wisdom podcast 23¶

dudjom lingpa says it's much more like a shepherd watching his flock out in an open plain while the shepherd sit still while the flock moves hither and yon and so that cognitive fusion is dissipating and the sense of the stillness for awareness as you're observing thoughts you invert your awareness in upon itself but it's still likely your awareness is still very likely to be conditioned by your thoughts your ideas your preconceptions your beliefs about consciousness because after all our experience is generally strongly conditioned by our past experience language acculturation personal history and so on but as you continue to release and relax while maintaining the clarity then you're you're not thinking back into but the locus of your awareness the word is Papa descends from it's an ordinary field which is all cut up in dualistic thinking and so forth radical deepened demarcation between subject and object it's slipping deeper and deeper into this dimension of consciousness

transcripts¶

ah

welcome to the wisdom podcast my name is

daniel aiken and this week we are joined

by alan wallace

scholar and popular teacher of tibetan

buddhism alan is also one of the most

prolific writers and translators of

tibetan buddhism in the West this

episode is a little different in that it

was recorded in front of a live audience

that was the first time we've had a live

audience for the wisdom podcast which we

plan on doing a lot more in the future

so I hope you enjoy this episode with

Alan Watts

I wrote in my journal and the summers

late summers day in Bergen on the west

coast of Norway I need to meet a wise

old man and I need it quickly you know

basically and I'm not sure I kind of

believed or disbelieved as like kind of

amorphous about God and the divine

but just like hello University I need

universe not University

I need a wise old man and I was

hitchhiking on this long road from us

from Bergen to Oslo by myself and after

waiting about four or five hours by side

of the road a little black VW bug pulled

over to the side a little man waved to

me would like a ride and it turned out

he was a Buddhist monk and a fascinating

person he lived in Nepali live with

Tibetans and I learned all of this in

about ten minutes because he took me

about ten minutes down the road and then

dropped me off because he lived in a

chalet up in the mountain but he learned

I was introduced in Buddhism we

correspond 84 years after that but that

was that was kind of a wake-up call

because 1970 how many Buddhist monks

were there in Europe I think you

probably count them on one maximum two

hands and he came right when I called

and it kind of made me feel well there

are coincidence and then there are

coincidences and there's a point which

to say coincidence is just stupid and

this seemed to be one of the stupid

times just to say that yeah well it

happens yeah it did that was really a

coincidence but then when I followed you

know when I kept on I went down to

Gooding and find there was a vesting

Lama we just been appointed by the Dalai

Lama to be unfactored he with him went

after Switzerland trained there for a

few months for the summer and there my

safe but bought myself a one-way ticket

to India and immerse myself in the next

four years but what in short of the what

really pulled me was on the one had a

very deep intuitive sense of zopi in

which I didn't understand I just felt

this is it and it was 20 years before

circumstances came together for me to

really have an opportunity to immerse

myself in the study and practices Oh

Kenneth 1990 with garuda mochi until

then it was Olga Luba tera vaada Sakia

but it was but on a more cognitive level

I found here a tradition that was not

simply religion

simply science not simply philosophy it

includes all three elements but what

really caught me and then it's helped me

ever since is here is a path of ever

deepening meaning but also ever

deepening insight understanding

knowledge and they're all bound into one

wisdom and skillful means you could say

and that's been enormously can tell me

for me so you went to India basically in

search of meaning you had facts from the

science side of things so you're looking

for meaning but then you end up coming

back to the states and where do you go

you end up at em who are studying

physics is that right well back when I

was supposed to be there for an academic

year wound up dropping all my classes

that I was intending to do struck terror

in the hearts of my parents give me that

oh it's throwing away my entire future

which of course I did but I read

voraciously for that I basically became

a hermit for nine months and just read

voraciously and then wind up dropping

all my classes except for Tibetan

language because I figured this is my

path and in 1970 there were very few

people who are bilingual so if I was

serious about this and I was then I've

got to learn how to read and speak

Tibetan so that's all I did and then

read voraciously and you asked about

when I started reading I started

practicing meditation I started TM

Transcendental Meditation a year or two

earlier

and I was good but I wanted it more and

I picked up a marvelous book and it's

the heart of Buddhist meditation by

nanoparticle Tara outstanding German

scholar it was trained for years I met

him years later in 1980 it's an

outstanding it's still a classic and it

covers the mahasabha Pat Tomasulo an

excellent commentary to it I read that

and it just read on my own I had no

teacher but I thought I can practice

that this really makes sense and it was

not just meaning if somebody wanted

meaning I could have maybe tried to just

adopt some aberrant form of Christianity

and you know be a good heretical

Christian but I was looking for insight

for understanding for knowledge and here

the satipatthana sutra decided a ton of

practice before our closed applications

of mindfulness that's just that in

is that is it's tremendously meaningful

and yet it's so smart it's so sharp it's

intelligent it's radically empirical and

so I immerse myself and started

practicing that in 1970 on my own in

Germany and then bought myself a one-way

ticket to India and so then when you

came back and started at Amherst I'm

wondering what was the thought why why

after spending four years in Dharamsala

you know meeting all these llamas I

think I get you up tonight he's on insta

llama and then you come back and then

there's this pull back into academia and

I was wondering what would the

motivation behind that was sure well it

was more than four years I was in

Dharamsala from 71 to 75 had tremendous

and repeated health problems one after

another three cases of hepatitis I think

I got typhoid I had three types of worms

the list goes on and on it was

physically very very tough and mentally

and spiritually just a feast I mean it

was terrific but also really took a lot

of wear and tear on the body and then by

that time that by 1971 I had a personal

connection with His Holiness Dalai Lama

he was my husband is and will be my root

guru since 71 and so after been there

and I was I received my four-nation from

him since 1975 just a few months after

my ordination with him full ordination

then I met with him because my teacher

who gave me my novice ordination two

years earlier had been posted to become

abbot of the monastery the Recon

monastery and journey in Switzerland and

again my second home so I met with him

and and just simply simply asked him

where can I be of greatest benefit shall

I stay here in Dharamsala continue

meditating and so on

I toured also spent more than a year in

the Buddhist school dialectics so it had

fairly rigorous training there so I

should shall I stay here in Dharamsala

or shall I accompany my teacher back to

Switzerland by then I was fluent in

Tibetan my kid services interpreter

continued my own training and to

whatever is helpful and he said go west

young man

and so in 1975 then I went back to

Switzerland spent four and a half years

there a translating for him eventually I

was teaching I was translating writing

practicing

after about nine or ten years by the

time I got to the end of the 70s it

would been had been pretty intensive

training lots and lots of teaching

including a good dose of tera vaada

which I received from one monk who came

to dance alone I study with him

intensely for a summer maybe a bit more

but then after night by the United end

of 1979 I just felt kind of saturated

with undigested knowledge but not that

I'd understood but not assimilated so I

wrote to his holiness and said all I

want to do now is meditate for a while

and where shall I go shall I go back to

America stay in Switzerland to come back

to India and he said come to Mindy I'll

teach you I'll teach you meditation I

didn't take long to decide what to do

and so I spent the next four years from

beginning of 1984 through three end of

1983 basically just in a series of

meditative retreats in India Sri Lanka

Insight Meditation Society right here in

Boston you are outside of Boston Manor

and living in the breakers out in

Arizona and so on for years than just

just meditating and by that time I had

really been out of the mainstream of

Western civilization for thirteen years

and I would often say not really ingest

but I was born at the age of 20 I just

flew in like with my pals in Hindi or

Switzerland so forth I would say I was

born at the age of 20 because that's the

the age at which things started making

sense and before that first 20 years was

a drumroll to actually having in a

beginning when I thought was a

meaningful life but by the time I was

2033 almost 34 then I just thought I

went to Asia and I immersed myself in

Tibetan culture and primarily in

buddhadharma to seek integration to live

a whole and meaningful and truthful life

integrating meaning and wisdom insight

knowledge and what I done in the process

is completely bifurcate myself into the

first twenty years in the last 14 and

had alienated myself from my own culture

so I felt a stranger in my own home and

completely doesn't continue my Western

education and I thought well maybe now

after 14 years of quite thorough

immersion in a very different culture

and whole spiritual tradition

maybe it's time to integrate to begin

integrating and so I was accepted at

Amherst College to wish I was there an

enormous privilege it's an outstanding

college and that was in 84 and decided

to study physics because I've have

thought here here's the paradigm here's

the here's the the template for Western

Sciences the whole Galileo started it

and all the other branches of science

suffer from physics Envy I've been told

you know emulating this tremendous

success story of physics going back to

Copernicus Kepler Galileo Newton and on

there is science at its most dazzling

one can say from my perspective and so

why not study that you know and then and

do all the hard work does that do the

mathematics do from classical mechanics

and electromagnetism all the way through

but what I was really curious about was

quantum mechanics and so I thought if

there's going to be some real meaningful

engagement between modern physics and

the Buddhist tradition which I get I've

been trained by them for 14 years I

thought it's gonna be here quantum

mechanics because this is now

challenging a lot of the absolutes that

pervaded classical physics absolute

space time matter energy so I won't

elaborate in quantum mechanics but I was

very intrigued and so that's what I did

Adam Martin a marvelous mentor one was

named I'm glad to mention Arthur Zions

he remains one of my dearest friends and

he really took me under his wing he

guided me through my training and

history of physics philosophy of science

quantum mechanics and with Bob Thurman

I studied Sanskrit and I wrote a 500

page thesis and left a very happy camper

