not to let it manifest in the world, that’s going to be very much part .... that’s ethics. That’s ethics, right?

[03:27] And it’s very easy when we’re not upset, but then when we are upset there’s something about emotions and anger is an emotion. Emotion means an emotion outwards. When we get angry isn’t that the case? We want to express it. We want to let people know. I have to share my, what do I, I have to express my emotions or I have to give you a piece of my mind. And you know my interpretation of that, it’s always the worst piece. But the emotions come up and especially the anger, it’s just, it’s kind of like ok now. And it really just kind of wants to erupt at least with a facial expression. Or how about this, watch my mouth [Alan makes an expression with his mouth, then laughter]. I think that pretty well did it. The mouth and the glance. [More laughter]. If this had been serious I just was violent against Michelle, you know. Like that was contempt, disgust, and dismissal and you’re so hopeless I won’t even attend to you any more. Right. And that was with a little bit of muscle around my mouth and the eyes. And so, not expressing it. Not expressing violence by way of body, speech, and mind. Not that easy. Easy when there is no anger but when there is anger it’s not easy at all. And so then, that’s overt, overt violence.

[04:44] But my interpretation of covert violence is an ‘I-it’ relationship where we objectify and treating another person as an object and we’re treating that person with attachment, craving, self-centered self-centered attachment. Now this person whoever it is, could be another sentient being, is there and for the time being I’m seeing this person as someone who can give me pleasure and I’m now going to work on a strategy to make sure you give me the pleasure I want. And sexual pleasure is the obvious one but also exploitation, manipulation; right after the first world war that’s when the advertising industry grew up. There was no such thing as advertising pretty much before then. People bought what they needed but then, and I won’t go into the whole story, it’s kind of interesting but not interesting enough. But it grew up and the basic thing was how can we persuade people to buy things they don’t need? And they’ve been on a roll ever since that’s now about almost 100 years. And we can see what that’s done to the environment, to the economy, and so forth. Encouraging people to think, and massively, to think, you never have enough and do not be satisfied because you need this. You need this. And in fact, you don’t. But they’re trying to persuade you. That is an ‘I-it’ relationship. That’s a type of violence to my mind. It’s treating other people [as] simply something to be used for your own gain. Monetary or maybe puff up your own ego, or give you more power over us, or your repu…[reputation], etc. etc. but we’re using people like a thing. And that’s dehumanizing, degrading, and therefore it’s an act of violence. Okay. And sometimes it manifests with a real sweet smile. Like if a man is just going after women, you know, as one object of gratification after another. Well, if he’s really good at it, boy it looks so cool, like boy he’s really so sweet and friendly and, but it’s all in the motivation right. And so it looks like whoa, that person’s so nice, so friendly, so caring and yet it’s not. It’s all a deceit. Right. So, that’s a type of violence. Right. Any type of activation of an ‘I-it’ relationship is violence. And so, not so simple then. And then so, but that’s only half the equation that is non violence body, speech, and mind overt or covert. There’s covert by way of attachment and overt by way of anger. But then there’s benevolence. Benevolence, you know, caring.

[07:10] And so really the Four Immeasurables are just designed right there in the foundation. Clearly they can go to very very lofty states of you know sublime awareness. But to really practice ethics it’s not just, not harming people then you’ve risen to the level of a, of a, a blade of grass. Okay so you didn’t harm anybody, that’s not exactly some exalted status, just to be non violent. Right. But to bring benevolence to the world. Well that, well that, okay, now we’re talking about something of value. And so how do we bring benevolence, and that it’s not just an expression of attachment to the people I find pleasing, which is so easy. Oh, this person is such a good father. And such a good mother, such a good friend, such a good boss. For that wedge of humanity, who falls under the cone of this person’s, you know, care, while everybody else can be left out, you know. So then that’s not benevolence, that’s, that’s attachment. [Alan chuckles]. We’re back to attachment again. So to really break down the barriers to see that benevolence is actually benevolence, and not simply a, you know, self-centered attachment with a happy smile. Then we actually really need the Four Immeasurables, to see that it is genuine benevolence and benevolence for people who are unpleasant and pleasant, attractive and unattractive, interesting and boring, old and young, rich and poor, famous and not famous, and so forth. And so then we [suppo] … this sounds like then there’s a lot of work to be done in ethics, before you actually sit down to meditate. And I’m speaking here with really very strong conviction, based upon my own, my own background, not of me, but in 1971, when I went to move into this refugee community of Mcleod Ganj, which was back then, very, very primitive. It was only 12 years after most of them had escaped. And it was very, very primitive. That’s all I’ll say. Really primitive. Everybody was poor. I was voluntarily poor, all the Tibetans were poor, because they were escaping, had to escape for their lives.

[09:09] And I’d never been in such poverty, or simplicity or austerity before 'cos I’d come from a very privileged background. But what struck me and I’ve said this many times publicly, here I was in this community, this refugee community, everybody dirt poor that they don’t even have any land. You know, because the land around is owned by farmers who’ve been there for generations and generations. So they live in these little hovels, these little hovels, and they’re selling sweaters, they’re eking out there, you know, just they’re just basically barely getting by. And what struck me about them and this is the whole community, not the monks, not the lamas, not the Rinpoches and the tulkus and the yogis, just the people in the village that I was living with. That is a good generalization and there’s just no romanticizing about this from my side at all, these were the happiest, most warm-hearted, kind-hearted people I’ve ever met as a community, and there was no comparison. And it wasn’t like I lived in bad places. I lived in Basel. It’s a lovely city, very nice in Switzerland. I lived in Edinburgh when I was a young, young boy. I lived in Israel, that my memories there are very happy. I lived in Southern California a lot. Happy, you know. But I never met people like this. And the vast majority of them, I know this with certainty. Or I believe it with enormous competence, these Tibetans that I engaged with on a daily basis in the village, the vast majority have never meditated, never meditated at all. And most of the monks don’t meditate. And most of the nuns don’t meditate. They’re doing prayers. They’re doing devotions, they may be studying, they’re performing services in the monastery. But very few meditate among common Tibetans; it’s very often thought, meditation, that’s for the monks. And then the monks think meditation, that’s for the tulkus. And the tulkus think meditation? That’s for the high tulkus. [Laughter]. Really, I’m not joking, right? And so, and yet, how many for those of you know quite a number of Tibetans, how many monks and Geshes and so forth who don’t really do much in the way of meditation, are just exceptionally fine people? Yeah. And they’re not meditating, really. They’re probably going, you know, whipping through their sadhanas every day, maybe with a lot of mindfulness, maybe not.

[11:13] But, you know, I think this is all evidence in the position, in the, in the, in the assertion I’m making here, that ethics is profoundly transformative and the fact they weren’t merely poor. They were poor. They were refugees in India, which is already, you know, back then, and now so much poverty there. But these people have all been … there were very few had … would not been traumatized getting out. If they happened to live right near the border and they just pop over, okay, no big trauma, they just left, but they still have to leave home. But most of them, most of the lamas, and so forth I knew came from Kham, from Amdo from central Tibet, which means, you know, trials and tribulations, misery, and trauma, and ghastly suffering, and tremendous, encounter with tremendous evil for them to get out. And so many, everyone a tragic story after tragic story, that was normal, right, and then leaving everything behind. They almost all came down, utterly impoverished. They could only bring what they carry in their hands. And with all of that, what you’d expect to see, this is like a mental asylum, where everybody’s treated, being treated for post, post traumatic stress disorder, and profound depression, and then searing gut wrenching anxiety that the Chinese Communist will come over the hill and swallow them again. And that was a concern for some. Because the Chinese were not that respectful of … the Chinese Communists, not that respectful of the borders with, with India. And there they were. And I don’t mean to be anything silly here. Like everybody was saying, no, no, no, it was a village. But just overall as a generalization, what was the nature of the people there, relaxed, cheerful, warm-hearted, happy, caring, and overall, the happiest people I’ve ever met. And they weren’t meditators. Meditators up on the hill. Of course, they were great. That we expect that, right. So that would be the point.

[13:05] So, coming just back to ethics briefly, and then it’s going to segue smoothly into the meditation. I’ve had a lot of time to meditate on this today on what I wanted to share this afternoon. Coming back to the classic mind training text, The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva. It starts with all about motivation, about bodhichitta, developing bodhichitta, engaging in preliminary practices to cultivate and really activate bodhichitta, guard your bodhichitta, that’s the first four chapters. And develop very strong resolve to devote one’s life to dharma. So that’s the first four chapters. Then the fifth chapter is called Guarding Introspection. It’s really one of my favorite chapters. It has been for a long time. That one chapter, chapter five, could be translated in different ways. But Guarding Introspection is a good translation. It’s all ethics. It’s all ethics. But so crystal clear. And if I just, if I could only pluck out one theme from the whole chapter which is very rich, has an enormous amount of wisdom in it. He says this, and here’s and he says it again and again and again to make sure you if you miss it the first time you’ll get it by the time he says it six times in a row with slight variations. “When a mental affliction comes up, recognize it and remain still like a piece of wood.” It’s really simple. When a mental affliction comes up and dominates your mind, not just ‘hello’, and then it’s gone, bye. ‘Hello’ and grips you in its talons. When that happens, and you see in modern terminology, your mind is in a refractory period. In Buddhist terminology, your mind is in the grip of a mental affliction. The first thing to do is recognize it. The second thing to do is, don’t act. Don’t, it’s like you’re now, you’ve just gotten the Zika virus. What can you do for humanity? Don’t let it spread. You know, or the swine flu. I’ve had that one. Just don’t let, it’s really unpleasant and it doesn’t go away overnight. But you have something to do here. Don’t sneeze on people. Don’t act such in a way that it becomes contagious.

