84 The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel and Great Loving Kindness

84 - Spring 2016 - The Wish Fulfilling Jewel and Great Loving Kindness

[00:02] Olaso. So before we go to our next very juicy parable, and then on to the cultivation of great loving kindness, I like to go back to the very beginning. It’s good to do that frequently, repeatedly. The very beginning is settling body, speech, and mind in their natural state. It becomes so familiar that we can turn it into an empty ritual, just do a little flyby and never touch down into the actual practice. Very easy to do, I understand. But if the body, speech, and mind are not established in there or settled in there, in the state of equilibrium, the balance, whatever practice we do with our body, speech, or mind is not going to go out well. It will not turn out well over the long term. The start off or the initial, you know, the initial launch didn’t happen correctly. What I really want to get to here is something I hope will be very helpful. And that is people here in Tuscany, people listening by podcast, I imagine there are a number of you for whom the body’s still giving rise to upheavals or perhaps persistent chronic tightnesses, difficulties, and so forth, and that can be very challenging. I know it very well, from my own experience. Where medical interventions can be helpful, by all means take advantage. We always want to be sensible, feet on the ground. Hedonia is kind of our practical basis for the cultivation of eudamonia. So you never want to overlook that or marginalize it. Whether it’s physiotherapy, whether it’s supplements, whether it’s Kum Nye, or different types of massage, whether it’s yoga, whether it’s Tai Chi, whatever we can do, you know, coming from the outside in, including an orthopedic pillow, or maybe another bed, I mean, there’s all kinds of things. By all means, do it. By all means, if you can, if you can approach it and deal with it successfully, hedonically that is coming from outside, fantastic. If it goes away, fantastic. But sometimes that’s not sufficient. Or even, yeah, if it’s not sufficient, then that’s where the settling body, speech, and mind comes into play. And that is learning it’s a skill to be learned, I cannot overemphasize. It’s a skill to be learned how to be present in the body fully, mindfully present in the body, and to be at ease, to be relaxed. To let your body be still, not fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting, but utterly still. And then, at same time, even if it’s only psycho, kind of a psychological posture, even if you’re in the supine position, which is again emulating the corpse mentally, psychologically, vivid, vigilant, this is your posture of vigilance, and you look like a corpse, you know. Fine. Or if you’re sitting upright, good, sitting upright, excellent.

[03:03] But the next, the one I really wanted to get to is the next one. Settling the speech in its natural state, and I’m going to go right to it. Settling the respiration into natural rhythm, where there is lingering tightness or constriction problems in the body that really seem to be of an energetic level, an energetic level. Then, again, I’ll say it again, any help from, you can get from the outside, fantastic, go for it. But from the inside, there is a great power. And some of you are, have already been discovering this in the body to heal itself, and heal itself energetically by way of the breath. This can be done with high tech methods as in pranayama, and tsa lung practices. And if you have a very good teacher and ongoing monitoring, that can be very, very good. And that’s it, nothing more to say. Very good. But if you … if you have a teacher who is not that good, or if you don’t have ongoing monitoring, it can be very dangerous, it can really harm you. But this practice of settling your respiration in its natural rhythm, well that … I just can’t even imagine how that can be dangerous to allow it … then it would be dangerous to fall asleep. Look out. If you fall into deep dreamless sleep, your body just might breathe without you helping it along. Without your managing and monitoring and controlling it. Oh, don’t, don’t fall asleep, you know. The body doesn’t know how to breathe, except it does.

[04:28] And so allowing, while fully conscious and very mindfully aware of the breath, allowing the breath to flow. Now the quality of the tension is crucial. Please listen to this as if you’ve never heard it before. We especially in the modern world, but we didn’t invent this. We have … we’re very dense and grasping. Already kind of heavy, heavy minded, heavy minded. You know, all this issue of, you know, very young, too young, Europe is, I mean, Europe was the only continent that decided it had a right to claim every other continent as its own. That’s really quite something. Australia, New Zealand, South America, North America, the near East, Africa, most of Asia. They just came in, they say if we saw it, it’s ours. I’m surprised the Americans haven’t … claimed the moon. Really, we planted a flag on it. Look out. It’s a slippery slope. I think we should probably just claim it for ourselves. We got there first, right. I’m getting here to an attitude that is kind of like pushy, dominant, grasping, egotistical … egotistical. And it’s not as only as Eurocentric people, of course, I’m just exactly an instance of that. But it is strong. So what I’m getting at having lived a long time in Asia, with Tibetans and with Sri Lankans and with Indians, is classically in their cultures at their best, there’s a softer touch, there’s a softer touch of awareness. And so when we attend to the body, or for that matter, when we attend to the mind, it’s very easy to attend to it, as if our awareness is like a lightning bolt. I’m now going to watch my thoughts [makes a shooting sound] like we’re Zeus, you know, sitting on Mount Olympus watching the thoughts come up, and they’re skeet, we blow them away one by one. You know, just by the sheer intensity. [Laughter]. Cringe, now you’re supposed to cringe, you know, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to run away. Yeah, you know, I’ve obviously made a cartoon out of this. But you know, there’s something to this. And then we go into the body, and we start throwing thunderbolts into our body, like the piercing out of our forehead, there’s not just one person here, it’s more than one. And then the sheer act of observing the body becomes disrupted.