how old are you at this stage 36 when I

graduate Wow so you fit so much in

already and and at that time you were

studying you were still I think you were

still you know getting teachings I think

you've met up with Ganley marimba and

you were also going out to the

California desert and doing retreats and

all this all these kind of things and so

I'm wondering I was wondering

particularly about Ganley marimba and

he's rumored to have a Qi

chanita and I was wondering if where

your interest in geometry practice came

from and whether he was an influence on

you in that regard

yeah so during my years two-and-a-half

years yet Amherst

they gave me two semesters and I was

writing a very big thesis why asking for

one more semester because I was full

scholarship I came out without that

without debt which is enormous

I have enormous gratitude for Emmer's

for that so I spent five semesters there

and during that time I was still

ordained I was a monk so as a Buddhist

monk studying physics mathematics

history of science philosophy of science

but an incognito monk and then when I

graduated all I wanted to do is go off

into retreating him so I went slipped

off to the Eastern Sierra the high

desert of the Eastern Sierra Nevada

mountains in California and was there

for about a year and in the meantime

back in 1980 when I when a solon is

invited me back to India to meditate I

was given by a truly marvelous Tibetan

yogi by the name again Shama wanted old

friends with lama zopa rinpoche and I

remember so forth again Shama Wondrich

was a yogi yogi and he moved into gates

or uplands empty cabin left his cabin

vacant so he invited me to do my retreat

in his cabin and so at that time one of

the Yogi's Tibetan Yogi's living at

there about an hour and a half hike

above McLeod Ganj about Dharamsala one

of the Yogi's living up there was gama

marimba and he allowed me to come and

drop in on him once a week just for me

to consult with him about my practice

his holiness with guiding my practice

but he had a few other things to do with

his time besides guide me so I couldn't

just drop in on him whenever I wanted to

is given I'm River was more available so

I would see his holiness whenever I

could began my remember I got to know

quite well and developed a real

friendship with him at a very deep sense

of reverence and respect it's just a

tremendous you'll be a wonderful monk

scholar and contemplative so we got to

know each other that way and then after

I'd finished up at Amherst and that was

in 86 then with a bit of preparation and

I asked His Holiness

whether he would allow Gemma if young

member of wish to come whether he be

willing to come and lead a one-year

shamah to retreat a group retreat

because I've been teaching in Seattle

for some time at that point and aroused

a certain amount of interest in this and

he consulted with His Holiness his own

and has told him yes it would be good

idea to come so he came for all of 1970

1988 1988 he led and I was kind of his

apprentice a one-year shamah to retreat

for 12 people and it went very very well

everybody in the retreat said it was the

most meaningful year of their lives but

in terms of mine in the first teacher

the first Lama from whom I received

sustained and very rigorous training was

cashing home anti-gay because I went to

Dharma Zala expressly because under the

auspices of His Holiness Dalai Lama the

Tibetan works the Tibetan light come

library of Tibetan worked in archives

had just opened the doors and they were

they held a one-year course in Buddhism

and so I went from Switzerland to to

Dharamsala because of that course I was

studying with a sakya lama in

Switzerland and I wanted to go to Nepal

and find a cave with some yogi in it

they take one look at me and say my

chela my chela you know leading me to

enlightenment

but this bulletin came from Dharamsala

and my sakya lama in switzerland said go

there so I just made a beeline there but

caching anti-gay when he was teaching he

taught all of lamrim I taught the guide

to the Bodhisattva way of life he also

taught the abyss AMA alankara or the

ornament for the Ottoman for clear

realization and in all of these

teachings including shantideva shaman is

there I mean it's very explicitly there

and I remember very vividly I don't want

to go on too long here I remember very

vividly when again when getting on Tiger

we're teaching Islam remain you got to

the schemata just before the passion of

course he said well why don't we

practice a little bit

he'd be teaching as you know the by the

book and then he said well let's

practice of it so there's just eight of

us and this one year of course and so

he's so I'm up for it you know so we sat

there and he sat like there's like a

stone Buddha and after 20 minutes I and

I think the others in our class were

getting getting fidgety and

uncomfortable and half an hour goes by

getting more uncomfortable an hour wind

by he's not moving a muscle and then

we're in physic

agony and two hours goes by and three

hours go by by that time we're basically

internally scream our heads off were so

much pain and then in a gift moment I

get gently opened his eyes look at us

and said Shawn that is not so easy so

but he said many things that really

captured my attention he said you know

if you've achieved summer to them the

passion is easy and when he was teaching

us the abysm alankara this definitive

presentation of the five paths starting

with the path of accumulation

culminating associate rock our Heartland

by the Sante path as a buddha according

to the lineage in which he was trained

which I received if you want to reach

just the first path well the the crucial

element is you so deeply cultivate

bodhichitta that arises spontaneously

effortlessly but for that to happen your

mind has to be wonderfully stable fit

free of the by Box curations and for

that you have to achieve schemata

achieve shaman not just work at it but

you should have achieved schemata which

indicates a very very exceptional degree

of mental health and balance and with

that basis you cultivate bodhichitta to

the point that there rises spontaneously

and then you reach the path and so I

listen to that mr. boat that's the most

important thing to do and it was

actually oddly enough it was a reason

for me leaving after about a year and a

half my formal monastic training was on

the track to becoming a Geisha because

I'd receive all the basic training and

logic and debate and Buddhist psychology

and and so forth and we are just about

to begin

six years of training six years

continuously of the other semi alankara

which we'd exhaustively in detail study

the five Madiga as if I've passed the

1000 Bodhisattva Bloomie's but there

came a little interference on this

trajectory and that is who inca the wink

at the burmese meditation master he was

invited to Dharamsala to lead his 10-day

retreat and his holiness told all of us

in a monastery we should all go and so

well then you go your route Lama I just

said go so it and so there I was in

going cos we treat starting it like for

in the morning meditating 11 hours a day

and in in these 10 days I looked at my

mind and it was like an enormous garbage

dump that was alive with living garbage

you know just so much noise and

agitation and imbalances and so forth

and I looked at this and after about

eight or nine days of this I said what

would I be doing studying the five paths

and the ten are you put us after boonies

when I can't even see the bottom edge of

the lowest path because I'm Way down

here and so why don't I just drew

everything I possibly can to try to

reach the first path but this means I

don't need detailed knowledge of the

five paths and the ten boomys I just

need to learn how to become a bit saner

so with His Holiness permission I

dropped out and once again I drop out

dropped out of Western a key to me and I

dropped out of eastern academia and just

often meditated it's all I wanted to do

and then so that was so that led to four

years of retreat from 80 to 84 and then

gallim Rimba came in 1988 and then he

caught the Shama to a retreat and it

just struck me ever since that this is

something that is universally important

in Buddhism Theravada but and perfectly

clear and in any school of Buddhist you

have Sheila Samadhi flat yeah you can't

skip Samadhi

don't blow it off a momentary samadhi

that's a gimmick Samadhi is more among

more than just a little momentary

business it's something quite serious

and in the - in the my Anna and the vaad

Rihanna everywhere Sean that is

everywhere cropping up and yet to my

astonishment as the years went by is

seen that it was either overlooked

marginalized or tore trivialized and so

it just struck me this is a missing

piece so many things are talking well

really well in the Terracotta tradition

the charm is in all schools in Tibetan

Buddhism many outstanding teachers and

many outstanding teachings and and of

course a number of people teach

summative but not that many really

emphasize it and so I can be taking that

to heart

so after hearing that I can't help but

ask a technical question well you're

talking about geometry and bodhichitta

and I'm wondering if you think that you

have to it's necessary to achieve Shama

table before you can achieve bodhichitta

yeah the whole notion of achieving

bodhichitta by you as a scholar you know

this is referring to in the benjamin my

and hngg sam uncontrived effortless

spontaneously arising bodhichitta such

you've cultivated so deeply that it's

your more your default mode your ground

state and it could be actively triggered

by virtually anything and then just

Bowditch it is there you know it's a

primary mind it's not just an aspiration

have once in a while it's like your

prime directive and when that sinks so

deeply into your psyche almost into your

marrow

that it's just your your desire of

desires for which all other desires are

derivative that's when you've achieved

bodhichitta and then at that point

you're a Buddhist actor so is it

necessary to have fully achieved siya

matter and by that I mean technically

then access to the first jhana because

that's that's how the term is used in in

the whole intro Tibetan tradition there

is scholarly debate on this point in the

tradition of getting on Tiger Lama Zopa

Rinpoche issue wrapped in the set at the

ceviche tradition they say yeah you need

to fully achieve da Matta in order to

bring about that depth and that degree

of spontaneity bodhichitta but other

very well very erudite scholars say not

entire you don't need to achieve all

nine stages you certainly must have a

stable mind certainly the five

obscurations must be attenuated their

beings kind of craving central craving

laxity and excitation like laxity and

dullness excitation and anxiety and

afflictive afflictive uncertainty I

think I just and they'll will enmity so

those five have to be really in abeyance

it's hard to imagine a mind that is very

prone to ill-will and animosity in that

same mind stream but it's just arising

that's kind of like that's not gonna

happen

so there's scholarly debate whether you

need simply a very good degree of

Samadhi I mean really good like I'm nine

stages leading to schemata okay Stage

five given I'm Reba said he told me with

doing that one year that I lived with

him in 1988 during this one year retreat

he said it was not uncommon in the

gloopy tradition for very serious Yogi's

like himself in terms of schemata just

to go up to the fifth

out of nine stages sending Appa the

fifth of nine stages at that point your

course excitation is is through you can

sit for an hour maybe longer with an

unbroken flow of mindfulness never

completely disengaging for a meditative

object the mind has reason to be clear

you're somebody's pretty darn good and

he said it was common in his tradition

the glue per tradition to achieve that