[15:09] And when we have mental afflictions that are active, like active malaria and what have you, when we act, that’s when they become contagious. Craving for one person can easily catalyse craving in the other person, anger towards one person catalyse the anger in that person, jealousy, jealousy, contempt is super contagious. Just watch the amount of contempt that happens over the next what, how many months is it that we have to agonize with the American elections, you know, and the common denominators can be contempt. Watch for it, it’ll be from all parties. And everybody involved, everybody will be looking down with contempt upon the people they disagree with. That’s normal. And they will express it unimpededly. It’s already, it’s already happened a lot. And it’s all considered fine, because we don’t even have a notion that maybe that’s not virtuous. You know, it’s really a very primitive society, in this regard.

[16:00] And so that’s the real essence of it, recognize the mental affliction as a mental affliction. And the first thing is, don’t let it be contagious. Don’t act upon it. Don’t start cranking out negative karma that will just bring you misery in the future. At the very least, keep it to yourself, and don’t let it manifest in behavior. And that’s ethics. When we go into meditation, then we really get down to the root of these and try to eradicate them, right. But at an ethics level it’s just damage control, damage control, don’t let yourself be harmed more by this and don’t harm anybody else. Be like a piece of wood, right? And so in that regard, the core of it, and he says this is for all of the six perfections. Each of the six, generosity is not how much money or stuff you’re giving or how much service you’re rendering. It’s a state of mind. Ethics is not following this vow, following that vow, and so forth. It’s a state of mind of restraint from non-virtue and the wish to enact virtue, nonviolence and benevolence. Patience is not anything other than a state of mind. Enthusiasm, meditation, and wisdom they’re all states of mind. It’s a really central theme, right. And so, in order to practice ethics, then as I said before, while there’s, on the one hand, a hierarchy or a sequence, from ethics, to samadhi, to wisdom, as in relaxation, stillness, and vividness, as you start developing these, you’ll find there’s a synergistic relationship. That the more you deeply develop shamatha and the broader range of samadhi practices, then this enhances, it empowers your ethics. And of course, it’s a platform for vipashyana, for wisdom. Then as you’re going into wisdom, into vipashyana, hearing, thinking, meditation, and cultivating wisdom, does that help your shamatha and your overall cultivation of samadhi? Absolutely, yes. And then that will enhance your ethics and ethics will turn around, so you have this wonderful wheel of Dharma, where every aspect of your Dharma is nurturing every other aspect, and then you are literally on a roll. And if you have a path, then that’s very good. Right.

[18:01] And so in this regard, I want to share a fairly rich, quite a rich front loading of the next meditation, which I want to be silent. So I would invite you to now really go into samadhi of hearing, because I’m going to be citing one outstanding gold standard after another, almost all from the Buddha, okay, of vipashyana. Vipashyana, okay, gold standard. The word, vipashyana, is used for everything these days, it’s been so … and sometimes it’s taught excellently and sometimes it’s moderately, and sometimes it’s so watered down, it bears almost no resemblance at all, to what the Buddha taught. And so as with shamatha, as with the first jhana, as with many other things, there’s a gold standard. I’m going to share with you the gold standard, okay? So here it is, first of all, just a … a …[reading a text]. Okay, I left out one little thing I wanted. No problem. Just let me see if I can find it quickly. If I can’t find it quickly, I won’t look any further. There was just one little thing I wanted that I think I deleted accidentally. Yep, I deleted it, okay. No problem. So simply remind you of that lovely Suda Sutta, the Cook Sutta, where the Buddha emphasized the importance of identifying the sign of the mind. And by so doing, then your Four Applications of Mindfulness really take off. Remember, that’s just a paraphrase. You have it in your notes already. I copied it here because I thought it was so good. And then I went this a couple of times a day and I’ve lost it. But let’s just bear that in mind. Because this is, this is front loading the meditation. We’ll settle body, speech, and mindedness into its natural state. We will come to the culmination of that. And we’re doing our best approximation of identifying the sign of the mind. To actually identify that means you’re Identifying the substrate consciousness, right? You’re identifying that sheer luminosity and cognisance of your own awareness. That’s a sign of the mind. That’s a stillpoint. Right? From which then you can attend with quite some objectivity, on to whatever you want to attend to, you know. Relatively speaking a lot better than otherwise, signal to noise ratio. So the Buddha really emphasized this, the one who really succeeds in the practice of vipashyana is one who has already achieved the sign of the mind, which means he’s achieved shamatha. The mind has settled in its natural state.

[20:31] Okay, well, let’s do our best approximation. And so awareness comes to stillness, right? And then we go directly from there. Here’s the, I’m about to read the gold standard of vipashyana. In the Pali Canon, the Theravada tradition from the Buddha, and there are many different versions, but this is the gold standard of the gold standard. And that is vipashyana focused on the mind in the Buddha’s own words, okay. And I’m going to read it with very little commentary. [Pause].

[21:06] Oh, I do have it, okay. I’m going to read it. The section … who was it that said the only time I made a mistake, was when I thought I made a mistake, and I hadn’t. Somebody … it wasn’t me, somebody … because I like that was one case here. I do have the quote and it’s worth reading. Okay. Just enjoy. “There are cases where a wise experienced skillful monk remains focused on the body as the body, feelings as feelings, the mind as mind, phenomena as phenomena, ardent, introspective and mindful. Putting aside attachment and disappointment regarding the world, as he remains thus mindful of phenomena as phenomena,” So the culmination of that whole process of the Four Applications of Mindfulness. “his mind becomes concentrated, his defilements are abandoned. He takes note of that fact.” So he’s free, and he knows he’s free, right? “As a result, he abides in happiness here and now, and is mindful. And he is … and is mindful and introspective as well. Why is that?” Why did his practice go so well? “Because the wise experienced skillful monk has acquired the sign of his own mind.” Okay. Don’t want to paraphrase that one. That’s really beautiful.

[22:16] And then, and then we turn to the Cittanupassana, The Contemplation of the Mind. And its contemplation, not bare attention, it’s contemplation of the mind, the direct translation from the Pali in the Buddha’s great discourse on the Four Applications of Mindfulness. So here it is the gold standard, this is authentic vipashyana. No interpretation, it just is, right. And here it is, I’m gonna read it with very little commentary. But this is what I would like to do is, we’ve gone into very high altitude vipashyana, over the last few days, you know, we’re going into that very subtle realms of the emptiness of awareness itself. And all of that it’s very, you know, the air is very thin. And it’s … sometimes it’s difficult for our minds to mesh, to engage with it, because our minds are still relatively coarse and the practice is very, relatively subtle. And so it’s ever so important, and Geshe Rabten drilled this into me 30 years ago. In terms of your primary practice, have a range of practices, but in terms of your primary practice, make sure that your mind engages with it and it really benefits you. So it’d be nice, just to say, do the five stages of Guhyasamaja stage of completion practice. They’re really profound. Except for the chances of your mind really engaging with that. Very small. And for some people, Dzogchen very small, and for some Mahamudra and even vipashyana, Madhyamaka vipashyana, very small, well, let’s notch it down. And let’s find a level of authentic gold standard vipashyana, not watered down, not elementary, not, you know, made simple for dummies, absolute Buddha, Buddha [hatch??] speech of the Buddha. But at a level where I can almost guarantee you, practice this, and you’re going to see the benefit. Really, this is foundational.

[23:59] And you don’t find it in the lamrim. They don’t include the Four Applications of Mindfulness in the lamrim. So, but I think it’s good for us as His Holiness has so often said, as Dharma comes to the West, don’t just rely on Tibetan Buddhism, go back to India also, and tap into that. We’re not Tibetans. So Atisha and the other great masters selected, adapted, presented Buddhism for Tibetans, and they did a fantastic job. We’re not Tibetans. So let’s draw from the richness of the Tibetan, but let’s not overlook what they got theirs from. And maybe we’ll adapt it a little bit differently. Maybe some practices will be enormously helpful, Tibetans didn’t really need. Because whatever they did, it worked. But it needs to work for us. We need to have Westerners, moderners, East, West, I don’t care where you’re from, who are really becoming bodhisattvas and yogis and, accomplished. If we’re not, then what’s the point?