[06:46] So what I’m suggesting is, as you attend to the space of the body, and you’re allowing, and this is really a skill, you’re learning how to breathe egolessly, and that doesn’t come naturally. If we are observing something carefully, that we can control, we control it. If we Europeans go into an unexplored territory, and we can take it over, we do it. That’s what we do. Other people come for a visit. We come and just take over. And so when you’re attending to the space of the body, let it be as if the space of your body itself is illuminating that space. Rather than piercingly attending to it, like with thunderbolts of attention into the body coming down from the head, let the whole space of your body down to the soles of your feet, through the legs, through the torso, and then up into the head, but mostly coming and overwhelmingly come down into the torso, into the legs, into the limbs, let that space be as it were self-illuminating. Diffuse, not fuzzy, vague or spaced out, but diffuse and not, not, there’s the symbol, not that, not the fist, not hammering in, not piercing in, but just spaciously aware, this is why in Dzogchen the initial teachings say now ‘let your eyes be open, and let your awareness be evenly released into space’, right. This is just the opposite of thunderbolts. This is just space itself becomes luminous. Space illuminates itself. The difference between subject and object melts away. So what I would suggest because of course we’re now in the homestretch of our retreat. And some of you I may never see again, I don’t know, who knows the future. But when you’re going home, then be persistent with this one. The power of settling the mind in its natural state cannot be over, overestimated. And that’s the healing capacity of your own buddha nature, for heaven’s sake. It’s not just your brain function or genetics. It’s your allowing, by not getting in the way the many wounds, the knots, the, the tightnesses, the constrictions, blockages, the mind to melt away as you bring this very frankly feminine, if we can use that in the best possible term, or say yin, that yin quality of awareness that’s attentive, that’s loving. Not that, not jumping in there to intervene and control and takeover. Very attentive, very present. But just letting it be. And then watching the mind heal in that same way is with that quality of awareness and it’s a very special quality of awareness, that is not identifying with or standing in judgment of trying to terminate or trying to perpetuate, you know the drill, that same quality that allows your mind to heal all the way to the dissolution of the mind into the substrate consciousness.

[09:38] The dissolution of anger into luminosity, of craving into bliss, and delusion into non- conceptuality. That same quality of awareness when applied to the body allows the blockages, the tightness, the warping and the constrictions, and so forth, of the body, to release of their own accord, allow the body to settle in its natural state, as you allow the mind to settle in its natural state and allow the breathing to settle in its natural rhythm, which is the facilitator to heal both the body and the mind. It’s the … intermediary, right. Prana is right there between flesh and the intangible immaterial mind. Be persistent. Be gentle and allow your body to heal. Allow your respiration to flow and I’ll tell you what it’s like, from Padmasambhava, I think it’s from him, quite sure. Your respiration has settled in its natural rhythm when it flows gently rhythmically and imperceptibly. That’s when it’s settled and until then just as you don’t try to fix your mind, you know, keep on fixing, fixing, fixing, fixing, allow the mind to heal itself, allow your body to heal itself by way of the breathing. And that’s when you know, ah, you’ve settled in that sinusoidal, sinusoidal pattern, and my guess is you might be considering 15 cycles per minute. And then rest there. And then you’re ready to listen to a parable about buddha nature and it’s a nice short one. It’s quite, quite yummy.