as a flat Shama to practice focusing on

an image of buddha shakyamuni or

whatever method you like and then with

that degree of samadhi then go right

into state regeneration practice and

then finish off what you started with in

the context of stage of generation

practice but in as a point of fact and

some couple points this out jujube Ling

pointed out the great name a llama llama

meet Pomona birch a point out they've

all said from the fifteenth century

until the present relatively few people

actually fully achieve summit most of

them seem to be in a hurry well achieve

a little bit and then Rob the state

regeneration or just do a lamb rim or 13

do more they're doing so to Norma mudra

they're eager to get to the good stuff

and summit is like thinking about summit

Hindus do summit how important could

that be you know that of sectarian bias

comes in or the Indiana they do schemata

how come born exactly you know but

that's a sectarian talk it is enormous

Lee important and there's there's a

story from Buddha's own life after he

had finished his six years of aesthetic

practices damaged his health restored

his health and in might recall from the

nakaya's then then the Buddha was the

gautuma the age of 35 was wondering what

now because he had already tried Samadhi

tried all these ascetic practices and so

forth and then he recalled a time as a

youth maybe is 12 13 years old something

like that where he was simply sitting

quietly under a rose apple tree while

his father was out doing some ritual and

a royal ritual and he spontaneously

slipped into the first Jana just slip

right into it since it was drew the 5ox

creation went down the mine whose supple

it was filled with well-being was his

sense of what bliss and so forth and

most importantly release fit for action

you know supple

ha that scent that Sanskrit term

supplements malleability and then as

it's that cropped up spontaneously then

when the Risha was over he had to get on

with his life then it also subsided he

got it that it was just a taste and but

he recalled the age of 35 he recalled

that that first jhana and it and then

the thought arose in his mind he said

the thought arose in my mind might that

be the way to enlightenment and then

answer came back yes so then in a

relatively short time he reassures jhana

and then on that basis its history

achieved perfect enlightenment but he

himself indicated in that statement the

first jhana it's all it's very good to

achieve more but that one I think

there's pretty I think among really

knowledgeable scholars like Kim in

doTERRA now standing tera vaada scholar

and very widely accepted in the Indo

Tibetan tradition that degree this

access to the first jhana or the full

first jhana these are indispensable to

really proceed along the path to become

a sonnet on this Roddick Ayana to become

a stream enter and so forth and on the

my on a path to become a bodhisattva and

proceed on the Bodhisattva path this is

this is the kind of the the gold

standard of what I would call mental

health and balance and you need an

exceptional degree because if a person

is not just about of course stress

reduction or gaining an insight here or

there but Vibhishana in union with a

passion with sha meta which is the

Buddhist great innovation that had never

been taught I think in the tradition of

the Indian contemplative heritage

prior to the Buddha was a great

innovation it is that combination of

schemata and the passion that has the

power to completely eradicate mental

afflictions from the root so that really

caught my attention early on and I just

felt you can't skip sha meta or you can

but then none of your other practices

will come to full fruition I like to

fast forward a little bit to you meeting

Giotto Rinpoche and coming into contact

with those oak chain teachings again

because you know back if there Evans

whence this book you you it started your

path yeah

and I was wondering if you could speak a

little bit with you know your earlier

training was always Galaga in tsongkhapa

and I was wondering how you integrated

your earlier training in the global

image with the Zoltan teachings if you

could just speak a little bit to that

sure I'll try to be concise which all my

students learn terrible yeah I was my

initial inspiration to follow the path

of Tibetan Buddhism or into Tibetan

Buddhism was this book on zouk Chen but

then circumstances simply unfolded in

such a way that I had really no access

to zou Chen teachings for 20 years it

was there and I was immensely nourished

both in terms of growth of understanding

and knowledge and also an

ever-increasing sense of meaning through

those 20 years I I wouldn't give away

one year of it it was 20 years very well

spent and and by the time I was 90 next

I was 90 19 1990 don't tell how early by

the time of 1990s always 40 years old

I think Plato said that's when you when

you're allowed to start start studying

philosophy at the age of 40 I think he

said so I had 40 years under my belt and

one of my oldest and dearest Dharma

friends is a woman named Sangha Kondo

it's a very accomplished translator

teacher really an outstanding person and

would be with we've been buddies since

1972 or so way back and so we kept in

touch just in a very nice friendship and

she early on the years and years before

1990 she become very close disciple and

an interpreter for gateau de mogi so I

would drop in on her once in a while and

I meet her Lama we would get to know him

a little bit checking him out you know

and then in 1990 by that time I had

spent a couple of years in retreat out

of academia and decided to continue my

education so when I matriculated at

Stanford in the in the ph.d program in

religious studies and so I was living

there in the Bay Area but really knowing

that if I stayed only in academia it

would be quite arid from my perspective

lots of fact and not a whole lot of

meaning in the methodology you know

because it's just radically not Orion

it's practice keep the objective stance

which means stand outside up and don't

go native whereas I was obviously I was

already a lost cause I was native

already and so yeah Jenna but you're

very happily decided to move down from

Oregon for a while to the Bay Area and

so he gave some teachings on dream yoga

in 1999 gioconda was translating he gave

it in San Jose and I'd received

teachings on dream yoga from the sole

member jayx a great very great galloper

Lama back in 1978 in Switzerland I

served as his interpreter for all the

six yoga's of Naropa so I had some

acquaintances but Keyshia Dobson who

organized this invited him to give us

his teachings he totally just flat out I

want you to receive these teachings now

but it's over your head you know just

get the imprints now but don't think

about practice you're not ready yet so

that was now 12 years later guttered

which is teaching dream younger but he's

teaching it like you can really practice

this you're teaching it experientially

and in this kind of this men mapped mode

this mode of pith instructions there's

nothing academic about it and I just

drank it in like nectar and so it was

just a very strong connection I said

okay this this is a person I'd love to

read you know how does one of my long

lines and so as it turns out just a

marvelous opportunity arose up for me

for the next seven years from 1990

through 97 I want to being his his

primary interpreter he's living in the

Bay Area Sangre Honda was up in Oregon

so various circumstances came together

so I had the just priceless opportunity

to serve as his interpreter for the last

two years I was living with him

just a little cottage across from his

and so he gave those teachings on you

canto translating and then not too long

after that he had been invited down to

the Shambhala Center in Hollywood and he

said Alan I'd like you to come down and

translate for me I said sure glad to

honored so he came down to the Shambhala

center and he was 1990-1991 motel ago

and he picked out two chapters from a

great text on the Union of Muhammad

Renzo Chen by Camacho net which hasn't

been translated it's certainly called

the Delta TM the great commentary and he

picked out two chapters within the

Mohammed results in tradition schemata

and her passion

and that's how he started me off so I

was getting shamaton you know all the

way through remember every teacher

really and it was just breathtaking and

seeing well here was this smooth segue

because guess you're traveling back in

1976 had taught us and I was

interpreting for him pensioner punches

text his route text and commentary on my

mudra so and it just enchanted me I

really drew me so during my four years

of solitary practice I went a lot in

that direction and now yeah Tran watch

is teaching it from the union of the

kagu and yingwan traditions whereas I

had it from the Union of the guide you

and galloper tradition so it's this

seamless transition and so he taught

those and it was just like I was just

thrilled I mean literally I was thrilled

and so he continues staying on there in

the Bay Area and then he just taught one

text after another and every single one

of them a spacious path to freedom

make it awareness natural liberation

badness mother's teaching of the six

bardos he taught a short text by Zhu

Jian member jenshaw Madiba pacchiana he

taught the Vajra essence every single

text that he taught while during those

seven years that I was translating for

him every single one emphasized the

enormous importance of Muruga of path

we're here to not just practice Dharma

but to reach the path and move along the

path the fourth noble truth after all

and every single one of them emphasized

shammed so I had this from every side

and so he has just been my like my

spiritual father and my primary so chin

Oh chin Lama and the teachings that he's

passed on to me and authorized me to

pass on to others is just it's a Philip

fulfillment of my heart's desire but

happily my root Lama of course is his

old mentor Dalai Lama and of all the

galoop Obama's that he is largely a

kalapa Lama he more than any other I

know with no comparison completely

integrates the teachings ons auction

which you receive from Tengu cancer

temperature and other great Enuma Lamas

and his whole his whole formidable good

look the background and I received on

multiple occasions ochen teachings from

him and so he made it very easy for me

here's you know the Lama of Lamas as far

as I'm concerned and seamlessly

integrating these and that's what I've

that's what I've sought to do for the

last 26 years so it's been in no way an

abandonment of my back

tera vaada Ella for six months in sri

lanka studied with inanimate raya

formidable Sri Lankan teacher monk

scholar he took me under his wing and

trained me so it's in no way a

disengagement for my tera vaada

background legal oopah but rather it's

the one translation of Zhou Chen is the

great incumbent the great completion the

great perfection are particularly good

but there's ocean makes sense of all of

the different paths and from my mind not

only within Buddhism but actually it

enables me to make sense of spiritual

traditions outside of Buddhism and for

that matter corner cosmology and certain

elements of love science and philosophy

of mind thank you so much my pleasure so

I think we're gonna have about a five

minute break and then Alan is going to

come back and give us a short Dharma

talk thank you well I'd like to go

during these 20 minutes is to a very

rich and concise excerpt from the Vajra

essence which is a third of the three

volumes here of Dijon lingas collected

works arms of chen in which Padma Sam

bhava by way of do gem Linga draws to my

mind a marvelously clear distinction

between what we call mind or chitta

in Sanskrit and rickman were pristine

awareness what's the difference between