[24:51] So here it is. Cittanupassana, Contemplation on the Mind from the Mahasatippathana Sutta: “… And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu dwell perceiving again and again the mind as the mind.” Already crucial, you know what it means. Without the overlay, without cognitive hyperactivity disorder. “Here, bhikkhus, when a mind with attachment arises, a bhikkhu knows this is a mind with attachment. Or when a mind without attachment arises, he knows this is a mind without attachment.” It’s very interesting. So we’re just diagnostic. But he said, first of all, achieve the sign of the mind. So we’re frontloading the meditation, settle body, speech, and mind, and then your best approximation of resting in the sign of the mind. Then direct your attention, the light of your awareness to the space of the mind, that domain where mental afflictions and so on arise. Establish your baseline in shamatha, settling the mind in its natural state. Let the mind go into free flow, right. Unimpeded. Pandora’s box. And then when attachment does arise, discerningly note it. And when attachment isn’t there, discerningly note that, and so far, that’s it. It’s purely diagnostic. Let it be. This is vipashyana, so far that’s it.

[26:05] And then I’m going to read quickly because this is very common in the Pali Canon, there’s a lot of repetition, ”… When a mind with anger arises, he knows this is a mind with anger, or when a mind without anger rises, he knows this is what a mind without anger." In each of these cases, it’s the mental affliction and that means you need to identify mental affliction as mental affliction, not mix it up with things that are not mental affliction. Just like you mustn’t conflate loving kindness with self centered attachment. Here’s where the precision of words, and, and conceptual understanding comes in. “When a mind with delusion arises …” as in reification or grasping to the permanent, the dukkha, the not self as being the impermanent, seeing the impermanent as permanent, the dukkha as sukka, the not self as self, all of that. When there is this active misconstrual or misapprehension of reality, including the grasping to the self, reification of others, when the mind is with delusion arises, he knows the mind is with delusion. Purely diagnostic still? right? This is really practical. This is something we can definitely do, " … or when a mind without delusion arises …", he’s not talking about being an arhat. It means the symptom has subsided for a while and you kind of relatively … it kind of feels okay, right. Then this is a mind without delusion or a mind or a laxed mind arises, laxed or dull, he knows this is a laxed mind, you know that, " … or when the distracted mind," here we are, like you know, laxity and excitation, " …or when a distracted mind arises, he knows this is the distracted mind, … or when a developed mind, a cultivated mind arises, this is a developed mind, or when an undeveloped mind arises, he knows this is an undeveloped mind.” So, the mind being crude or relatively subtle, refined or unrefined, “…or when an inferior mind arises, he knows that this is an inferior mind, or when a superior, noble or lofty, a virtuous mind arises, he knows this is a superior mind." Coming towards the end here: “When a concentrated mind arises, he knows this is a concentrated mind. When an unconcentrated mind arises, he knows this is an unconcentrated mind. When the mind is temporarily free from defilements arises, he knows this is a mind temporarily free from defilements. Or when a mind not free from defilements arises, he knows this is a mind not free from defilements.” So this is like diagnostic. But each case with precision, with real discernment, as you’re just letting the mind go into free flow, just they’re all on its own, just coming up, coming up, just recognizing discerningly.

[28:37] This is vipashyana from the Buddha’s own lips, so there’s no interpretation, this is what he said. “Thus he dwells again and again .... Thus he dwells, perceiving again and again, the mind as the mind in himself. Or he dwells perceiving again and again the mind as the mind in others.” Remember, we’ve looked at that, right? “Or he dwells perceiving again and again the mind as the mind in both himself and others.” There’s a dynamic interaction, right? Where we’re in a way sensing or observing or sensing the other person’s mental state, whether mental afflictions, whether getting upset, whether they’re getting impatient, whether they’re getting jealous, we can sense that, we don’t have to be clairvoyant. “He dwells perceiving again and again because, and the actual appearing of the mind,” the causal factors of these mental states arising. What’s giving rise to them now, we’re going more than beyond diagnostic, we’re now going into what, what’s the cause? Not just looking at symptoms. How did this come about? I was sitting there with no anger and then something happened and now my mind is with anger. What was it? And that goes for all these other mental afflictions. Right? “Or he dwells again, proceeding again and again, the cause and the actual dissolution of the mind.” And that is anger, craving, etc, etc. They dissipate, they fade away. How did that happen? How come they didn’t stay? What happened? What are the factors of dissolution and one does this with respect to oneself and others. "Or he dwells perceiving again and again both the actual appearing and dissolution of the mind with their causes. To summarize, he is firmly mindful of the fact that only the mind exists.” As he is attending to the mind, he’s always seeing mental events as mental events, not conflating with other people, or the objects of the thoughts, or with himself, oh I am a terrible person I had this thought. You’re not a terrible person, maybe the thought’s terrible, you’re not terrible, right? Not just seeing mental events as mental events. He’s talking about sanity here. Because if you’re seeing mental events as something that they’re not, you’re delusional. “That mindfulness is just for gaining insight (vipashyana) and mindfulness progressively.”

[30:44] “Being detached from craving and wrong views, he dwells without clinging to anything in the world. Thus bhikkhus, in this way a bhikkhu dwells perceiving again and again the mind as the mind.” So if you ever, you will have this on your notes, if you’d ever like to just touch base with what is the absolute and the non-debatable, gold standard, a foundational vipashyana in the Buddhist tradition, I just read it. You can read the whole sutta. It’s not that long. But we just went to the core of the mind, right. Now it’s for you to evaluate. I just looked at that and say, that is just breathtakingly brilliant. That’s my take, my take. So but now what’s being applied here is mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. Well, we all know this kind of mindfulness movement going on. Okay, and we all know what it refers to it, holding that in mind, I am not going to criticize it anymore. But now what, they can define it any way they like, I don’t care, it’s their business. But if you’re speaking in the context of Buddhism, then mindfulness already means something. It’s like the leg of a dog. It already has a meaning. Therefore the tail is not a dog because we have the word … the leg of a dog is taken. You can’t just put something else into it because you kind of feel like it. So go back to Nagasena directly related to the Buddha’s words here. This was from a Buddha to an arhat. We’re in good company here. “Mindfulness, when it arises, calls to mind wholesome and unwholesome tendencies, with faults and faultless, inferior and refined, dark and pure, together with their counterparts. Mindfulness, when it arises, follows the courses of beneficial and unbeneficial tendencies.” The courses means how they originate, how they’re present, how they dissolve away. [recognizing] “these tendencies are beneficial, these unbeneficial, these tendencies are helpful, these unhelpful; thus one who practices yoga rejects unbeneficial tendencies and cultivates beneficial tendencies.” That’s what’s actual mindfulness. If anybody would like to know what’s mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition, Nagasena just told you as an arhat. That’s the gold standard, right, and completely in accordance with the Buddha’s own words. We saw the same words being used. And that was vipashyana’s application of mindfulness is a complete match, and anything that is contrary to that is then not Buddhist? Right? That’s Buddhist. And then I just wanted to end the front loading of this meditation, for which I get to be silent for 24 minutes. Shantideva.

[33:08] Oh, pat-a-pat, goes my heart. In his chapter, just before the introspection one, just before, he’s coming to the end of the chapter that in Tibetan, it says, guarding, since the conscientiousness or teaching on conscientiousness, that’s being really concerned about being responsible, with respect to applying yourself to practice and, you know, carrying on with your resolved bodhichitta. But right towards the end, this is quite famous. Let me read just three verses, then we’ll jump right into the practice. “Even if exiled, an enemy may acquire a residence and followers in another country whence he returns with his full strength.” So you can win a battle and then the enemy retreats and gets a good benefactor, and more, more conscripts and more supplies and more, and more ammunition and so forth, they come back and beat the hell out of you, right? So in ordinary enemies, you never really quite know when the wars are over. Right? Because they can always retreat. You can even have one World War end. And then lo and behold, it has part two. Instead of World War One, part two, they just called it the Second World War, but it’s actually, really was. Historians agree. Second World War was simply World War One, part two, because there’s complete continuity there. Right? Pretty much the same sides, almost the same entirely. And so there it is. That’s for ordinary enemies. But he says, “But there is no such cause for the enemy, the mental afflictions.” Not like that. “Once the affliction that dwells in my mind has been expelled, where would it go, and where would it rest and attempt to destroy me?” That is, if you overcome some mental affliction, where, what other foreign countries that it can go to, and recoup and get revitalized and then attack you again. Of course, knowing where it can go, right. “Feeble in spirit, I am lacking in perseverance.” When sometimes like me so many times, ‘oh man, I’m not getting anywhere and my mental affliction is so heavy, ahhhh Is it even worthwhile? ahhhh. I don’t like . Aaahhhh. Dharma’s so hard. Ahhh. It’s not working. Why is it not progressing? Ahhhh. I guess he did that too, so I feel better. [Laughter] “Feeble in spirit, I am lacking perseverance.” I want to watch TV. I want to go for … I want to go to see a movie … it’s hard.