[11:18] So here’s an introduction, here’s on page 87, short with no commentary from Karma Chagme. So it’s nice, nice and to the point. The stories are so memorable, that’s the great thing about them. “An introduction to a parable and its meaning taught by Siddha Orgyan. It is said that in the land of India there was once a captain who owned a precious wish fulfilling jewel from the outer ocean." Wish fulfilling jewel. This is, the existence of these will take, have been taken very seriously by Indians and Tibetans for many centuries, and the idea is it’s something like you know if we imagine like extraterrestrials coming and leaving the super high tech and just dropping into the ocean, something like that you know. If we attend to this playfully I’m not asking you to believe it literally. Many people do, if you don’t, I don’t care, but it’s a great parable. But a wish fulfilling jewel is a jewel that when you, when you treat it with respect, and as we’ll see in the parable, and you direct your wishes to it, your hedonic wishes, that’s all you get though. Hedonic wishes, wealth you know, property, blah blah blah, you know, hedonic wishes. It won’t grant you enlightenment but it will grant you all kinds of mundane things, right. That’s a wish fulfilling jewel. So there’s a captain who owned a precious wish fulfilling jewel from the outer ocean, they would go out in accordance, according to ancient lore. Seafarers would go out into the deep ocean looking for trying to discover a wish fulfilling jewel, you know, and so this was like one of those lucky captains, he won the oceanic lottery. [Laughter]. “All his needs and desires were produced or fulfilled by this gem and his household was very wealthy, prosperous and luxurious. Eventually this captain passed away and when his wife and children found all their wealth exhausted, they became very poor and destitute and they went begging. Upon meeting with a friend of the captain, they told him what had happened to them and the friend replied, it’s impossible for you to be destitute. What kinds of things do you have at home? We have nothing at all except for a smooth stone stashed between the folds of a cotton quilt, they replied. The friend took them back home and after a careful search the dirt encrusted jewel was found beneath a pillow. Then the friend rinsed it with scented water, fastened it to the crest of the victory banner and made immeasurable offerings, praises, and requests to it. It is said that as a result all their needs and desires were bountifully fulfilled. Moreover if it were not for the friend, the jewel would have been left beneath the pillow, and the mother and children would have starved to death."

[13L49] It really struck me this issue of … because it’s a classic presentation that’s what you do if you find a wish fulfilling jewel, immeasurable offerings, praises and requests. Okay. Well, how many in Tibetan Buddhism, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism especially but very much Mahayana in general. You know read Shantideva. Offerings, praises and requests, offerings, offerings to the buddha, dharma, and sangha, offerings to the guru, offerings to the yidam, offerings to the dharma protectors, offerings, offerings, offerings. Why are we doing that, you know? As Düdjom Lingpa says, it’s wonderful. If they’re really receiving them, why don’t they disappear off the …off the altar? [Laughter]. In the Vajra Essence. If you really think you’re offering something really cool to the buddhas, then why don’t they disappear the next morning, you know, like the reverse of Santa Claus. Santa Claus leaves you little gifts. Then the buddhas should take your little gifts. It’s all good, all the … all the offering bowls are empty. Well, fill them up. They must be thirsty. [Laughs]. But really what on earth are we doing making these offerings? This is like sending food stamps to Bill Gates. [Laughter].

[15:05] Really. I could just see Bill, ‘oh boy we can eat today. We got some wonderbread and peanut butter.’ I mean what are you thinking? You know really. Who are you benefiting? What’s this for? And then we have praise, being attached to praise, wanting praise. It’s called one of the eight mundane concerns. Get over it, you know. And so we feel the buddhas you know they haven’t been praised for a long time, let’s, let’s get together and give them some moral support. Oh the guru too. Let’s praise the guru because maybe he may be a bit lonely and hasn’t received praise much recently. So let’s give them a good pep talk. Let’s be the cheerleaders. Give us an 's', giving us 'a'. ‘Sangha’, you know, cheer him up, those buddhas may be a little bit downcast today, you know encourage them, you know, we think you’re great. Come on. Really. They need our praise? They need our praise? This is like Miss Piggy telling Angelina Jolie, ‘you’re really cute.’ [Laughter]*

[16:24] And then supplications. We are told to do this hundreds and hundreds of times, as if they’re hard of hearing. All sitting there [makes facial gesture and sound]. [Laughter]. Senile and hard of hearing. I didn’t … speak a bit louder if you would. Maybe 100,000 times.

[16:50] What are we doing?

[16:56] And the object of all these offerings and all this praise and all these supplications is that wish fulfilling jewel beyond pristine awareness and in that regard, this all makes enormous sense. The wish fulfilling jewel. Is your buddha nature of course. And to offer it means I value you more than anything else I have. Right. Including the lame goat. I give you all. This, to know you is more, of greater worth, it is the pearl beyond all price, for which I make any sacrifice. [Makes some crying sound]. I was surprised. I didn’t see that coming. And the praise. There are many things worthy of praise. Many things worthy of praise but this worthy of the greatest praise. Buddha nature. Dharmakaya.