the two and I think he lays this out in

a definitive extremely clear fashion but

I'd like to build up to a little bit

leave that for the grand finale and go

back to excerpts from the text that for

those of you who have followed the

course on the foolish Dharma of an idiot

clothed in madmen feathers one of the

most concise of Digium lingas

masterpieces really unsoaked chen just

take a brief excerpt from that because

he's talking about how you set out on

the path of so chen

what's the entry and i quote from a pure

vision a visionary teaching that he

received in which he's told in in a

dream hey hey hue blind one who wished

to enter the authentic path listen

by authentic path that means a path that

actually brings about irreversible

purification transformation so you never

fall back if it's not that it's not a

path it's practicing Dharma it's being

virtuous perhaps but a path means you're

actually evolving irreversibly on the

path of ever growing freedom and

awakening and so those who wish to enter

the authentic path listen the body is

like a paper bag blown by the wind

speech is like the sound of air passing

through a pipe this mind is a creator of

both samsara and Nirvana among these

three identify which is primary you have

a long time to wait before you'll see or

hear something called meditation and so

he's starting out with this emphasis

this encouragement for us individually

to investigate not just think about or

rely upon other people Authority and so

forth or simple logic but investigate

experientially within our own continuum

of being embodied human beings with

minds and bodies and speech among these

three ways of manifesting in the world

body speech and mind often called the

three doors which is primary and he

really emphasizes in more than one I

think perhaps all of his five major

treatises on so Chen this is the first

thing you've got to get right because if

you're wobbly amorphous or you just

flat-out wrong you'll not be able to

enter this path because you're starting

out with a fundamental fault hypothesis

and everything will go screwy from that

perspective and so of course in the Seok

Jin view it is the mind that is primary

speech is derivative and even body is

derivative now this is an absolutely

core theme it's not simply a required

belief it's a truth that must be known

where you decide on in this path if you

sing something contrary that's fine you

don't get punished for it but

this path is not open to you and so this

has though precedence all the way down

to the most foundational teachings in

the whole Buddhist tradition in the Pali

Canon for example in the Samia ticket

nakiya the Buddha states and I quote the

world is led by the mind just generally

in the universe mind is primary ok or

the ever so often quoted first verse of

the first chapter of the Dhammapada all

phenomena are preceded by the mind issue

forth from the mind and consist of the

mind clearly that has multiple

interpretations I don't mean to be

always simplistic here but he said what

he said and then we go to the Mahayana

tradition to the one of the minor sutras

that rathne mega sutra and here the

buddha in the sutra states all phenomena

are preceded by the mind when the mind

is comprehended all phenomena are

comprehended by bringing the mind under

control all things are brought under

control so this is a recurrent theme

through all schools of Buddhism that the

mind is primary when we address the

first noble truth yes there's physical

pain never to be marginalised but after

all the deeper forms of suffering are

not physical they're mental the

suffering of change the suffering that

goes with just the grasping to I am its

mental suffering when you look at the

second noble truth it's mental it's not

brain it's not genetics if not

environment it's not politics it's the

mind it's your mental afflictions that

are at the root of all suffering when

you go to the third noble truth it's the

mind that he/she is Nirvana not your

body and you look at the fourth noble

truth and it's all training of the mind

certainly ethics has to do with body and

speech but above all is the training of

the mind so the entire framework of the

Buddha Dharma is primarily emphasizing

mind as primary and this is indicated in

the Buddha's own night of his

enlightenment when his first insight

which he said I saw with direct

perception was seeing countless of his

own past lives he said I saw it with

direct perception second watch of the

night I watched countless past lives of

other sentient beings and then he saw

the interrelationship what we called the

laws of karma the interrelationship that

is not just scattered or stochastic

random going from here to there

but there's causality from former to

later and so this is a starting insight

it is necessary we're proceeding further

on his auction path but it's also

crucial they're enlightened eater in the

Pali Canon the tera vaada all of my an

olive Adrianna is there in Chan and in

Zen and then we have the world view that

we're very familiar with especially in a

very educated city like Boston and

Cambridge where if I can paraphrase a

very common view nowadays all phenomena

as in all experiences are preceded by

the brain issue forth from the brain and

consists of the brain but between the

mind and the brain the brain is primary

and in the immortal words of John John

Searle and many others the mind is what

the brain does and if you're having any

kind of mental problem well it's

basically a brain problem and so they

turned it entirely on the head on his

head and could not be more diametrically

opposed so somebody is flamboyantly

wrong and if we are objective and

open-minded about this the Buddha

himself was having basically a

hallucinations on the might of at night

of his enlightenment and Buddhism has

basically been fundamentally psychotic

ever since that's a logical possibility

it is a logical possibility that they

just you know it's pre-scientific is

superstitious it's hocus pocus mumbo

jumbo and claptrap I've heard all of

these attributed to the Buddhist

teachings that's a possibility or the

other possibility is that for the last

hundred and fifty years science has been

profoundly led astray by the dogma of

scientific materialism there's is it's

it's a prelude to the juicy bit so you

have to bear with me if you will you can

back out in a minute there's a fella

named Daniel Simpson I'm looking forward

to meeting we've course founded back and

forth he wrote a very provocative

article called Buddhist meditation and

cognitive sciences daniel simpson

buddhist meditation cognitive sciences

and find it online is worth reading he

did a lot of good research and I quote

him here he says one minor life

scientist Richard Davidson was a very

dear friend of mine a wonderful human

being very bright scientist and just a

very fine human being all together very

good heart I've known him enough for 20

more than 20 years

one minor life scientists bridge

Davidson has bent over backwards to

avoid causing a fence while defending

materialism he acknowledges being asked

quote sharply but respectfully by the

Dalai Lama to quote distinguished

between that which has been empirically

confirmed and that which is simply

assumed and has become part of our

conceptual theoretical and conceptual

dogma

so as Holland is kind of call them on

the carpet so what do you guys really

know which is backed by empirical

evidence and what are you simply simply

accepting out of pure site tradition

theoretical and conceptual dogma so as

holiness can be tough in a very

benevolent respectful way but tough and

so rigid he evidently commanded this and

yet as as Daniel Simpson says yet he'd

Richard Davidson feels obliged to note

that quote certain scientific

assumptions are themselves based on

well-established principles adding says

daniel simpson via the circum

circumlocution some would say so Richard

Davidson distanced herself a little bit

from what he's about to say not much

that the dependence of them of mind on

brain is one such assumption that has

been subjected to countless empirical

tests and each and every one of them has

provided support for this general claim

so that would imply that some point in

the past there was some really

compelling physical evidence empirical

evidence that showed that the mind and

this refers to the whole bandwidth of

states of consciousness that all of them

are dependent on on the brain or to

quote John Searle again the mind is what

brain does the brain is primary in the

mind is just what the brain does is a

function that equality and epiphenomena

of the brain so one would think well

they do have some really strong

empirical evidence for that

unfortunately that's not true at all and

so as much as I love Ritchie and

respected in so many different ways this

is a flamboyantly misleading statement

that is ever since about 1963 when the

term neuroscience was coined by a man

named Schmidt Schmidt

a biologist at MIT she coined the term

and he and some of his contemporaries

back in the early 60s

they started the discipline they coined

the term neuroscience and they started

the discipline of neuroscience at MIT

and the first college that actually had

an undergraduate major in neuroscience

was my alma mater Amherst College 1973

but what was remarkable about the

origins of modern neuroscience is this

man Schmidt was trained as a biologist

he had no training in philosophy of mind

or psychology had no training in the

mind at all he was trained only in

chemistry biology physics and they

simply he and his contemporaries fifty

years ago simply decided that they would

stop start using the term mind and brain

interchangeably and act as if the

mind-body problem had been solved they

haven't even actually made any headway

there was actually no evidence

whatsoever that the mind is nothing more

than a function of the brain they just

started talking that way

they just started talking as if the

mind-body problem had been solved how

the mind interacts with the brain and

vice versa it had been somehow solved

whereas it was more like church council

just kinda citing a point of theology

rather than a conclusion drawn on

empirical evidence and what happened has

happened over the last 50 years is a

Society for Neuroscience which is the

you know the Church Council of

neuroscience they've simply decided that

all of our scientific study of the brain

will work with the assumption that the

mind is the brain of the mind as a

function of the brain and any other

theory and any evidence that stands

outside of that or challenges that we

will ignore or ridicule and that's

what's happened for the last 50 years we

will ignore or ridicule any theory of

the mind and the brain that is not

materialistic I love science and I am

deeply saddened by this travesty of

science because Ricci implies here that

the theory the hypothesis that the mind

is simply the function of the brain has

been tested time and time again and has

always come out positive but that's not

even remotely true I've looked for 25

years at scientific study science

scientific theory

of the mind and reductionistic ones

materialistic ones and interestingly

they they differ a lot but they all have

something in common not one of them is

scientifically testable or has ever been

tested scientifically they simply assume

it's a matter of belief so this is

really quite a travesty I would call it

a scam a hoax

I would call it brain washing because I

think it's most literally correct is

that that which is a very real problem

and which Donald Donald Hoffman a very

good neuroscientist at University of

california-irvine he commented very

cogently that ever since the late 19^th

century at a time of Thomas Huxley the

founder of the Church of scientific

materialism there's actually been no

progress at all on solving the mind-body