[35:29] “Mental afflictions are frail…” So now I have to speak in a deeper voice. You’re getting all wimpy like me. No, this is voice of Geshe Rabten. “Mental afflictions are frail and conquerable with the eye of wisdom.” Buck up. [Laughter]. “Mental afflictions do not …” This is really cool. “Mental effects do not exist in sense objects, nor in the sense faculties” That is in your frontal lobe or in your … you know, blah, blah, blah, they don’t exist in the brain, so don’t worry about it. Nor in the cities, between, nor anywhere else. “Then where do they exist? And agitate the whole world? This is an illusion only. Liberate your fearing heart and cultivate perseverance for the sake of wisdom. Why would you torture yourself in hells for no reason?” So there we are.

[36:26] So the meditation which will be silent, settle body, speech, and mind, rest in your best approximation of the sign of the mind, settle the mind in its natural state, observe whatever comes up. First simply noting if the mind is afflicted or not afflicted in these various ways. Then when you do see either, either one, the mind as in a wholesome mind comes up, unwholesome mind comes up, then, again, there’s a question here. That’s why it’s called vipashyana. And that is examine closely, how do they occur? How are they present? How did they dissolve, but all from this perspective, again, not caught up in the drama. Not in the mesh. Resting in the sign of the mind and observing as if you’re a doctor observing somebody else’s mind, you know, with benevolence, critical, discerning intelligence, but not yours, don’t own it. Because just view the mind as the mind. And what he meant there in part is not as your mind because your mind has no owner. Okay, enjoy the practice. See you in 24 minutes.

[37:32] [Bell rings].

[37:48] So let’s go right back to the text. It’s already, my goodness, 6:35. So I’m going to very briefly come … go back, backtrack, just a wee bit, back to the statement, “… thus, by sustaining Mahamudra, while mounted on the steed of shamatha, or serenity,” you can find it. It’s a … it’s a very loaded sentence there. And I want to unpack it just a little bit before we move on. As I said, it will be dense, the next 45 minutes or maybe a bit longer, will be dense. So by sustaining Mahamudra, while mounted on this, on the steed of serenity, what he means here, sustaining Mahamudra, he’s talking about vipashyana, sustaining vipashyana, how do you sustain it? By mounting it on shamatha, when by the power of examination focused on emptiness, so this is again, vipashyana that entails examination. Shamatha is simply placing the awareness by the power of an examination focused on emptiness. You obtain concentration or samadhi, imbued with bliss, with a bliss of physical and mental pliancy. Okay, it’s a technical term, it’s a very important one actually, as one is actually proceeding on path. And again, that’s why I’m teaching, to help people find the path and proceed on it. You might recall, I hope you do, that when you’re practising just straight shamatha, and then you along the way, you’ll get spikes of pliancy, of bliss, and so forth, but then when on that day that you fully achieve shamatha then a very deep and quite robust shifts take … shifts take place in your energy system, in your mind, and an unprecedented and sustainable degree of pliancy and bliss, of body and mind, pliancy of body and mind, bliss of body and mind arises, it kind of flows, flows and then like the the milk that comes off the boil and simmers, then you settle down and then you’ve achieved shamatha, right?

[39:45] So that’s a pliancy in bliss of body and mind that is of the genre of shamatha within the context of shamatha. Okay. Then you apply that shamatha to the investigation of emptiness to realize emptiness and so you’re … but now just instead of attending to the breath, you’re attending to emptiness. Okay? If you’re, if you’re in vipashyana there and you’re asked what is the object of mindfulness, emptiness. Right. That’s what you’re attending to and seeking to sustain your focus on with relaxation, stability and clarity, right? So it’s really shamatha on emptiness is now you access, you gain insight into … you, you encounter the vipashyana by means of examination, investigation, and so forth, as we’ve been doing. But then when you identify it, when you know it, when you have some experience of it, then you just … then you slide. So it’s like a skater that is pumping, pumping, pumping, and then just glides. So you’re pumping with investigation and analysis, until you break through the reification, you see the very emptiness, of inherent nature of whatever you’re attending to, like your mind. And then when that becomes clear, not perfectly clear, but you’re getting it enough. That is, this is it, then you just mount that shamatha and you glide, right. And eventually you’re going to achieve shamatha on vipashyana. Okay.

[41:11] And that’s the union of shamatha and vipashyana. And when you achieve shamatha on vipashyana, then another whole level of pliancy of body and mind, and bliss of body and mind arises, because it’s now supercharged. Shamatha, because it’s completely unified with vipashyana in an order of magnitude, far, far greater pliancy, far greater bliss of body and mind arises. And when that occurs, you obtain the warmth stage of the path of application, the second of the five paths, okay? So you have three stages in the path of application of accumulation. What are you doing during that time? Well, now this makes it perfectly obvious. On this Mahamudra path, right? You’re meditating on emptiness, to access the path, you have to have bodhichitta and you have to have, you have to have shamatha, to make sure your bodhichitta is genuine, right? Uncontrived. That’s enough to get to the path. But then to stabilize in the path and proceed on that Mahayana path of accumulation, you need to meditate on emptiness. As you’re meditating and then you fall off, you fall into [??], or you lose it, you fall into laxity and then maybe get a bit distracted, because this is really challenging. And then you keep on balancing, balancing. And so basically, you’re achieving shamatha all over again. But instead of on a conventional truth, ultimate truth, and when you finish, and you’ve achieved shamatha on vipashyana, that’s the point, says Panchen Rinpoche, that’s when you when you reach, I’m not going to say obtain, that’s when you reach, that’s what we’d say, in English, you reach the warmth stage of the path of application.

[42:47] There are four stages on the second path, the path of application, also called path of preparation and path of joining. So that’s, that’s a bit of context there. All right, this is on this Mahamudra path. The next paragraph, I’m not going to read it all over again, but very very succinctly, he maps the four yogas of Mahamudra, which is the whole path of Mahamudra, in … yeah, there it is, the whole path of the four yogas and he maps these onto the five paths with the first yoga corresponding to the path of accumulation and application. The second one, freedom from elaboration or non-elaboration corresponding to the achieving the path of seeing, the third path, direct realization, non-conceptual realization of emptiness. Because bear in mind when you have this union of shamatha-vipashyana on emptiness on the path of this path of application, it’s still veiled by generic idea. It’s an insight, I mean, it’s full fledged shamatha-vipashyana union, but it’s still veiled. It’s not an unmediated, non-conceptual realization. It’s mediated, it’s a conceptual realization. It’s way beyond understanding. But it still has these subtle veils in the path of application. The second path is to remove those veils. Just like removing veil after a veil, subtler and subtler and subtler until all the veils are gone. And then you prove modern philosophy and psychology wrong. That in fact, the mind can operate without being veiled by conceptualization and internal bias and so forth. They don’t have to believe that, they can believe whatever they like, they’re not studying aryas. So again, we have to, let’s be charitable. How would they know? Because everybody they’ve ever met is operating with a mind that is completely bogged down in and filtered by and biased by mental afflictions and concepts. So why wouldn’t, he is a very smart guy, I know him, why wouldn’t he draw that conclusion? Because all the evidence he has from his fellow Westerners says that’s everybody, and they haven’t studied aryas or highly accomplished yogis, except to study their brains and behavior, which means they miss the whole point.

[44:55] And so, so that’s … we just outlined … so there’s the path of application is to un-elaborate your mind, to lift all the veils of conceptual elaboration. And when they’re all gone, then you achieve non-elaboration. I said I wouldn’t do this but I’m doing it, the second yoga and you achieve … you achieve the first bhumi, which is to say you achieve the Mahayana path of seeing. And then when you realize appearances and mind are of one taste, there’s one taste, and you see that corresponds to the second, the, the third one, blah, blah, blah, the second, the second to the seventh bhumis. Okay. And then finally, you have non-meditation. So that was review. But I wanted to focus in a little bit more on this warmth stage of application and get the import of that. I’m going to skip the next section, which I’ve already read.

[45:47] And we’re going to pick up on his way of listing is like that of Guhyasamaja. He was a great authority within this Mahamudra tradition. But at this point, I do it right now. Yeah, no, I’m going to read one paragraph, and then we go a little bit more. He’s moving into a very, very interesting, very delicate topic. And I want to treat it with all the delicacy it requires, because this is, this is … it’s just that very important and very sensitive. Some textual systematizers, scholars who are really trying to make sense of the whole path, say it is unacceptable to equate non-elaboration, that is the second of the four yogas with the first bodhisattva stage. The first arya bodhisattva bhumi, which corresponds to the Mahayana path of seeing, they say that’s not right it’s unacceptable. And now an incredibly opaque reference here to a sutra, according, according to, according to the sutra on the seven stages, Dasa … Dasabhumika Sutra is a sutra on the ten arya bodhisattva bhumis. The 112 attributes of a Buddha are not present in post meditative …in post meditation. Well, okay, first of all, 112 attributes, that’s easy. It’s the 32 major marks, the 80 minor marks. I did the addition, it works. And beyond that, this is decontextualized. And I just thought it, can you make any sense of it, Glen? I really, I really gave it a good shot. And I, you know, without going to the sutra, which is about, I don’t know, 5000 pages long. It’s part of the Avatamsaka Sutra. And it was just enormous. And so no, obviously no chance of looking into it. So I don’t know, precisely what he means by this, you know, what that is about. They don’t show up in post-meditation, but I know exactly what he’s getting at. So even without knowing the precise meaning of that quote from the sutras, I know exactly what he’s saying, by context. And he said, this is contradictory.