[17:57] And supplications. We’re calling forth, you know, the blessings of our own buddha nature. So that’s the parable. As this, as in this parable, the ultimate reality of the mind, the ultimate morality of your own mind, the connate dharmakaya, the inborn or connate dharmakaya is primordially, primordially present in you. It’s already there. But it is like the jewel left beneath the pillow. As Gyatrul Rinpoche summarized the whole Dzogchen view of the difference between, know the second noble truth from the Dzogchen perspective. Why are we suffering, why are we caught up in suffering and the causes of suffering? Because we’re identifying with that which is … identifying as 'I' and mine that which is not 'I' and mine.

[18:46] We fail to recognize who we are. Those two things. The first part is pan-buddhism identifying with that which is not 'I' and mine, my body, my mind, possessions and so on. That’s pan-buddhism, all buddhism, and the Dzogchen emphasis really then is okay, have you cleared the decks, have you cleared out you’re not Napoleon, you’re not a kernel of corn? Have you cleared that, have you gotten that clear? If you’re clear of that, then you’re ready. But only if you’ve done that, are you ready to realize who you really are, right. If you’re still stuck on, still reifying, still identifying with ‘I am a sentient being’, I really … there’s someone in here really who’s a sentient being. The telephone booth is full. You can’t get somebody else in there. It has to be cleaned out. Now this is challenging, we know that. And I’m going to show the role of shamatha here. Let’s go from the outside in. If you look into the mirror and you still see yourself, you’re full. The telephone booth is full. If you look into that, you see, oh yes I’m a man, I’m a woman, I’m white, I’m Asian, I’m Asian, I’m black whatever. Your telephone booth is full. If you think that’s me, okay. Get back to the basics. You’re not out of kindergarten yet, right. When you look at your thoughts, your mind, my mental afflictions, my mental afflictions, your telephone booth is full. They’re not your mental afflictions. Who do you think you are? La Salle? I saw it. So therefore my mind, they’re mine. What makes you think just because you see them you’re yours? That’s silly. Nonsense, right. To see that there’s nothing in your mind that is you or by its own nature yours is merely a matter of convention, like this is my cell phone. There’s not in your body is not you and there’s not one molecule of it that is yours, except for by mere convention. Then you may see that intellectually which is not that hard, but then there’s something which is not intellectual at all.

[20:51] You can’t solve it by thinking clever thoughts and that is if you have not overcome the habitual delusional tendency of cognitive fusion with your thoughts, the obsessive compulsive flow of delusional thinking, then the telephone booth’s full, the telephone booth is not only full, it’s filled with a very big heavy person because every time a thought comes up is reaffirming ‘I’m a screwed up sentient being’. That’s its basic commentary. The root text is ‘I’m a screwed up sentient being' and the commentary is obsessive compulsive delusional blah, blah, blah forever, and with a cognitive fusion, yours keep on reaffirming countersinking the nail ‘I’m a sentient being, my mind is screwed up, oh my mind is agitated, my mind is … ahhhh, so exhausting.’ Unless you can you can release that cognitive fusion, you’re never gonna have any meaningful insight into the absence of yourself as a sentient being, because every time it comes up and there’s cognitive fusion, it’s like you know the little kid who thought he was a kernel of corn, is like thinking you are Napoleon. You may figure it out but if you just keep on thinking going into the habit pattern of thinking as if you’re Napoleon, it doesn’t matter what you figure out intellectually, you’re slipping right back into the same delusion. And I’m no more really a sentient being than I am a kernel of corn or Napoleon you know. You don’t find any of them here, equally. Napolean, kernel of corn, and a real sentient being, and so this is where shamatha … if you don’t develop shamatha, you’re just going to be pecking at reality. Having little flirtations with reality but then the old chronic symptoms of little boy who thinks he’s a kernel of corn will come right back in, right. And we work on this on two fronts in stage of generation and that is we do tend to fixate so strongly on ourselves as sentient beings because of how we look, how we look, you know, and identify very strongly with that, as we, you know, as you, as you observe how you conceive of yourself, see sometimes the basis of designation is your body and then other times it’s your mind or your behavior. So what do you do in stage of generation? You have to, if you open that door, and I’m not going to be just ridiculous, you know, playtime with the kids, you’ve got to see the emptiness of your body, your mind, your speech, all of your behavior, emptiness of inherent nature as 'I' or mine.