problem we know that the two are

correlated but how are they correlated

how does the placebo effect work how do

chemicals electricity in the brain

generate or even influence the mind how

do our thoughts our emotions our desires

and aspirations how do they influence

the brain we are as ignorant now as we

were 150 years ago and this is what

happens when you pretend to have

knowledge where all you have is belief

is called an illusion of knowledge and

historically has been the greatest

impediment to scientific discovery

imagine that you know something that

would in fact you only believe and that

is the standard view in modern

psychology neuroscience and philosophy

of mind 90% of them are all materialists

and they simply assume that if you don't

believe that you're either ignorant or

stupid so this is a great challenge this

is great empirical challenge it's not a

battle of science and religion or

Buddhism versus science it's actually

rather on the contrary a challenge

between empiricism and closed-minded

dogmatism and Buddhist can be as

dogmatic and closed-minded as anybody

else but I'm sorry to say I found

scientists can be as dogmatic and

closed-minded as any religious

fundamentalist I've ever met and so our

salvation here if I may speak in an

evangelical way is a return to

experience a return to empiricism but

not exclude first-person experience

because about a hundred years ago with a

rise behavioral psychology there was a

decision

again not a discovery but as this is

decision we will no longer we behavioral

psychologists will no longer refer to

subjective experience of any kind will

never speak of consciousness and we will

not ever use introspection so imagine at

the time of Galileo if the church had

gotten really heavy-handed and said we

can talk about the views of the sale of

you know the stars and planets but never

look through a telescope that's they did

not succeed but the materialists have

succeeded in banishing introspection

from academic psychology let alone

cognitive neuroscience for the last

hundred years it's been quite a shame

and so to the rescue as science I

believe I'm speaking with some passion

here but joyfulness as well Buddhism

also falls into dogmatism in tradition

into close-minded sectarianism it does

people do that whether they're Marxists

or the Republicans and so forth and so

on

we do that science can help rescue

Buddhism from falling into close-minded

traditionalism and ritualism and

complacency it can help us return to

empiricism we've got a great tradition

of empiricism going back to the Buddha

and the Buddhist can rescue the mind

sciences further from the complacency of

thinking they've already solved the my

problem my body problem even to the

point of absurdity like some

neuroscientist saying consciousness

doesn't exist there's no mind-body

problem because there's no mind or one

renowned philosophers mine saying

appearances don't exist if you take that

take those statements versus the

statement that the universe is ten

thousand years old and human beings

existed out on the sixth day pretty much

like us now which is more absurd

forty-two percent of Americans believe

that creationism eighteen percent

believe that the Sun goes around the

earth but what's more absurd those views

are the views that introspection is

impossible that subjective experiences

don't exist because they're not physical

consciousness that self doesn't exist

and appearances don't exist I think the

sight of materialism has pushed the

furthest limits of absurdity so we come

back to sanity that the mind does exist

is enormous ly efficacious and in fact

upon very careful and

you may very well draw the conclusion

that it is primary but now the

ontological burden so to speak what is

primary in the universe in the Buddhist

view from the Pali Canon right through

its open the mind is of paramount

importance the course mind what we

divide enta Phi is the psyche clearly

that's dependent upon the body but

that's not been doubted for millennia

when the Buddha himself practice ascetic

practices for six years he let his

health really really get damaged he was

weak emaciated and he saw that his mind

had become weak and he recognized he had

to restore his physical strength and

health for his mind to bounce back and

be strong and resilient so this it

didn't no mystery since the time of the

Buddha but that's the most superficial

level of mind zouk chen the whole

buddhist tradition is at large and the

so Qin tradition in particular invites

us go beneath the surface investigate

the nature of mind the primacy of mind

and some physicists are coming to the

same conclusion after all what we do

what do we know most immediately is

information appearances in information

and appearances are not physical and the

very categories of mind of mind matter

space time energy they're all conceptual

constructs based on information

informations not physical so which

brings us back to zouk Chen there's the

first point it's not Dogma it's not a

catechism it's not you have to believe

this but you must investigate until you

come to some uncertainty is the mind

primary or not and if it is alright

that's something big but then a

brilliant stroke and we see this running

through all of duty on linguistic

teachings oh my goodness that twenty

minutes go by

is that possible no that was supposed to

be the prelude can I go a little bit

longer okay at least have to give this

that was really fast amazing but I

warned I warned Daniel I do that but now

that you see mine is primary then the

next in the strategy this path in zou

Chen is not universally true in all

schools of Buddhism now investigate the

nature of the mind that which apprehends

that which knows that which observes

observe the nature of the agent the mind

that meditates that gets upset that

becomes compassionate engages in virtue

nonvirtue investigate this all creating

sovereign the mind and what does he say

here back to mutton feathers again in a

visionary experience a being and

appearing in one of his dreams since son

of the claw of the clear light Vadra

essence addressing digital mingi says

your own mind is the basis of all

samsara and Nirvana the origin from

which it first emerges is empty the

location in which it resides in the

interim after it's arisen before passes

is empty the destination to which it

finally goes is empty perceive the

essential nature of emptiness it this

mind it has no form shape color or

source it is neither one nor many and it

is neither emanated nor reabsorbed it

transcends the parameters of existence

and non-existence it is empty of the

conventional words of negation and

affirmation it is spontaneously

actualized as great emptiness since I

said I would be punctual I'm gonna wrap

up that rather long juicy quote is that

no way I could finished in just a few

minutes here's a strategy I was asked by

one friend of mine to give a bit of

pointing out instructions all right

let's give it give it you take a crack

at wean strategy here it's all very well

to speak profound words and be citing

great masters and so forth but when we

return home if we're inspired by this

path of the great protection how can we

get up on our lovely little

legs and start walking on the path I'll

sit make a suggestion okay but I would

suggest for those of us living in cities

like Boston I live in the outskirts of

Los Angeles I visit cities all over the

world we all know it in this modern era

with this way of life with this amount

of information this amount of

stimulation we have the amount of

workload we have the demands on our

attention that we have we are running an

experiment on ourselves and I think is

quite a cruel experiment to see how far

we can be pushed without all of us going

insane the first thing as we had in the

preliminary exercise to learn in a

non-trivial way how to set your body

speech mind at ease no wonder MBSR

mindfulness based stress reduction is so

popular and so helpful because people

are desperate to get some relief from

strain and stress that's just wearing

them out and sapping all the joy from

their lives so to learn through

discipline how to set the body and mind

at ease mindfulness breathing is

marvelous with it settle settle body

speech and mind at ease and then

mindfulness breathing full body

awareness let your awareness permeate

the whole field of the body but in the

midst of that that's already take a

little step towards zouk jam the great

perfection and that is while attending

to the sensations corresponding to or

correlated with the respiration

throughout the entire body kind of the

flow of energy through the body

corresponding to or related to the

respiration while attending to the

movements within the body corresponding

to the respiration attend to this from a

place of stillness your awareness your

mental awareness resting in stillness

while simultaneously attending to the

flux the ebb and flow of the sensations

of the breath throughout the body

stillness and movement stillness and

movement simultaneously as you calm as

the mind stabilizes as the clarity of

the mind like the Sun rising over the

horizon the clarity that might becomes

clearer and clearer but make a segue

into a practice it's called by various

names one is simply observing the mind

again from a vantage point of stillness

direct your attention now single point

• one out of six domains of experience

the domain of mental events of thoughts

of memories mental images the same

domain in which dreams arise at night

but also subjective impulses like

desires and emotions and from the

vantage of stillness of clarity of

stillness awareness that is at ease

still and clear observe the theater of

the mind the comings and goings of

thoughts emotions memories fantasies and

so forth coming and going arising in the

space of the mind resolving back into

that space and observe it in an ongoing

way from that vantage point of stillness

without wit called psychologist called

cognitive fusion without getting caught

up and carried away by the memories the

desires the emotions and so on and then

as you go deeper look to the intervals

between thoughts attend to the very

space that the mind itself and it then

clearly discerning ly observe what is

the nature of this space is it physical

space this is the face of the mind does

it have color does it have shape does

that have a center of periphery is that

have form does it have any physical

qualities whatsoever observe it closely

the very space of the mind and then as

we move in that in this strategy this is

now a very condensed course as you're

able to maintain that flow of clear

discerning awareness of the space of the

mind and observing also how thoughts

emerge from that space not emerging from

neurons which is a crazy idea

the notion of dreams and motion coming

from chemicals electricity one of the

craziest ideas I've ever heard but it's

groupthink one person says that a bunch

of people say it ok dispense with that

nonsense you can see thoughts arising

from the space of the mind and

dissolving back into the space of the

mind and the thoughts are non-physical

than the space that the mind is

non-physical

get over it you know and let this be

incorporated into the scientific study

of the mind we've been ignoring

first-person perspective for a hundred

and fifty years it's time to stop as

they say in Italy basta enough already

let's be scientific in the study of the

mind by observing it carefully like all

other branches of science observe

carefully the phenomena they're trying

to seek to understand don't you study

brain and behavior

so observe this based of the might and

now do something very clever with draw

the vector of your attention and

withdraw right into the very nature of

being aware itself have no

directionality no vector no object of