[47:47] Okay, what he’s saying here is that in the sutras, and then very explicitly and in great detail and with the gold standard of authority, in Maitreya’s Abhisamayalankara, the Ornament for HIgher Realization, this is the most definitive presentation of the five paths and the 10 bhumis we have anywhere in Mahayana Buddhism, and it’s studied extensively in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, universally regarded as the classic and absolutely authoritative. You want to know the five paths and ten bhumis, that’s the place to go. And when I bailed out of the monastery in India, we were just about to begin six years of studying that text, we’d already memorized it. All of us had memorized it. And we recited, recited portions of it every day just to keep it alive. You memorize the whole text before you start studying it. And so we all did that, it was normal. So don’t .. woa, you know we all did it, everybody. But the day before that was to start, then I bailed out of the monastery and went up the mountains to meditate. And whether it was a good decision or not, I’m very happy I made it. Because where I was, in my practice, so primitive, and I thought I’m about to do six years of developing a precise and incredibly detailed understanding of all of the five paths for the sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and the bodhisattvas, all the five paths, all the 10 bhumis and I’m going to know that in meticulous detail, because when it’s been six years’ full time studying that, and debating on it five hours a day, having already memorized the root text, which we wrote out, analyze down to the minutiae. And we’ll study commentaries and sub-commentaries. And I just looked at this and said, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. My mind is such, such a dunghill. That for me to spend this much time studying things way up there, when I’m way down here, it’s just a disconnect. And I just can’t do it. And that’s when I went to His Holiness and said, I can’t do it. I just want to meditate. I want to learn how to achieve the first Mahayana path without having an extremely precise understanding of all the ones that come after that. If I can’t achieve the first one, then what do I need all that knowledge for? And so I just go off and practice the four applications of mindfulness. And he said, ‘go for it.’ And so, namo to my guru.

[49:55] So … some people say this, that … and so now I’m going to give you the import of this, and that is, when you look at the classic presentations of the first bhumi, what are the signs of having achieved the first bhumi? What are your powers? What is your wisdom? What is your clairvoyance and so forth? Well, they’re quite amazing. And what he’s getting at here, I know this is the case, is that when Tibetan yogis were achieving the state of non-elaboration, by and large, they could not display those abilities that you find described in such precise detail in these most authoritative, authoritative sutras and the text by Maitreya. So therefore, if you say you’ve achieved non-elaboration, and you say that’s equivalent to the first bhumi, then put up or shut up, you know. Show your stuff, show that you’re actually demonstrating that you have these qualities described in the most […??]. And if you can’t, then it’s contradictory to equate the yoga of non-elaboration with this bhumi. You can’t do that. It either has those qualities or it doesn’t, if it doesn’t, then stop saying they’re equivalent. This is contradictory. Okay. Well, let’s just fill this in a little bit. I’ve been vague. And I would like not to be vague. Because we’re now talking about something that means everything to me, and I think it’s important to you. Path. Path.

[51:18] So let’s just spend a little bit of time here, I’m going to read quickly, but from a source that is absolutely authoritative for the Kagyu tradition, this same tradition, okay. I’m going to read it quite quickly, and you’ll have it all on the internet. But I’m citing from one of the great classics, greatest classics of the Kagyu tradition, Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation. It’s a masterpiece. And he’s drawing fully from having been very well trained in the whole lamrim literature of Atisha. One of the greatest pundits of all of Indian Buddhism. He’s weaving that together with this extraordinary Mahamudra tradition of Milarepa, Marpa, Naropa, and so forth, and combining these in one text, the integration, right? And so right towards the end of the text, and there are two translations, the later one is better. Then Gampopa drawing from his great erudition stemming from Atisha who himself was a fabulous scholar, then he gives a very concise but very definitive account of the five paths and the 10 bhumis. Okay. And so it’s in the Kagyu tradition. So this is not Gelugpas beating up on Kagyupas or anything like that … this is their tradition, right? So here is now a direct quote. So just sit back and relax. I’m just going to read through this and see what sinks in but you can always come back as I said, this is dense. So Mahayana path of accumulation from Gompopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation. I won’t read all of it, but the quintessence. Verbatim.

[52:38] “One who has the Mayahana family cultivates bodhichitta, when it’s so inclined, recieves teachings from masters, makes efforts in the virtues, until the warmth of wisdom is attained”, they say heat, well, it’s warmth, I mean, it’s just for the … “for the warmth of wisdom is attained.” Now, you know what that means. The warmth, the warmth stage of the Mahayana path of of application, right? “During this time prior to achieving the warmth of wisdom, which is the first of four stages of the Mahayana path of application”, that’s what the whole path of accumulation is about, okay? during this time, "as you’re practicing, receiving teachings and making efforts in virtues, progress is classified in four stages: realization, aspiration, great aspiration and achievement.” Why is this called the path of accumulation, because on it one gathers the accumulations of virtue, it’s like charging up your battery, in order to become a vessel for the realization of warmth, and so on. You’re preparing yourself for this profound and a profoundly transformative realization, of warmth on the Mahayana path of application and so forth, and then on along the path of application, and then to becoming an arya bodhisattva. Therefore, it is called the path of accumulation. These are also called the root virtues. These virtues you’re cultivating on the path of accumulation, they’re the root virtues, which are similar to liberation. So, as before, as as, as below so above, and all of that, you find facsimiles of the qualities of enlightenment itself, right there on the ground, which it makes sense. “At this stage, 12 of the branches of enlightenment are practiced.” There are 37 branches of enlightenment, classic Buddhism, the four types of mindfulness, four applications of mindfulness, four types of perfect abandonment, and four types of miracle powers. Now, now you can rest a little bit, here’s something very familiar. “The four types of mindfulness are sustained the mindfulness of body, the feelings, the mind and phenomena.” This is your … what you practice on the initial stage of the Mahayana path of accumulation, classic sutrayana, bodhisattva practice. This is it. You’ve cultivated your shamatha in your bodhichitta and now you seal that with foundational vipashyana of the four applications of mindfulness.

[54:57] These four occur during the lesser stage, the initial stage, a small stage of the path of accumulation. But then you need to proceed on, right. And so then to move on to the second stage, the medium stage and the great stage for the second stage, the four types of abandonment are: abandoning non-virtues which have been created, so enough talking about ethics and the purification of the mind, not allowing new non-virtues to be produced, producing the antidotes, virtues which have not arisen and allowing those virtues which have arisen to increase. So just overall cultivating virtue of the mind, by way of wisdom and compassion, powered by shamatha, then we’ll move on to the great stage of the Mahayana path of accumulation. The four feats of miracle powers, or miraculous powers, are the absorption of strong aspiration, of enthusiasm, absorption of the mind, absorption of investigation. I’m not going to elaborate, I just wanted to kind of fly by, okay. But this is a time when you’re developing very deep samadhi. And you’re really developing siddhis, the great stage. That’s real siddhi time. Siddhi as in developing extraordinary abilities, paranormal abilities, and so forth. This is the time, big time. And so those four occur during the greater stage, the great state of the Mahayana path of accumulation. Then we have now very succinctly, then we move right on. Okay, now what’s next? Well, next is the warmth stage of the Mahayana path of accumulation, the path of application, of application, I said accumulation application, the path of accumulation begins, after the perfection of the path of accumulation. You can’t jump. One has to be completed, and then you move on to the next. It has four stages according, corresponding to the realization of the Four Noble Truths: warmth, summit, acceptance, and higher, highest worldly Dharma. It’s a fly-by, really very quickly. But what’s happening along these four stages, is you’re going back again and again in your realization of emptiness. And it’s becoming more and more unveiled, more and more unmediated. And then, of course, during the same time, you’re developing bodhichitta, and stronger and stronger and stronger.