[23:15] But that’s not enough. That’s a way to clean the table you know. You need to shut down the open .. operating system down to zero right. Because it’s defective and it only perpetuates suffering. You need to shut the whole thing down and then load a new program. And that is out of emptiness. Then to help you in this extreme makeover, you need to visualize yourself in a different way, and sustain that visualization as consistently as possible, the pure vision, whether it’s Tara, Manjushri or what have you, and then your speech to always be viewing your own speech as nothing other than the speech of a buddha and observing all, everything that comes to mind, as dharmakaya, and then one might easily say but I can’t, I can’t, I’ve got so many mental afflictions. They’re mental afflictions from the perspective of sentient being. If I can say so, stupid, you know. There’s mental afflictions from the perspective of sentient being, but that was a whole deal if you haven’t dissolved that yet, then go back to square one, and dissolve that again. Because if you’re viewing your mental afflictions from your ordinary perspective, they will be mental afflictions forever. You’ve got to view them from a [??] perspective. So shamatha would be a good start. And then if some kind of an anger, craving, or delusion comes up, you see it as luminosity, bliss and non-conceptuality. Problem solved, they’re detoxified. But of course that’s just a halfway house. Where we’re really going is to view so-called mental afflictions, and I do say so- called from the perspective of rigpa, so anger arises, which to another person if they could have clairvoyance from their … imagine that you’re a Vidyadhara and another person with ordinary perception is having clairvoyance of your thought, they will see a mental affliction. You’re viewing the same thought, the same impulse from the perspective of rigpa and you see it as mirror like primordial consciousness. Another person Gauche is now having some cravings, some attachment, and Gauche resting in rigpa is saying. ‘yes, that’s right. That’s your problem.’ From my perspective, this is primordial consciousness, primordial consciousness of discernment. This is a display of buddha mind, you know. And then some kind of delusional state of mind comes up, another person, oh, you having delusion, and then from Gauche’s perspective as a Vidyadhara, this is the primordial consciousness of the absolute space of phenomena. So-called same reality and seen totally differently. And that’s because none of them are inherently existent. Not the mental afflictions, no that’s only from a perspective, not just luminosity, bliss, non-conceptuality. No, that’s just the perspective of substrate … from substrate consciousness. And are they inherently those three types? No, they’re not inherently that either. Primordial consciousness itself is empty, not inherently existent. It transcends the very categories of existence and non-existence. Right.

[26:09] So, you know, we can complain forever about our bodies and about our minds. And that’s what we do, just complain and complain and be … feel discouraged and frustrated, and I’m not making progress and blah, blah, blah. And in this age, in this age, and in this era, which is really in so many ways even breathtakingly degenerate, my sense is, I think, you know, a really profound realization like of the great masters, some of whom we’ve met, and others we’ve read about over the centuries, I think the only really effective way to go speaking as a Tibetan buddhist, is we’ve just got to just let it go, basta (enough). With a whole sense of ordinary identity. It’s just such a crappy platform. It’s always been crappy. But in 19th century Tibet, maybe it was kind of like happy crappy, you know. [Laughter]. Or Classical India in the time of Nalanda, Vikramashila, you know, [27:04 melo ??], crappy, you know, but ours is just crappy crappy. It’s materialistic crappy, it’s really awful crappy. You know. And so, basta, basta and just whatever it is, you think you’re a good person, a scoundrel, you think you’re really smart, you think you are stupid, pretty ugly, and so forth, and so on, basta. It’s all conceptually constructed. See that for heaven’s sake, and deconstruct, and just die. You know, just release it, deconstruct it into the empty nature of your own awareness, and resting there in your best approximation of dharmadhatu, dharmakaya, then reinvent yourself. With pure vision, with divine pride, a sense of sacred identity is a nice way of saying that, and then have that, have that be your platform. I think it’s the only hope. Really. Maybe even for achieving shamatha. That’s just my sense, that’s just my opinion. I could be totally wrong. But it just seemed .. I won’t say it’s the only hope. It was like, okay, Theravadans, you have no chance. I wouldn’t say that. But in terms of most viable, most practical, where the platform itself is helping you rather than hindering you. Really helpful, so that’s what he’s saying here. Discover the jewel hidden beneath the pillow, make that your top priority to establish a new base camp, not just shamatha, but to rest into identifying and rest in the ultimate reality of your mind, the connate dharmakaya which is primarily present in you, but it’s like the jewel left beneath the pillow. As a result of not realizing the existence of the dharmakaya in yourself, you wander in samsara. “Just as a friend recognized the jewel and then made offerings, here due to an introduction by a holy guru, you realize the ultimate reality of your mind as the dharmakaya, and then your own and others’ welfare is bountifully accomplished.” Here it is. So this is immediately relevant to the practice we’re about to do and that is here’s another one. I’ve been listening to people for a long time and I’ve been listening to my own mind for a long time. I don’t feel I’m a very loving person, I don’t feel I’m a very compassionate person. And then just get any commentary you like to that. I don’t feel I’m very empathetic, I don’t feel. I don’t feel. [Yawns] Yuck! Oh boy, you don’t really want to be a Dharma teacher, you hear the same old story so many times. And each time oh, oh… [laughter].