attention outside of awareness itself

and simply rest in an ongoing flow of

awareness of being aware consciousness

of consciousness itself it makes common

sense that if you want to understand

something look at it closely for a

sustained period

that's how Galileo discovered the moons

of Jupiter and sunspots and the phases

of Venus and craters on the moon he

observed carefully and in the sustained

fashion and started the scientific

revolution it's high time for the first

revolution and the mine Sciences to

begin but that means we have to do what

Galileo did what Galileo did what Darwin

did and what William James did look

carefully at the phenomena you're

seeking to understand observe

consciousness naked ly without mediation

we're almost there that's called

schemata it's a sus lesson most profound

method of schemata there isn't a whole

Buddhist tradition the awareness of

being conscious itself and now one step

further and we'll slip into the domain

absorption now carefully incisively

observe that which is observing we call

it the mind observe the mind we call it

awareness

observe awareness observe that which is

aware that which thinks that which

intends observe the observer and cut

through the mind right down to the very

ground which is Ripa and xoJane

meditation is nothing more or less than

cutting through to pristine awareness

rickwaa and viewing reality from that

perspective and that right there is the

view of the great production so in your

practice I just gave you enough to keep

you busy for at least few days

in your practice when you come to the

end there when you're coming to the

where you're able to sustain a flow of

awareness of awareness and then you cut

through the flow of awareness of

awareness to the penetration to that

which is aware you know the distinction

between the awareness that gets

distracted and gets dull and get

centered and gets distracted again and

that's the mind but as you cut through

to that which is aware you may cut

through to a dimension of awareness that

is unborn and unceasing that never moves

because it's not in time it's unchanging

and you can never wrap your conceptual

mind around it because this baseline

this ground of awareness from which all

conditioned states of consciousness

emerge transcends a very parameters of

existence and non-existence it

transcends all conceptual categories it

can be known is not an ultimate mystery

it can be known directly without

mediation but only by itself it can know

itself but your conceptual mind cannot

grasp it it's beyond its paygrade it's

beyond its scope so this rig by this

pristine awareness it is present right

now it is where your awareness it is it

is where your thoughts are it is not

something separate it's not somebody

else's it's not gods or Buddha's or some

other persons it's the ground state of

your own awareness and not and then this

node hidden in plain sight so try that

see what happened thank you so much

so the best question is what is the

difference between the shaman to

practice of awareness of awareness and

the practice of trencher very good I

could draw for my own background here

but I'd rather draw from the explicit

answer to that question from from and so

this question was posed to him last fall

and his answer in fact I think I was one

maybe I was one that I think I might

have been I wanted to get just

razor-sharp clarity and I did and so

here's the answer and that is anyone can

practice awareness of awareness you can

be a materialist a Christian an agnostic

Muslim Buddhist anything you like it has

no theory had no viewer that goes with

it

it's technology some of this technology

is contempt into technology the passion

is contemplative science and to become

the vidyadhara or practice that

meditation is very deep science and so

to practice awareness of awareness is

simply resting in the flow this

phenomenological or expansion flow of

being aware that's all there is to it

but now you may use the same method and

that is just be resting in the flow of

awareness

perhaps observing that which is aware

but if you cut through the conditioned

mind this mind that is arising from

moment a moment that is conditioned by

many many causes and additions that

becomes virtuous and non-virtuous dull

and clear and so forth if you cut

through this fluctuating and conditioned

mind you cut through that it's texture

it means cutting through something rigid

and gnarly and cut through to the ground

then and you're actually are viewing

reality from the perspective of Ripa

that's your vantage point the method is

the same but because you're viewing

reality from the perspective of rikta

the method is now textured so the same

method without the view is schemata with

the view is textured

so far over ordinary experience we know

that physical brief affects our mind

let's say the body's tired and drink

your coffee we know it affects the

clarity and so on so we see that cause

and effect of correlation so are you

saying that Britten effects let's say

mind or ordinary parts a battle alone

Kristina marinus that is independent of

the brain there's a very clear

demarcation within the suction tradition

but I've seen it elsewhere as well of

three dimensions of mind and what

psychologists study is what the

Buddhists call and the skull including

Freud and Freud for sure and modern

cogman psychology affective psychology

and cognitive science when they refer to

mind it's what Buddhists call course

mind course mind and this is the mind

and not only mental awareness but also

visual perception auditory and so forth

so course mind includes the five

physical senses and mental the mind as

in this this phenomenon this faculty

that by which we remember think imagine

hope fear and so forth and this arises

in dependence upon the brain right and

this been known but it's this is not

breaking news this has been known for a

very long time damage the brain and you

afferent Fred mine had his optic nerve

damage

now he's blind in one eye okay visual

cortex is fine but one little part the

optic nerve is damaged now he's blind in

one eye and likewise with Alzheimer's

with Lou Gehrig's disease with brain

trauma with schizophrenia with genetic

with with mental imbalances that may

have a genetic influence all of these

are influencing the brain but also

through mental training de viously

exercising the mind so neurogenesis

kicks in we know this a very strong

correlations and here neuroscience is

providing a very great service in in

highlighting many of these strong

correlations we also know as a thought

experiment

I'll do it on myself so I won't seem

mean to others if I take a mallet with a

hammer and I just start hitting my head

with it very hard

I'll start losing one faculty after

another after another until I'm dead and

that would look like but you damage the

mine a little bit and then more and more

and now you really sledgehammer it and

I'm no longer breathing and now the

brain is now finished if you're studying

the brain of studying the mind only from

physical perspective the very reasonable

conclusion would be look damaged be in a

little bit and you go blind or you can't

remember remember as well or if you have

emotional bipolarity or what have you

damaged it more you're more mentally

impaired and damaged that a whole lot

you don't have a mind anymore

this is a very natural reasonable

conclusion if you're looking at the mind

from only the outside but in a way it's

not breaking news we've known this for a

very long time and so in that dimension

of the mind why the Buddha needed to get

some a good meal and restore his health

to be true enlightenment this was a

message from the very beginning as a

Buddhism but with there's something in

between this mind which psychologists

have studied indirectly by way of brain

behavior and questionnaires and the

Buddhist content ative Hindu Christian

Sufi and so forth have examined very

rigorously from a first-person

perspective there's something between

this mind was definitely my mind I'm 67

my mind did not exist 68 years ago Alan

Wallace at mind nowhere in the universe

and 68 years from now I think is a very

safe bet Alan's mind will not exist

anywhere in the universe because this

person's mind is arising upon

independence upon this person brain

damage it and there are consequences but

is that all there is to it

I call if one concludes well what we

study it is all there is I call that a

flat mind a perspective like Flat Earth

there's a flat mind because by and large

academic psychology neuroscientists are

studying only normal people and mentally

impaired in brain damage brain damaged

people and when they do study meditators

they studied their brains and behavior

you know this like trying to understand

meditation by step understanding

mathematics by studying studying math

math mathematician brains it's not

really a very skillful approach and so

when you shut down the mind that is you

deactivate the mind what we call it

falling asleep and the course mind is

inactive in non lucid stage for non REM

sleep deep asleep you don't explicitly

know anything at all

you're not even that you're asleep so

many many psychologists think then

you're totally unconscious I beg to

differ

you have no explicit consciousness but

there's an implicit flow of

consciousness and we call that the

substrate consciousness or the alive it

Nana from the so Chen perspective but of

course we don't get normally get to

enjoy it because we're not explicitly

aware of it

but it is possible to be lucid in

dreamless sleep you can be in deep

dreamless sleep and know it that is

definitely possible

just like lucid dreaming is possible

this is possible we enter into this

state and substrate consciousness when

we fall deep asleep this is AB evanka

and the tera vaada tradition when you go

comatose you faint you achieve schemata

and you die but among those various

options about four of them would just

happen naturally schemata you access

that same dimension of consciousness but

you do so with increasing clarity as

you're proceeding along the path to

access to the first jhana so when you

arrive there it is radiantly clear like

moving from a 10 watt bulb to a thousand

watt bulb and that dimension of

consciousness in the Buddhist view and

this is I apophysis but not a Dogma or

it can be then it's boring but as an

empirical hypothesis this is ruling this

dimension of consciousness is one that

carries on from lifetime to lifetime and

it not the brain is the repository of

memories the virtual tendencies and so

forth and that's a testable hypothesis

and how is it tested tradin a number of

people to achieve summative to rest in

that substrate consciousness which is

not contingent upon the brain perceive

the brain carries on after brain death

it in the Buddhist view is the

repository of memories predilections

habits abilities and so forth and so on

so here's a very simple test unlike all

of the scientific theories that are

rooted in materialism none of which can

be tested or have been tested utterly

contrary to what Ricci implied at least

other people say this is a testable

hypothesis a scientific hypothesis train

a number people the more the better

to achieve schemata and then following

the teachings of Buddha ghosts of 1500

years ago a great tera vaada commentator

takes that people at least with sha Mata

even better if they've achieved higher

states of Samadhi and then have them

direct their attention to the path

and see if they can retrieve vertically

memories from their youth their

childhood which is said to be true you

can do that and then ask a 66 year old

not this one but somebody else there's a

chief schemata say now what you recall

now that you're you're you're accessing

true memories from the time you're four

and three and two years old now okay mr.