[57:02] So why is it called the path of application because there one makes an effort to directly realize truth, you’re making effort to gain a non-, non-conceptual, unmuted realization of emptiness. Along these paths, you cultivate five, five faculties, which you may recall, which turn into five powers. So he says, Gampopa says further during the stages of, of warmth, and maximum warmth, these are the first two stages, he calls it maximum warmth, others called summit. During the first two out of the four stages of the Mahayana path of application, five faculties are to be, are cultivated. The faculties of faith, the faculties of … faculty of faith, faculty of enthusiasm, faculty of mindfulness, of samadhi, and of intelligence, you remember those five. So these are the five faculties you’re cultivating them, and they turn into the five powers. When they are empowered. During the stages of patience and highest worldly Dharma, patience, or acceptance. These are the final two stages on the Mahayana path of application, five powers are cultivated, the power of faith, enthusiasm, mindfulness, Samadhi, and the strength of intelligence, or wisdom. Okay, so that was that there was little flyby over the first two paths, right. And now we come to what he’s referring to. This is where there’s a debate, this is where it gets very delicate, very sensitive really quickly. And that is, and I’m not going to go further, I’m just going to go to the next stage. Okay, what’s it like now? What are your powers? What are your abilities? What are the hallmarks of having achieved the Mahayana path of seeing, achieving the first Bhumi? You’re an arya bodhisattva now, congratulations, that’s really something special. According to the most definitive sources we have in all of Buddhism, What’s that like? And here it is, at this bhumi, regarding the obscuration of mental afflictions, all of the 82 mental afflictions that are subject to be purified in the path of insight are purified without remainder, like it’s technical, don’t get bogged down in that he’s saying, there’s a whole array, whole bandwidth of mental afflictions that are now just eradicated, which means they’ll never come back. Before then you were just tempering them down, you know, subduing them. He said, they’re purified without remainder, you are forever free of a whole bandwidth of mental afflictions.

[59:24] That’s kind of a big deal. Regarding the three types of imputed obscurations, I’ve called these speculative, imputed is not bad, but remember, there’s acquired, acquired obscurations and the conate, he’s referring to the acquired, according, regarding the three types of imputed obscurations to knowledge, all that, all that are like or, they are all like, the bark of, all that or like the bark of the tree are removed. So three types, of all these imputed or acquired or speculative obscurations, they’re gone, and they’re gone forever. I mean, for eternity you’ll never have them back. This is the path. This is the path of seeing, this is arya path. This is where irreversible change is taking place. I mean really deep purification is taking place. At this time the bodhisattva is free from the five fears. Won’t label those right, oh, here it is. The 10 Noble Bhumi sutra says, as soon as one attains this great joy bhumi, the first bhumi one is free of fear of not making a living … phew! [laughter], a penchant for eternity, the fear of not getting praise, the fear of death, never again, the fear of rebirth in a lower realm, and I love this one, stage fright in large gatherings. [Laughter]. I don’t experience that. That’s not enough by itself. So this is big. This means, I mean, when he says free, never again, never again under any circumstances. I mean, fear of death, fear of lower … you’re never going to be born in the lower realm again, never happen. This is quite big.

[1:01:07] In terms of the distinctive abilities on this first bhumi, the 10 Noble Bhumi sutra says, that has to be the Dasabhumika Sutra, says: “a bodhisattva who abides at the bhumi of great joy, first bhumi, makes great exertion for his aspirations”, strives very diligently, “if he is renounced, then in one moment, he can enter into 100 different types of absorption, 100 samadhis simultaneously, and see 100 buddhas and be perfectly aware of their blessings. He can move 100 world systems, proceed to 100 different buddha fields, manifest in 100 different worlds and 100 tulkus simultaneously, and mature 100 different sentient beings. He can abide for 100 kalpas, see the 100 previous kalpas and the future 100 kalpas.” That’s an eon. “He can open 100 doors of dharma teaching and manifest 100 manifesting manifestation bodies, each with an entourage of 100 bodhisattvas.” Sounds pretty impressive. [Laughter]. That’s the first bhumi, they go up exponentially from there, second bhumi through fourth, they don’t go by like twice or three times, they go up exponentially. I think it’s by an order of an order of magnitude 10 times, 10 times as you go on, that’s the first bhumi. That’s baby bhumi. Little bhumi. Okay, so this, that’s classic, there’s really, there’s no debate about this, this is a Kagyu text, which the Gelugpa say this because they’re all going to the same source. So this is Mahayana path of seeing. And then now the, the criticism here is, we know this, this is the gold standard, you, Kagyupa, Mahamudra people, you saying you’ve … that you’ve achieved non, non- elaboration, which means you have achieved that. Good. Show your 100 tulkus at once. Go ahead, just manifest them. Virtual reality. 100 tulkus manifesting at the same time. Go anytime now. You can start. And if you can’t, then what are you saying that for? You’re making a false claim, right.

[1:03:17] Let’s go on a little bit, shall we? Because this is drama. Chagme … we’re not going to stop there. But you can see why that would be reasonable. I mean, here it is. You say that, they’re not the same. So stop saying that. Chagme Rinpoche says: “The mighty garuda is complete within the egg.” It’s a full fledged bird inside the egg. “When freed from the egg,” Egg shatters open. It flies high in the sky. But it was already a complete garuda inside the egg. Isn’t flying yet, but it’s already a garuda. “The attributes of the three buddha bodies,” dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya, “are complete in the mind. When the illusory body is destroyed, they arise,” these three buddha bodies “arise for the sake of others.” Okay, I’m going to give you a … I think I’ve already sent it … Didn’t I already sent the excerpt from Naked Awareness. Okay, there is … this is very concise, but it’s a very delicate and very deep and very important issue and it’s very concise here. Karma Chagme in the text that you have, Naked Awareness, really unpacks this in detail. More detail than I’ve seen anywhere else. What’s the debate? What’s going on? And what’s he getting at here? What he’s getting at here is that if you achieve that yoga, the second yoga of non-elaboration, it is equivalent to the first bhumi even though you may not be able to manifest these qualities, you have them but you can’t manifest them yet. And it’s like the garuda inside the egg, it can’t fly yet, but it’s a full fledged garuda. You have these qualities in your mind. But he said because of the contamination, the limitations of your body, this illusory body. Because of that maybe you have … maybe have arthritis, maybe you’re old, maybe, maybe you’ve got just a human body, that the body is constraining the manifestation or public display of these abilities you have. So you have them in your mind, but you can’t make them public, until you’ve shed the, shed the outer, what they call it, husk of your body, get into the bardo, and then your mind is now unimpeded, unhusked. And then in the bardo, then you can display them. Okay. But this means then, it’s faith based. And that is, we … you know, if you have some yogis who said I’ve achieved that but never displays any of those abilities dies, then all we see is a corpse, or maybe he stays in tukthang for a while, but we just don’t see them. So then, okay, then, okay, I guess I have to take that on faith. Right? Because he said, this is the deal, that the body, this illusory body, this has to be destroyed. And then they can arise for others, after … you have to get rid of the body, it’s containing, right?

[1:06:03] So that’s the assertion? Well, in this excerpt, I’ll tell you exactly where it is. There it is. I have it right here is if you have the book, but you have it in your book, and you’ll have it online. And it’s pages 210 to 214. In Naked Awareness, and I’m not going to read that, it would be interesting, we don’t have time, but it’s pretty clear. And you’ll see the whole debate there. What Panchen Rinpoche is referring to here very concisely is totally unpacked here. Right. And they’re giving … and this is going back to, gosh, a long time ago, to the … Jigten Gonpo, back to the 12th and 13th, early 13th century, this is the position of the, of the Kagyu schools and the Mahayana tradition, that this is the way it is, that you can’t demonstrate them yet, but they are in your mind. And they’re standing by this for the last … what is that? 700 years or so. And Jigten Gonpo, and these are great authorities within the Kagyu tradition that say, no, we’re standing by this, you have achieved the first bhumi, no, you can’t display those abilities, but you can when you’ve shed the mortal coil as they say. Alright. So you can see the full, the full presentation of this and the debate from Sakya Pandita in these five pages in … and I suggest you really look at it. It’s very interesting, and pretty self explanatory. But we’ll go back just a few more minutes to Panchen Rinpoche’s. Panchen Rinpoche is an interesting situation here. Because he’s not a Kagyupa. And the major criticism is not coming from Gelugpas. There were no Gelugpas back then. This is the 12th century. From the Sakyapa, and so … but Panchen Rinpoche’s wording here is very, very interesting. So here … Jigten Gonpo. Jigten Gonpo states, and it’s opaque here, but if you look at the excerpt from Naked Awareness, you see exactly what he’s saying. Jigten Gonpo, great Kagyupa master 13th century. He says, “If you find scriptural support in commentaries that ascertain that, I’ll give you a good horse. What is stated in the sutra on the 10 stages is written with regard to future lives.”