[29:45] We try to be nice but oh, you get really, get really tired after a while. Just to say the same old thing, oh yo yo yo. I get it. I mean, I know it can. I know for myself. I don’t have to learn it from other people. But, you know, give it a rest. Release it. 21st century Eurocentric or modern mind is a crappy platform for developing loving kindness and compassion. We are so hammered by some real dark sides of Christianity, original sin, you’re screwed, your mind is a den of iniquity, you’re fallen, only somehow somebody outside of yourself can help you, you’re such a sinner, screw you, the dark side of Christianity, you get it from the dark side of psychoanalysis, Freud, it’s just your libido, your death wish, you don’t really have any virtues, unconditional love is inconceivable, not possible, don’t fool yourself, stupid. And just manage your neuroses, you can’t do any better than that, and then we have the help from the … the biologists saying you’re an animal, stupid, you’re just an animal, don’t expect anything better, everything, every impulse you have is just genetically designed to help you procreate, you know, and survive. And then we have people on artificial intelligence selling ‘you’re just a robot, you’re just a robot, robot’. This is not exactly helpful you know from all sides. I just covered philosophy, science, psychology, and religion. This is a rotten century to be in.

[31:15] So I would just say don’t be here anymore. It’s a crappy, crappy century. In many respects, very important respects, it’s an awful century. And so just to say, okay, taking a break, I’m going to dissolve the world, I’m going to dissolve all of that, dissolve my body, my mind, I’m going to dissolve it all into emptiness, and I’m going to come from a timeless space, untinged by the whole of recent history, including my own recent history, and I’m going to start afresh. And I’m going to come from a pure place, I’m going to rest in a pure place that is untouched by all of this. And then the hounds yapping at the gate, we say ‘escapism, escapism, escapism’ and the answer is you’re right I’m escaping from samsara. If you like it there, enjoy yourself. But it’s the samsara of your construct and my samsara is of my construct and I’m just tired of it, basta, I’m going to deconstruct my samsara. I created it. I can destruct it, destroy it, deconstruct it. And from the perspective, melting, dissolving into your best facsimile, do your best, that’s all. It’s not just say be a Vidydhara right now, probably can’t. Your best approx….[approximation], your best facsimile, whether by simply resting in awareness and simplicity as in the Mahamudra Dzogchen route, or resting in the sense of sacred identity and pure vision, stage of regeneration route either way. Find a new platform and from that platform, then develop great loving kindness, where the platform itself supports you, nurtures you, empowers you rather than dragging you down at every moment.

[33:09] And it’s said too, so often we’ve heard this said, in solitude, in solitude, in solitude. I was told by one one lama years ago for the stage of generation practice, you really want to go into solitude, you know, if you’re really serious not just doing a little baby sadhana and going blah, blah, blah, or maybe you know a little bit of visualization and then you know, okay. But if you’re serious about really proceeding along the stage, the stage of generation, so you know go into solitude. Because the problem is every time we come out, if you’re living in this 21st century, again maybe if you’re living in a monastery in Tibet 200 years ago somewhat different, but in this century? Step off the cushion and everybody around you most likely, unless they’re, unless they’re really good spiritual friends who share your view and so forth, step off the cushion, the people around you don’t even recognize mental afflictions as mental afflictions. I was at a conference at Stanford years ago that I helped to organize, and the psychologists there were saying, well, desire is afflictive only if it’s too much, and anger is a problem only if it’s too much, and ego, arrogance that’s a problem only if it’s too much. It was only a matter of quantity you know. If excessive then okay, oh now you’re … reel it in, you’re too ego maniacal or mega maniacal or you’re too addicted or you’re too angry, you need some anger management, some ego management, you need some craving management to get back to a simmering level that Freud would smile at. You’re now mildly neurotic and don’t hope for anything better. It’s like the, you know, the .. when this pot of, pot of boiling oil and, and whenever anybody is trying to escape, they just pull you back in again. It’s the glorification of mediocrity. This is the best you can ever hope. Be a good animal. Be a happy robot, you know. Be a mildly neurotic person who doesn’t draw attention to yourself because you’re so neurotic. So you know. Every time you step out, friends, family, loved ones and so forth, who’re not practicing the dharma, they just pull you back in again. What are you doing, what are you doing, stupid, oh, what are you watching your breath for, what are you stupid, you imagine yourself as a deity, what are you crazy? They don’t get it, and they’re going to pull you back every single time, unless you’re really strong. So it’s helpful to have some solitude. Just to get some space. Start a new platform. Let’s meditate.