Wallace was the chief janitor

hypothetically purely huh

now what when you direct the laser of

your attention because you've got an

attention it's like a laser now direct

it to where whirring what were you

experiencing sixty-eight years ago

perfectly good question and there are

three possibility logical possibilities

the shona tete-a-tete one who actually

achieved it says I'm sorry I'm coming

with a blank screen no data the

materialist would say I told you so

another one to come up with come up with

I remember this I remember this and is

all fantasy just fantasy you know I was

Cleopatra I was Napoleon yeah maybe but

there's a third possibility the person

comes up the memories and they're tested

scientifically by open-minded critical

skeptical scientists or anybody else and

say okay who were what is your memory oh

you were this old man living in Buenos

Aires

tell us more and then they do

investigation they into an investigation

investigation and there is a way to

empirically put to the test which has

been done thousands of times already

within the Buddhist and Hindu tradition

and Taoist traditions do it in the

monitor scientific context there's a

dimension of consciousness that is not

brain dependent and it's out of that

continuum of consciousness that might

emerges so we asked for what are the

origins of mind is not neurons it's not

synapses dendrite 2d glial cells as some

as hugly said this is like pulling a

genie out of a lamp

it's magical thinking or Giulio Tononi a

neuroscientist at university of

wisconsin said this is like a macula

conception the thing that chemicals

electricity actually give rise to

subjective experience I've studied

physics it's it's a wacko physics they

know a lot of physicists know a lot

about matter and energy there's no

suggestion anywhere that they give rise

to dreams

it's a silly idea that's become

commonplace Britta is another order of

magnitude beyond that Ripa is

transcended substrate consciousness is

present era it's within the realm of

deep psychology they say transpersonal

psychology but empirical but for that

you need to develop the appropriate

technology and that shaman to realize

the empty nature of mind you need the

passion to cut through the conditioned

mind to unconditioned mind

for that you need option the question is

how no what is a relationship between

devotion and specifically group Korea

devotion or Guru yoga and the practice

of zouk Chen what's a relationship how

important is it and insofar as it is

important how do you go about doing it

right generally speaking in all schools

of Buddhism starting with a foundation

Pali Canon the relationship with economy

through the spiritual friend the

spiritual mentor is enormous ly

important it's a guide imagine trying to

learn guitar on your own with no guitar

teacher learning mathematics just by

picking up mathematics books you know

can it be done yellen principle there

are prodigies who just are self-taught

but we know how rare they are so that's

for chemistry for learning medicine

would you like to have have brain

surgery done on yourself by person who

read a lot of books on it and I think I

think I I think I can do it can I try in

your brain you know for any serious

sophisticated level of knowledge you

want a teacher and serious and

sophisticated is a pretty good

characterization of the were Noble

Truths if your aspiration is to be

forever and completely free of all

mental afflictions

that's nothing trivial about that and so

clearly you're gonna be a lot more

effective if you find an authentic

teacher and relate to this person a very

meaningful respectful reverent way but

that's true actually for everything else

too as we move into end in the in the

Tibetan tradition they say if you're

following let's say the shravaka path it

has to become in our heart view your own

teacher as as if he or she were an

emissary or an ambassador of the Buddha

because this is as close to the Buddha

as you're gonna get

the Buddha's 2,500 years ago but this is

an unbroken continuum a lineage a

current

of the teachings and the teacher you

have make sure you choose well the

teacher was authentic is ethical is well

motivated has profound understanding

it's a skillful teacher and is teaching

for one reason only above all one reason

that's compassion if there's any other

motivation for teaching find another

teacher because it's probably not going

to be motivation mistaken be to your

advantage so first of all choose well in

the Mahayana tradition it goes even

deeper now view your teacher as if he or

she were a Buddha as a conduit of the

blessings of dharmakaya or the blessings

of the Buddha as not simply a historical

character but a living presence and so

they're a very deeply spiritual view of

the Buddha mind on acai being everywhere

present but like light coming through a

magnifying glass

really funneled through focusing through

an authentic my own a Buddhist teacher

there's a person with experience of bodhichitta insight of emptiness some

experience of schemata skillful teacher

knowledgeable experienced and

compassionate when we move into Vaudrey

jana and then specifically zouk chen now

we're doing something quite

extraordinary which makes sense if and

only if one has some genuine insight

into emptiness and genuine intuitive

affirmation is very least of the

omnipresent nature of dharmakaya the

theme that comes in the Utada tantra one

of the five works of Maitreya that the

mine streams of every sense of being are

saturated by Buddha nature saturated by

the mind of the buddha indivisibly

saturated by so we're your guru is where

your gurus mind is there is the

Dharmakaya there is rick but there is

primordial consciousness so then it's a

matter of choice if you're finally in

job chen it's a matter of choice it's

perfectly didn't for example i some

people regard me as their lamas and I

teach Doc Chen so for some people I'm as

OPM Lama does that mean that suddenly

I'm a highly realized perfected being

not even remotely but where I am as

where Daniel is and where is Kestrel is

and anybody else here where you are

there is Buddha mind so I'm gonna say

that where my mind is there is

mind it's true where I am there's also a

sentry beings mind like guy from

California no that's also true where I

am here's my substrate consciousness

carried on from past lies we'll carry on

in the future that's also here so it's

your choice

and it's not an invitation to be a guru

it's just a choice in general that is

you attend to your guru you can if you

wish simply regard your rule is

essentially you could very well be true

you can view that you grow as this

continuum based upon the continuum of

substrate consciousness but you can if

you wish seeing the empty nature of your

guru as a sentient being that there is

nothing from the grooved side that is

inherently a sentient being try to find

it try to find in yourself if you ever

look within and tried to find that

nuclear sentient being that is you and I

think I can guarantee you're not gonna

find it it is conventionally existent

and that's all and so it's a matter of

choice where we never thought he we even

had a choice but we may if we choose

look through the veneer of appearances

which are strongly conditioned by our

own Karma our predilections our beliefs

preconceptions and so forth look through

the veneer of the course mind look

through the veneer of the substrate

consciousness as with x-ray vision look

right down to the core the Buddha nature

that is there where your guru is

dharmakaya that is where there where

your guru is and on that basis designate

this is my guru my guru is a vodka da da

da da da da da da da

Samantha bottom Adi Buddha my guru is

Buddha because where my guru is there is

blood of mind and it's on that basis I'm

identifying my guru and for me my guru

is Buddha but this goes hand in hand we

say well what's the big deal why are you

doing it

well number one you get a lot more

benefit that way but two this is all

preamble as a preparation because the

whole point of Adrienne in general ends

option in particular is to realize when

you cut through the veneer of your own

self preconceptions your ordinary sense

of who you are your ordinary sense of

identity ordinary way of appearing to

yourself cut through that there's

nothing there that exists from its own

side cut through that cut through the

substrate consciousness and know your

own face as rickwaa which has always

been present so the devotion the

reverence the focus on the Guru as

Buddha is really simply the other side

of the coin of coming to know yourself

as a Buddha now in a way it's very

helpful to have an extraordinary teacher

I know Daniels teacher going on image a

extraordinary master and you see such

people as long as the Dalai Lama diggle

consider but you do join room which is

ona [ __ ] a I've met such people in you

standing all of them if you kind of get

them say whoa and what comes with that

is oh boy he's so much not like me you

know when I first met the Dalai Lama

it's like whoa he's my guru but boy is

he not like me and jung junha virtue

vidyadhara oh boy is he not like me you

know and got a temper Qi and other great

teachers the sixteenth karmapa the

current come out awesome beings the

current incarnation renews Malinga young

man awesome and so it's very easy to

feel devotion for these beings who just

manifest to us with majesty with with a

deep sense of the sacred but in so doing

we also have a sense of and then there's

me way down here and it actually can

support or reinforce the sense

aw shucks little old mean but that's not

the point but not the point is not too

agile eight or to revere the grew as an

end in itself all of that is a

preparation for realizing your own mind

as Buddha mind and so in a way it's

actually more potent to have a grew your

root guru is opium master who appears to

you a lot like yourself maybe even the

same skin color to be helpful to have

same gender same country same language

boy you're pretty much like me a little

bit better but pretty much like me

if you can view that person there seems

so similar to yourself if you can cut

through the veneer of that person and

seen that person as a Buddha oh then

you're right next door to recognize your

own nature's Buddha so that's the

advantage of having an ordinary schmuck

who's qualified suk-jin teacher I've

been authorized to teach so check i'm

ordinary schmuck that's who I am

but I've been qualified to teach auction

and I do it with my utmost ability to

not distort the teachings so in that

regard most I think most ocean teachings

are much more teachers are much more

realization Linehan but I the advantage

of being ordinary monk so what is the

sharma to meditation that you are

teaching in this course I suppose are

you supposed to take awareness as an

object or are you supposed to sink back

into subjectivity or something else it's

not so much matter of thinking back that

sounds very closeted ativ or ruminating

it's not that Sochi Ahmed is not really

thinking back into but it's SEM Nilda

baba and that is settling the mind in

its unconditioned state not not

ultimately unconditioned but

unconditioned on a relative sense

resting releasing releasing all grasping

while maintaining the flow of discerning

non conceptual awareness so when we

first start the Shama to practice of

simply observing the mind we're

observing thoughts images memories

coming up dujun Linga comments in the

passage I would have read to you but it

would have taken a lot longer than I

anticipated you're observing in the mind

with the mind the conceptual mind is

observing the conceptual mind so you're

basically in it it's like observing a

swamp with you know with you up to your

neck in the swamp but then as you go

deeper into it the cognitive fusion with

the activities of the mind diminishes

diminishes diminishes and so

dudjom lingpa says it's much more like a shepherd watching his flock out in an open plain while the shepherd sit still while the flock moves hither and yon and so that cognitive fusion is dissipating and the sense of the stillness for awareness as you're observing thoughts you invert your awareness in upon itself but it's still likely your awareness is still very likely to be conditioned by your thoughts your ideas your preconceptions your beliefs about consciousness because after all our experience is generally strongly conditioned by our past experience language acculturation personal history and so on but as you continue to release and relax while maintaining the clarity then you're you're not thinking back into but the locus of your awareness the word is Papa descends from it's an ordinary field which is all cut up in dualistic thinking and so forth radical deepened demarcation between subject and object it's slipping deeper and deeper into this dimension of consciousness