[1:08:13] So what he’s saying here is that there are some who say, Oh, this is contradictory. This can’t be, if you’ve achieved the first bhumi, then show your stuff, whatever, otherwise stop talking about it. Because if you’ve got it, you should be able to reveal it. And then he says, show me that, that if you got it, you can necessarily show it right, right there on the spot. What’s wrong with our garuda analogy? You have them but you can’t display them yet. So that’s what he’s saying. If you can show me in the sutras, the commentaries, a definitive statement that says if you’ve got them, then you can definitely display them right there. Show me I’ll give you a good horse. He kept his horse. And what he’s saying here is the sutra on the 10 stages is written with regard to future lives. If you’ve achieved it, they’re in your mind, become unveiled in the bardo and in a future life, then you may very well be able to demonstrate them there. Right. But then, of course, this opens up an enormous can of worms and Panchen Rinpoche and I really check this translation. Anna,you can see how good a translation is. I changed it completely. Panchen Rinpoche, when he’s commenting on this statement by Jigten Gonpo, stand, holding, sticking, sticking to his guns and saying we have achieved it, you just can’t display it yet. Panchen Rinpoche says it seems reasonable that he must say this. That’s a very interesting way of phrasing. He’s not being sarcastic. He’s not refuting him. But he’s not affirming him either. It’s quite a neutral outside stance. And the issue here is a debate between Sakya Pandita and this Mahamudra lineage. And Sakya Pandita is one of the greatest in the whole history of Tibet. And he’s living there in … as you can see in the 13th century. So just slightly senior to Jigten Gonpo. So I put, I put in the dates of my … Jigten Gonpo lived from 1143 to 1217 and he’s the one that’s standing by the Mahamudra position, you’ve achieved it, you can’t display it. Sakya Pandita from 1182 to 1251. So, a bit later, but 40 years later. Okay, so but he’s referring to earlier one, the Exalted [Sampan??] Sakya Pandita says in his reply to the questions of [....??] Now this is heavy, when I say this is delicate, it’s delicate. The dharma system of the [dekhumba?]. This is one, one of the lineages of the Mahamudra, the [de kagyu??, tuktumba??], another lineage and other Mahamudra practitioners, this dharma system, their way of presenting this saying you’ve achieved it, but you can’t show it, you can claim it, but you can’t, you know, you can’t show it, is not fully in accord with the tantras and the scriptural collections.

[1:10:50] Considering that this is not a correct path, do not promote it to others. So Sakya pandita, a very formidable character. He’s saying, all these Kagyupas, they’re wrong. Not the case. Don’t buy it. If I added a little bit of commentary for myself, he said, look, in the sutras and in the work of Maitreya, it says, if you achieve this, this is what you can do. Why do you think he said that? So you can evaluate whether you’re there or not. But if you can’t demonstrate it, then why should you say there? What was the point of saying, when you’ve achieved the first bhumi, you can do all of this if you can’t. Then what was the point of saying you can, so this really, you know, give it a rest. And when you can manifest in 100 places at once, then good. Give us a call, then we’ll take you seriously. But until then, you know, this is just asking for blind faith. And this is a slippery slope. And it is a slippery slope. It is a slippery slope. There, I won’t give any names. But oh man, I’ve got a whole folder on my computer of spurious ridiculous claims made among people calling themselves buddhists, about being arhats, of achieving nibbana [Pali, nirvana(skt)] of achieving stream entry, first jhana, second, third jhana, fourth jhana of achieving high states and a stage of completion, being realized Dzogchen masters, realized Mahamudra masters. Oh, the folder just gets bigger and bigger. I call him my bullshit folder. You know, people making these claims and then there’s no backup. If they have, if they said, you know, the first jhana in a weekend, some of them. And first jhana, okay, he’s gonna get the gold standard is you can sit for 24 hours straight. Yeah. Can you do that? No, no, no, no, no. So it’s a slippery slope. People calling themselves bodhisattvas, calling themselves all kinds of stuff, mostly Westerners, but the Tibetans too. So this is a slippery slope, right? And then this is delicate. So Panchen Rinpoche, his comment here, I think is wonderful. Although he makes this statement, he’s referring to Sakya pandita, who is really, one has to say, quite disparaging here.

[1:13:07] Nevertheless, the life stories of arya beings, when we’re getting up to people on a very, very high levels of realization, the life stories or their, their namtar, transcend the scope of ordinary beings. You can’t imagine it. Those with higher realization can understand those with lower realization. Those with lower realization cannot understand. It’s outside your paygrade. It’s beyond your paygrade as they say. You’re not … it’s classified information. You don’t have security clearance. You can’t imagine it, or the truth. ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ Jack Nicholson does it much better than I. But you can’t handle the truth yet you can’t touch it. There are degrees of realization, you can’t touch it. You can’t imagine it’s outside your scope. When you get there, yes, but until then, forget it. You can’t. So tread carefully. That’s what he’s saying. And I really revere what he’s saying here, tread carefully. You’re on sacred ground here. And are there bullshitters out there or people making false claims? Of course, there always have been even during the time of the Buddha. But tread carefully here, because you’re going into an area that you really cannot fathom. So they transcend the scope of ordinary beings. And negative … and then if one rather pompously or arrogantly says, never mind, no, they couldn’t … they can’t do it. So they’re, you know, they’re just spouting nonsense. If you develop contempt, disparagement, sectarian rivalry, and so forth, negativity. Negativity directed to the dharma and holy beings is most unbearable. Hatred or contempt, let’s say let’s take contempt. That’s a big one. Contempt toward an ordinary person is very negative. Just as an ordinary person, you look down and feel total contempt for that person, maybe speak contemptuously of that person. Definitely negative karma, but then, but then karma, the the weight of karma depends not only what you say and the intensity with which you say it, but also the degree of intensity or the magnitude of the karma also hinges on, number one, the mental affliction, how you say it, and so forth, and also the object. And if you’re focusing for example, on your mother or father, and you show the same contempt, karma is much heavier, sorry, but it is. Karmic connection is really strong. If you show gratitude, if you show virtues, that’s very strong, but towards parents, it’s a strong, strong connection and one is showing contempt to parents, heavy karma.

[1:15:39] So if you develop of your own freewill, a relationship with a guru, Sravakayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, whatever, a guru, and then come what may something happens, you lose faith, and then you speak with contempt, disparagement, so forth, maybe revile the guru. Sorry, whatever the guru’s done, even if what the guru does is really awful. If you refer to the guru’s behavior with contempt with a mental affliction of contempt, even if it was something really horrendous, sometimes it happens too. But if you refer to that you look down on the guru with contempt and it’s your guru, tough luck, really heavy karma, let alone if the guru hasn’t actually done anything, you just get disillusioned or whatever that happens to I’ve seen people who totally lose faith in a guru where the guru is flawless. It was just purely the mental affictions. And then they disparage away and think, Oh, you know, scot free, no problem, no problem, no faith in karma at all. And they’re just digging a deep, deep hole for themselves. It’s very tragic. So towards a guru, it’s very heavy. Even if your guru’s an ordinary person, if you’ve established that relationship, it’s sacred ground, that great potential for good, great potential for harm. And then we go to aryas. Well, then same thing if you have reverence, faith, and so forth, very powerful. View them with contempt, disparage a whole tradition to disparage one lineage after another of Mahamudra, including everybody who’s in it. Look out.

[1:17:06] [Sakya madita??], you’re on your own. You know, you take responsibility for your own words, you’re beyond my scope. You’re beyond [sakya madiata?] indeed, beyond my paygrade beyond my imagination, no security clearance. I can’t imagine. So I have nothing to say. He said that. Okay. But Alan Wallace has nothing to say. Panchen Rinpoche’s saying, be careful. [Sakya madita??] is one of those great beings by universal consent. And you’ll see in the excerpt from Karma Chagme, he refers to [Sakya madita??] with great reverence. Great reverence. He disagrees with him. But with reverence. That’s a skill Tibetans, Tibetan yogis and so forth have developed, to strongly disagree with someone and show them respect, disagree with what they say, show respect for the person. I tried two days ago. I don’t think I failed, failed entirely. You know, when I was criticizing statements made by people, I was very severe in my criticism of what they said. I did my very best. And it felt I wasn’t trying to put on a pretense for a show. I’m not criticizing any of these people as human beings. Just, I’m criticizing the words. That’s the way the scalpel is hitting the words, not the people, right. Try. It’s important. I’m trying. Don’t always succeed, but I do try. So negativity directed to the dharma and to holy beings is most unbearable. So I Choekyi Gyaltsen make this appeal. I ask that you reject the hateful power of sectarianism and fill yourself with the precious light by which everything is seen as pure. So he’s saying why don’t you just give it a rest, I think it’s what he’s really saying. You can read the whole debate in those five pages that I sent to you or just look in your book. I gave you the pagination. It’s interesting. And I would just leave it at that. Because I agree with them all. I really do, I agree with them all and not just being airy fairy about it.