[35:40] [Bell rings. Meditation in session.]

[36:34] With the aspiration to know this brightly shining mind, to know the original purity of your own pristine awareness, to know who you are and have always been. [Pause]. For the sake of freeing yourself of all suffering and its causes and freeing all other sentient beings bringing them each one to their own fulfillment. With such an aspiration while taking refuge in your own buddha nature, settle your body, speech, and mind in the natural state.

[37:13] [Silence]

[38:57] Let your eyes be softly open, all the muscles around the eyes soft and relaxed, and release your awareness from inside your head. It’s cramped in there, claustrophobic. Let it out. Let it out into the space in front of you with no borders, no limitation, with no object, no target. And release the very, release the very concept of having a body of being embodied, it’s just conceptual designation, an empty somatic experience. There’s no body here. Not really, Just appearances arising in space. [Pause]. As Padmasambhava told us it is this very ordinary consciousness of the present moment. This is rigpa. It is [a] rigpa who is aware and all thoughts, images, activities flow spontaneously from this, from this source. [Pause].

[42:05] And note that this flow of awareness is not neutral. It’s not simply empty of aspiration, empty of feeling, empty of emotion. It carries with it every moment, the impulse of caring, every conscious moment, the wish to be free of suffering, the wish to find happiness. [Pause].

[42:45] From this perspective of stillness of clarity of ease, with at least some intimation of the riches of our own substrate consciousness and the boundless wealth of our own buddha nature these vast, unexplored inner resources of dharmakaya, from this perspective ask the question, why couldn’t we all, all sentient beings find happiness genuine, enduring happiness and the causes of happiness? Why couldn’t we? We all have that stone buried beneath our pillow. Why couldn’t we find it, treat it properly and revel in its bounties? Why couldn’t we? [Pause].

[44:50] And if you have some intuition, or perhaps even deeper insight into your own potentials, then you must know that everyone else has the same potential, in which case the answer is: there is no reason in principle why every one of us could not find the happiness that we seek, the very source of that aspiration, that yearning is its fulfillment. Then if you will arouse the aspiration, the heartfelt aspiration, maybe it be so, may we all find happiness and its causes. The perfect happiness that will finally satisfy us to our core. [Pause].

[46:07] Substrate consciousness is not a person, it’s not a self. Pristine awareness is not a person. But neither is your body or your mind. Each of these can be a basis of designation for ‘I am’ and the more superficial layers obscure the deeper realities. In our mind’s eye let’s wipe away the most superficial realities and on the basis of our own pristine awareness, let this be the basis of designation ‘I am’. [Pause] And imagine now letting it be the luminosity of your own awareness display its creativity. [Pause].

[47:12] Imagine yourself in your own form but purified, not through all the veils of past karma and kleshas. As an empty form, translucent, shimmering, a globe a form of light, empty of inherent nature, hollow. With a nucleus of this light being the indestructible bindu at your heart, symbolizing your buddha nature of course, empty and luminous. [Pause] On the basis of this body, this energy, on the basis of primordial consciousness designate ‘I am’ and with this basis of designation and this sense of 'I', then arouse a resolve: ‘I shall bring us all genuine happiness and its causes enduring ultimate bliss, immutable bliss of enlightenment itself. I shall do so.’ [Pause].

[48:58] But we are not yet manifestly awake, not fully awake, we are awakening, yes. But in order to carry through with to fulfill this resolve to make good on it, [pause], we call on the blessings of the guru, the yidams, all the enlightened ones, and in Tibetan [says in Tibetan …??] in order to enable me to do this, may I receive the blessings of the guru or the gurus and the deities, Tara, Manjushri, and so on, and so on. May they all grant their blessings here and now.

[49:47] Then if you find it helpful, then commence the visualization, let it continue flowing on for the rest of the session. As you’re arousing an aspiration that would … to say it mildly, would meet, meet with the approval of all the enlightened ones. To say it more boldly, fill them all with delight and their absolute support for eternity. Imagine with each in-breath the light flowing in and from all sides above and below, from your gurus, the deities, all the enlightened ones, buddhas, bodhisattvas, all granting you the blessing flowing in in the form of light powerfully energizing your body, speech, and mind, saturating yourself to the point of supersaturation with each inhalation, and with every exhalation release that energy. Let it flow out from your heart.

[50:53] Imagine that then you become the source of blessing, [pause], breathing out the light of loving kindness, the light of joy, [pause], and whoever comes to mind, invite them into this space, welcome them in and flood them with this light of loving kindness, breathing out, breathing out, and imagining each one finding the fulfilment, the joy that is their innermost heart’s desire. [Pause].