that is all that's left when you fall

down when you fall deep asleep

all that's left when you've gone brain

dead underway to dying you're almost

dead in fact this is the point at which

you know the Buddhist doctor said now

you're dead when your mind is

irretrievably we dissolve back into the

substrate consciousness so you're not

observing substrate consciousness from

the mind substrate consciousness

experiencing itself that's non

conceptual not absolutely but that

resting in the substrate consciousness

is unconditioned by gender ethnicity

language personal history and

unconditioned by the brain that's the

high pot and it's a testable hypothesis

that's what makes me so joyful about it

this one we can actually get some

knowledge and not just be bickering back

and forth religion versus science

religious dogma versus scientific dogma

let's break out of that that's what the

Dalai Lama was getting at you know and

so it's still schemata when you're

resting in the substrate consciousness

and the type of mindfulness there when

you've achieved schemata Boojum limba

says this is self-illuminating

mindfulness where the substrate

consciousness is illuminating itself or

in the territory tradition is called ba

ba so cipta the brightly shining mind

that vivanco which is the ground of

becoming from which all the giovanna or

activities of the mind including the

five physical senses all emerge and into

which they dissolve in deep sleep right

and so that's still shammed but it's

gone very quiet and only subliminally

conceptual at a very very subtle level

and there's a subtle level of grasping

when you achieve Shama it's said to be

characterized by three

and this doesn't matter whether you're

Christian agnostic Buddhist into what

have you this is like it said that every

smoke every snow crystals every

snowflake is completely unique so it

said yeah but if you melt any of them

then one drop of water is like any other

drop of water and so your your mind is

absolutely unique there's nobody that

has your mind in the entire universe I

mean it's an opera very certainty right

nobody has your personal history case

closed

but if you melt and that's determined

term that's often used metaphorically if

you melt your mind down to your

substrate conscious from which your mind

arose and which your mind will dissolve

when you die then that's like a drop of

water that is your direct experience of

it now it is conditioned by karma past

memories and so forth and so on but when

you're just resting in hitch in the

Bhuvana or the substrate consciousness

upon achieving schemata they're just

wreak wallah teas they sell me dopa its

blissful luminous and non conceptual

that doesn't matter who you are what

your belief system is whether you're

human or non-human these are the

qualities when you clearly illuminate

this underlying continuum of

consciousness from within itself and

it's beyond brain beyond conditioning of

this life versus that but it's the

ground of becoming so when you take your

next birth your next maybe will be a

woman or a man who knows what next time

your mind then will emerge from that

continuum beyond that though that's

where the pristine awareness is you cut

through that then you're into what's

called the fourth time because Rick but

is not located in the past or the future

and not even located within this this

narrow sliver of the present moment it's

in the fourth time beyond time it's

beyond it's a temporal and non-local but

I've wanted to clarify with you how does

intention fit into that intention

because I associate intention with

action from being

just see well very important term

there's a very closer related term which

is highlighted enormous degree in my

under tradition Tibetan Vajrayana and so

chen is motivation motivation motivation

intention very close right and so it's

very true in our extra spectrum

outward-looking modern society you've

ever heard the phrase don't just sit

there do something stupid never heard

that one before

so we are your eccentric civilization

for at least the past 400 years there's

been a civilization with the Protestant

ethic with our conquering of North South

America most of the rest of the globe

you know through imperialism colonialism

and so forth with the rise of the sign

of revolution and the project

Reformation I mean all these forces

converging in on one thing be productive

conquer at least but do something you

know and therefore invention is always

linked to doing something but of course

if you become inspired by the teachings

and practices absorption will you do it

or not it's your it's your choice which

means it's your intention but then when

it comes to Vaudrey on in particular and

so chen more specifically it is said

actually there's only one authentic or

suitable fit in terms of motivation it's

got to be bodhichitta if one practices

VAD Rihanna or zou Chen with it with a

self centered motivation but I want

something for me I'm out for myself I

just want to achieve something myself

that's your choice but you can't

practice option it's a it's a total

mismatch it's a total mismatch it said

in judgment lien linguist writings in

the virtual essence that relative

bodhichitta

you know the turn well it the aspiration

achieved a microp the physic of all

sentient beings about a thought for

ideal emerges from spontaneously emerges

from Ripa and that's intention so

intention motivation as just part of

mental health you know we can speak very

deeply about soake shin but I think it's

good to come back to where we just live

our day-to-day lives whether in Boston

or anywhere else how relevant is the are

these teachings which

quite esoteric in any way relevant are

they for us in our day-to-day lives

doing grocery shopping balancing our

checkbooks hopefully and just doing the

stuff that we need to do throughout the

course of the day and I would suggest

that we living in modernity

it's especially the 20^th century but it

goes back to the 17^th century Blaise

Pascal the great map the French

mathematician and philosopher he said

and I paraphrase very concisely he said

the trouble the problem with modern man

is our ability inability to say quietly

in our chambers even then we were

addicted to and I think it is a literal

addiction addicted to stimulation

addicted to doing addicted keeping busy

even if it's keeping busy with something

that is absolutely devoid of any meaning

whatsoever better that then just be

quiet and be still but you know this is

wisdom of the ages and it's east and

west be still and know thyself

be still and know thyself deeper and

deeper and deeper but you won't do that

unless you have intention Ellen on this

note Galecki I'm going to take a little

trip off the left-field Greek antiquity

Socrates Plato Aristotle these powerful

thinkers they're still influencing us to

this day that's pretty formidable they

do a very short and clear distinction

between cadonia and this is over the

pleasure we get from the world from

family friends sensual enjoyments

activity successes prestige wealth power

and so forth cadonia

good bad neutral is everything but it's

Adonia and it comes and goes and you die

it just goes right everything you've

acquired is lost and then there is what

the Greek call eudaimonia genuine

well-being and if you don't is the joy

we get from the world eudaimonia is the

well-being that we bring to the world

it's by our way of life by the quality

of mind we bring to the world by the

quality of insight of wisdom we bring to

the world and that can carry us through

all the vicissitudes of life and death

right but in order to prioritize to

place of great value not on the pursuit

of eudaimonia but the cultivation of

eudaimonia for that we must spend time

in stillness as I was forced to when I

was 24 years old I was told I had to sit

through ten days of goenka's retreat

when he gave very little teaching and

had a sit for 11 hours a day and it was

just miserable seeing what a mess my

mind was and I thought if this is what

I'm bringing to the world

maybe I should clean up my own act

before I have any pretence of being a

Buddhist scholar or anything else you

know and so that time of stillness it's

a time for searing honesty and as we

have this term genuine happiness from

the Greeks I coined a term genuine

unhappiness and as he donate is always

stimulus driven it's a response to

something pleasant

there's stimulus driven unhappiness

that's also a response to something

unpleasant something happens that I

didn't want or something doesn't happen

that they did want and then I'm a happy

that's pretty simple but what about when

you're sitting quietly in your chambers

as Blaise Pascal suggested and there's

nothing good or bad happening to you

you're living just sitting in a room

quietly and what if while you're sitting

there quietly in good health welfare not

thirsty not cold not too hard just

sitting there if in that simplicity in

that solitude of just being yourself in

the universe if you experienced dukkha a

sense of uneasiness of dissatisfaction a

boredom of restlessness of agitation of

malaise

that's genuine unhappiness because

that's what you're bringing to the world

not what you're getting from it and so

if our ground state is one where you're

sitting quietly with nothing coming in

Pleasant or unpleasant from the

environment and not even thinking happy

thoughts or having unhappy thoughts just

being present and if you so cultivate

the balance of

mind then a sense of well-being Springs

right from the very nature of your mind

itself it's a symptom of a wonderfully

balanced mind a symptom of a healthy

mind whereas a mind that is chronically

and eventually prone to rumination

craving hostility agitation restlessness

egotism boredom and so forth these are

all symptoms the dukkha of that is a

symptom of a mind it's fundamentally

unhealthy and how we deal with that in

modernity I am very sad to say is lose

ourselves in work lose ourselves after

work in entertainment and then lose

ourselves in drugs alcohol nicotine

legal drugs illegal drugs and if

anything seriously wrong with your mind

well after all it's probably a brain

disorder to take a drug just say yes

and that's what we're telling our

teenagers if they have depression which

is on the rise gonna ten times since the

rise of modern neuroscience which is

supposed to solve our problem mentally

because they're actually brain disorders

the president's gone up ten times over

the last 50 60 years and general anxiety

disorder disheartened insomnia

posttraumatic stress disorder ADHD and

what's our primary intervention there

are many very good therapists and

psychiatrists but over all drugs tend to

be the first resort and the drugs are

shoot the messenger because these are

symptoms of a mind that is not balanced

and instead of balancing the mind we

smother the symptoms so in very

important ways I think we're living in a

dark age right now a Dark Age about the

nature and the potentials of the mind

the source of eudaimonia the sources of

true suffering and we're smothering it

with work entertainment and drugs that's

not a sign of enlightened era it's a

sign of an era Dark Age and there's a

great contemporary tradition this not a

sectarian segment the great contemporary

conditions the Sufi the Christian the

Buddhist Muslim Taoist and so forth have

just a treasure troves of wisdom that we

can be drawing on but maybe a nice

strong hunch is these content these

the traditions each wonderful great in

its own right I think they need a kick

in the behind from science because

religions tend to be complacent

self-satisfied dogmatic closed-minded

and rigid you know but that's what

that's what that's what people do how do

the Easter what scientists do that -

they fall under the trench of scientific

toriel ISM and they don't need an even

though they fallen into it they just

think they're being scientific science

needs to be rescued by the

contemplatives and the great contempt uh

traditions need to be rescued by science

and then we'll see a great union of

meaning and truth to the benefit of all

without exception so I hope you enjoyed

the conversation with Alan Wallace next

week we are joined by scholar of Tibetan

Buddhism guy Newland who gives us a

heartfelt account of the grief journey

that he experienced when his wife

Valerie passed away I hope you join us

for this episode it's so touching and

filled with so much wisdom something

that is a basis of connection I mean

when I talk about in the book this one

little situation when I would take

Valerie to get chemotherapy and we go to

this place at the University of Michigan

work everyone was getting chemotherapy

and it was like there was some kind of

like what do you say not sure there's

something peaceful about being in a

place where no one's pretending that

everything is okay right and this is I

think one of the difficulties when

people are in the midst of grief or loss

is that there's sort of this pressure to

maintain the pretense that somehow

basically everything is okay

so I think almost everybody has when

they when they lose somebody important a

sense of how hot is it go out the next

day

very

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