[1:19:05] Let’s spend a couple more minutes. Dudjom Lingpa, Dudjom Lingpa, 13 of his disciples achieved rainbow body, 1000 became vidyadharas by general consensus. He passed away, manifested five, five tulkus simultaneously by general consensus. One of them was Dudjom Rinpoche. He was a layperson, never became a monk and unanimously voted by all of the greatest Nyingma yogis and scholars and so forth to be their representative for the entire tradition. They wouldn’t do that out of whimsy. Okay, that was Dudjom Rinpoche. I mean, just awesome. His Holiness said, Dalai Lama said of Dudjom Rinpoche, he’s the regent of Padmasambhava. That’s pretty high praise from the Dalai Lama. So this is Dudjom Lingpa, right? And then Dudjom Rinpoche, and then Dudjom Rinpoche passed away. Now he has two incarnations, I’ve never, I’ve not met either of them. But the one from Tibet is a bit more renowned, a bit more well known, but they’re both respected and there’s been no controversy about which is the real one, blah, blah, blah. You had five last time, what’s the problem of having two this time. Come on, you know. But I heard this from his … so the one that I’m referring to is born in Tibet. He’s been to Nepal. He’s given the whole Dudjom Lingpa cycle of empowerments there. Some of my students were there, and friends were there. And just … were you there? Everybody I’ve heard who met him, was just awed by him, young man 25 or so something like that? Yeah. And just awed. He is a young man, younger than Ursal, by quite a number of years. And yet, who cares? An old friend of mine, my generation said, and she was a student of Dudjom Rinpoche. And she said, when I met the tulku, it was like, I saw all the wisdom of Dudjom Rinpcohe there in that young man just flowing forth, flowing forth, you know. So some of the tulkus, boy, you know, the genuine, really genuine. So there it is.

[1:20:50] This is really wonderful news that that lineage is being carried on, the new manifestation is really an extraordinary being manifesting that, but why I mentioned him right now, before we head off to dinner is a statement I heard and I believe it’s … I believe it’s correct hearsay, I have no reason to doubt it, and that is, his … at least one of his … I think it’s probably his root lama, Chatral Rinpoche who lived to 102, passed away very recently, within the last year or so. Dudjom Yangsi the tulku would come down to Nepal to receive guidance from him, from this extraordinary yogi, who Dudjom Rinpoche himself the past incarnation appointed Chatral Rinpoche as his regent of all the lamas there. He appointed my lama Gyatrul Rinpoche, as his representative of all North America. But when he passed away, his regent, he appointed Chatral Rinpoche who many regarded, as you know, the greatest Dzoghcen master, alive at his time. So Chatral Rinpoche, this old old old yogi spent most, much of his life in retreat. Yogi’s yogi, he became the meditation master for the young Dudjom Yangsi Rinpoche. Right. Here’s what I heard. And if you know this, if you’re not, I can’t imagine it would be false. If you’re not be true, I’d like to have a bit more certainty. But it just it, has the ring of truth to my ear. Chatral Rinpoche told the young tulku who was really now in very much in the midst of his training, he’s getting full fledged training of the sutras, of the sutras, of the tantras, of Dzogchen,[ the gamma??], the terma, being led in retreats, and learning everything he needs to learn. He’s getting, he’s having the whole lineage poured into him to carry on this whole Dudjom lineage. And of course, with the Nyingma traditions as a whole. So he’s being groomed to be a great teacher, right. But he’s receiving all the training. And what I heard, Chatral Rinpoche told him was, he said, addressing the young tulku, he said, although you have a great name, Dudjom Yangsi, although you have the great name, you must apply yourself to the training step by step from the foundation up from the preliminary practices and right on through all the stages through. [Student speaks out: ‘I heard this from his mouth.’] From his mouth? Anything to correct what I said. [Student replies: ‘No.’] Okay, I said, I try to be careful, I try … good. And then I know.

[1:23:04] So there’s volumes there. There’s volumes there. There are two incarnations earlier, he led all these people to enlightenment. His last one, fabulous teacher, this one, he still has trained from the ground up. But look, if he’s coming in with everything already, why not just put them on the dharma throne when he’s three as soon as he can speak Tibetan, and just do everything with no training at all? Hey, you know, it’s a continuum here. They don’t do that. They don’t do it. The greatest tulkus. By and large, with very few exceptions. Doesn’t matter how great you are, who your predecessor, the Dalai Lama himself, 14th, full Geshe training from the ground up and had to pass his exams, in the face of 30,000 people watching to see how he would do in a very public exam, from the ground up. All that training, all that training, and then retreats and retreats and retreats. He’s the Dalai Lama. And the same goes for the other great Lamas. So if they had, if these are great beings from the time they’re born, and they already have all these abilities, then what the heck they need to study all these books for? You know. It seems that the training needs to be there from lifetime to lifetime, to keep … I don’t know, bring it in the present moment. What can I say? It’s beyond my paygrade. Again, I don’t know. But these are facts. That he really is … every, every reason to believe this is really the incarnation of Dudjom Rinpoche. I mean, it’s pretty compelling. And these great yogis confirming this, I mean, if we have no faith, that’s fine, I don’t care. But if one has faith in this tradition, then this is not a mistake, this is the tulku Dudjom Rinpoche, the tulku of Dudjom Lingpa, one of the five, and that said, he has to go through all the training step by step. Right. He’s a guru already. But all those qualities that he had clearly, manifestly achieved in past life, not yet manifested here. That’s why he has to go through training again. Right. There are cases where a tulku’s identified in the 40s, or the 50s, considerably into the age, I know one. He wasn’t identified a tulku, and for a very good reason. But it wasn’t identified until well into his life.

[1:25:23] And then there are beings who will seem very ordinary, ordinary, ordinary, and then suddenly kaboom. And then, then they you know, very quickly achieve extremely high realization. And yet, they had that realization there, but it was the garuda inside the egg. And then conditions come about, and then that which was already there becomes manifest. So it’s a delicate area. There’s a slippery slope there, where anybody can say anything they like, and make all kinds of preposterous claims. And say, No, I’ve achieved the fourth jhana, but I can’t do that, because it’s inside, I don’t, I can’t show it. It’s private. I’ve achieved, you know, stage of completion, stages in the highest yoga tantra. But I don’t really feel like showing them, my … you know, all these extraordinary abilities you have on that level. And so and the list goes on and on, people, as I said, before, people claiming … this one, I’m going to give him a different name. He calls it … [pause]. Never mind, it’s just, it makes me pull my hair out. You know, just so many spurious claims, bullshit claims, you know. So there is a slippery slope there. Let’s be very careful to use the teachings to properly assess where we are on the path. On the one hand. On the other hand, on the other hand, tread lightly. I think that’s the message there. The path is so sacred, the notion, the very notion of path. I don’t really know, I think more important than that, I mean, it’s a four, fourth noble truth, after all. The first two are where the problem is. The third is a promissory note. And do we actually achieve the nirvana? Do we achieve enlightenment or not, everything hinges on the fourth, right? Everything. And the fourth either is authentic or is not authentic. It either works or it doesn’t work. And if it works, on the sravaka path, it purifies you forever and completely from all mental afflictions. And if it’s the Mahayana path and you come to the conclusion of it, you’re manifestly a perfectly enlightened buddha. And it’s either true or false. And either it’s a path or it’s not a path. And so to bring all our intelligence but also all of our humility, to bear with a passionate yearning, show me the authentic path, show me the authentic path, to follow that, not be misled, but not presume too much. Not presume too much.

[1:27:49] When all is said and done, also what we’re able to see as we attend to another person, like His Holiness Dalai Lama, for example, there are many people just see him. Because again, I’ve translated for so many scientists and so forth, who have spent five days with him 25 hours, and you know in many cases, they come away with, he’s really a nice man. He’s a really nice man. Really nice. I really liked him. And that’s what they got. And I’m not speaking with condescension. That’s what they saw. I’d be like, looking at a five year old: Oh, you’re so stupid. You’re five years old. That’s not … why’d I do that? That’s what they saw. Right? And other people like Khandrola looks at him, and she sees him as his 1000 arm Chenrezig beaming light in all directions. Right? And then there’s all the people in between, you know, and then there’s, there’s, you know. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, you know, coming in and giving teachings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Dzogchen. And His Holiness prostrates to him, and he prostrates to His Holiness. What are they seeing? When Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche looks at His Holiness, what’s he seeing? When His Holiness Dalai Lama looks at Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, what’s he seeing? And the answer is beyond our paygrade. Can’t even imagine imagining it. So let’s not pretend that we can and not assume that they … the way they actually are, is the way they appear to us. Because that would be certainly false. If we want to be certain about something, be certain that’s not true. That the Dalai Lama that comes to your mind exists in your mind and nowhere else. Painted with your colors. And the mind of the … and the Dalai Lama that exists in the mind or existed in the mind of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. And that’s Dilgo Khyentse’s masterpiece, of the Dalai Lama as he appears in his mind, and vice versa. Both way. So delicate, yeah, That’s what I really want to get. Let’s not be stupid, and just Ohh whatever, whatever anybody says must be true, because that’s a pure vision. That’s silly. That’s just stupid. Let’s not be pompous, thinking we can imagine what we can’t imagine. Okay, yeah, molto bene. See you later.

Transcribed by Shirley Soh

Revised by Kriss Sprinkle

Final edition by Rafael C. Giusti

Transcript formatted and posted on the website of the course by Rafael C. Giusti

Discussion

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