[51:55] You don’t need to imagine or to be able to imagine all sentient beings too much, but simply let this loving kindness flow out to every sentient being who comes to mind equally and they will be representative of all sentient beings throughout space as if each one was an emissary. [Pause]. Breathe in, breathe out. [Pause].

[58:38] And release all appearances, all objects of mind, all activities of the mind, [pause], and rest in the utterly pure simplicity of your own awareness.

[59:41] [Bell rings] [Meditation session ends].

[59:58] A very brief footnote to this parable. You’ll note that the stone was dirt encrusted and hidden, so veiled multiple levels, yea, that, that metaphor is found in the Uttaratantra where there’s a jewel buddha hidden in a dirty rag and so on, so it’s the same metaphor and it runs through all the teachings on the buddha nature in the sutrayana right through Vajrayana and Dzogchen. But in Asanga’s commentary to the Uttaratantra one of the five works of Maitreya that really highlights buddha nature, it’s the classic among the commentaries, and in his commentary to it, I read this years ago about 20 to 25 years ago or so, really struck me that in the foundational teachings of four applications of mindfulness, for example with respect to the body, you’re seeing the … you’re overcoming the delusion of seeing that which is impure, the body, as being pure, right. You’re overcoming that, you see the impure as impure, the impermanent as impermanent, that which is dukkha is dukkha and that which is not self is not self, right. So very straightforward commentary, and then Asanga in his commentary to this, Uttaratantra, he turns it all on its head. Once you’ve realized that, that’s where again there’s a path, a sequence here. If you skip the first one, you’ll just be totally delusional. It’s like not really fathoming the emptiness of yourself. Still holding to that at least quietly, like privately, and then thinking I’m Manjushri. Then you, then you may as well think you’re Napoleon. You’re just flat out delusional. Really I mean, just flat out delusional. Kernel of corn, Napoleon, Manjushri, all the same, tomatoes tomatoes, you’re delusional, right. If and only if you’ve realized emptiness, so if and only if you’ve realized the impurity of your own body and so on, and you tap down to the level of buddha nature, then you see, ah, this is pure. We mistake the impure for the pure, having recognized the impure as impure you cut through that seeing it’s not inherently … remember we had that yesterday … not only inherently pure or impure, then you cut through that, you go from the coarse level to realize the emptiness of it and then you go down to the ground, and you see the pure as the pure, you see, ah, that what you, where you got deluded, there is something pure, primordially pure, magnificent, absolutely pure its your own buddha nature, right. And then while we grasp on to our looks or intelligence, identity, possessions, and so forth, relationships as being stable, enduring, well, no get over it, see the impermanent as impermanent. Then see it’s neither, none of these things are intrinsically permanent or impermanent, that’s the vipashyanas, the madhyamaka, emptiness realization, right. Then you go down, you cut through to pristine awareness, you say, ah, but this is unborn, this is unborn, this is unceasing, this is undying, right.

[1:03:18] So now you have unborn you have … you have permanent as in the sense of not subject to momentary arising. And then we have the third one, thinking oh, my girlfriend, she just made me so happy, she’s a true source of happiness, or my looks or blah, blah, blah, you know, see that which is not by nature sukkha as for what it is. Unsatisfying. You see that first. Then see it’s neither inherently dukkha or sukkha. Good. Got that one. A path here and now cut right through and you say ah, this is sukkha, this is connate, unchanging, immutable bliss. This is sukkha, now I’ve found it. And then finally the fourth one, think, oh, this is not really me, this body here, they’re not really me, there’s not really my thoughts, not really my cell phone, and so forth. Good and then see it as neither inherently mine nor not mine. Neither entity nor non entity, neither me or not me, neither one inherently, cutting through that, as we had yesterday from Shantideva, cutting through and then we see the meaning of this Dzogchen analysis of the second noble truth, come to know who you really are and it’s rigpa looking into the mirror and seeing rigpa. Rigpa knowing rigpa, and now you know who you are.

[1:04:37] And now you see, oh I don’t need to achieve enlightenment. There’s nothing to achieve, because finally I see what I was not and I recognize who I’ve always been, and then you just rest in that, and that’s non meditation, because there’s nothing to do and nothing to achieve. Just rest there and let it sink in until it’s fully manifest with no obscurations. So as you may tell, I have a lot of confidence in this path, even for those people as screwed up as I am. Yeah. I have hope. So there’s hope for me. There’s hope for all of you. I’m serious, really, if there’s hope for me then there’s hope for you, right.

Olaso. Enjoy your day.

Transcribed by Shirley Soh

Revised by Rafael C. Giusti

Final edition by Kriss Sprinkle

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

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