The Intersection of Shamanism & Buddhism

[Music] [Music] so when I thank you all for coming this evening and I am really excited actually to be able to present some of the material that we present and the shamans and cities that I teach with Robert Thurman and in that class we're looking at the way in which shamanic practice and Buddhist practice are different and the way in which they're similar and one of the things that we actually don't look at in that class is how they come together in depth hypnosis and we are going to talk a little bit about how depth hypnosis incorporates the wisdom of both these very ancient and powerful wisdom systems but first of all I'd like to define each of them and then talk about the similarities that they share and the differences that they don't share and then I'll talk about where those where the intersections come together in depth hypnosis particularly around the use of power so the similarities between Buddhism and shamanism begin with the fact that they are both very ancient wisdom systems as I said and shamanism is a practice that you find in almost all indigenous cultures in fact more than 95% of the cultures that have ever been on the planet have shamanism as their core process of doctoring ministering problem-solving healing divining and and you find this arising all across the globe and the interesting thing about shamanic practice is that shamanic practice is quite similar in the different cultural settings that it arises in Buddhism is also a very ancient wisdom system and the current form of Buddhism that is practiced here in the West now it's come to us from India it arose in India and around 550 BC with the birth of Indian prince who became known as Buddha Buddha means the awakened one and this wisdom system is actually comes out of the roots of an even more ancient set of wisdom systems including Vedic science Hinduism and a form of very similar practice that is perhaps even 17 thousand years old according to that particular tradition so these are very very ancient wisdom systems and they both focus on understanding power and they focus on understanding the way in which power moves both within the self and around the self and the another thing they share in common is the way that they they use ritual and initiation as part of the processes of developing the ability to be able to focus power and to be able to use power and another similarity is that they also work with subtle energies and this is particularly true with tantric Buddhism and that's where we're going to be focusing primarily this evening where you have this focus on understanding light understanding sound and understanding the elements and how each of those different processes that those different elements light sound and the elements themselves and when I say elements I'm talking about fire water earth and air how all of those are used in in deepening understanding about more subtle ways of knowing so those are the primary similarities that you find with Buddhism and shamanism and the differences are actually kind of profound also one of the big differences that you find between Buddhism and shamanism is that in shamanism the practitioners of shamanic practice who are generally dedicated to the service of the community they are trying to understand the nature of the unseen power of the earth they're working with the elements to develop that understanding they're working with light and sound to help create healing processes where their service to the community is most strongly felt which is almost always in healing almost always in divining almost always in problem-solving and doctoring in general so they're they're working with they're working with these powers that they're accessing which again are the unseen powers of the earth and they're focusing it into the affairs of humans in a community kind of way with Buddhism the use of that power is generally dedicated to the enlightenment and liberation of the individual and the processes of understanding power and the processes of understanding these unseen energies are dedicated to helping the individual move out of a state of suffering and into a state of liberation and that movement from suffering to liberation is actually a process of understanding the nature of the self and nature of reality and so you have this difference where you have the dedication to the individual liberation in in Buddhist practice and dedication to the liberation from suffering for the community and shamanic practice then you have as another difference you have in shamanic practice the shamanic practitioner who is perceiving these powers that are emerging from this unseen world that both the shamanic practitioner and the Buddhist practitioner are focused on the shaman when when the shaman perceives these powers the shaman is perceiving these powers as arising from outside the self so you have you have the power of the tree of the unseen power of the tree you have the unseen power of the mountain you have the unseen power of the lake these are all powers that are held outside of the self and held within the natural realm in Buddhism you have the these phenomenon that are arising within the self the different lights the the perception of the different pure lights the different perception the perception of the different levels of subtle energy bodies these are all perceived as a rising from within the self and there is not this concept of something separate outside the self that you find with with shamanic practice and this accounts for another difference this is the basis for another difference that you find between the two practices which is that the shamanic practitioner is generally focused on understanding what is happening in the natural world and and what is happening here and what in shamanism is called the middle world and what in buddhism is called the mundane world this is the the middle world is one of the three worlds that shamanic practice elucidates the upper world in the middle world and the lower world and there of course you can see the parallel there between the sky the earth and the the world but beneath the ground in terms of the natural world and the shamanic practitioners are always seeking to understand the unseen powers behind though the landscape behind the sky and behind what is beneath the earth and in Buddhist practice the Buddhist practitioner is trying to understand something even beyond that this focus on what is called the ground luminosity trying to understand the nature of this very subtle place where all phenomenon is emanating from and there's a much more theoretical approach to understanding this ground luminosity and there's a much more dedicated study to the world beyond physical forms and the there's an effort to try to understand this larger matrix that all physical forms are emerging out of that you don't necessarily find in shamanic practice where this is focus on the on on the physical forms and on the unseen properties behind the physical forms so one of the places where I find the shamanic practice and the Buddhist practice coming together is and where they each inform the other and each make the other stronger is in this understanding about the nature of power in shamanic practice as I said there tends to be this focus on mundane events and and working in the mundane world and when you have that kind of a focus you also have the possibility of having people who are interested in all types of power not just Universal power and out and trying to figure out how to use that universal power for the benefit of all the people they're serving you can also have people who get interested in power over that is the more common definition of power and worldly Affairs where one person has power over another and one of the issues with shamanic practice is that there can be a degeneration in practice because of this there's a kind of lack of discipline in understanding the different qualities of power and there's actually not the emphasis on integrity that you find in you of course I'm not saying this is they can't say this is a true across the board but one of the reasons that shamanic practice sometimes goes astray where you have people that are practicing in a less helpful way is because there isn't this emphasis on morality and in Buddhism of course there's a tremendous emphasis on finding ones integrity developing the right view developing the right use of one's effort developing a true understanding of the nature of compassion developing a true understanding of the nature of generosity and so and there's also this discipline of practice that you find in Buddhism that is not always found in shamanic practice where you have a daily practice where you are moving from one level of realization to another through that daily practice and in shamanism when you're practicing the journey or you're working with the journey you're generally shamanic practitioners are just seeking to gain power to bring more power into their lives to be able to have access to more power and there's not necessarily this emphasis on self-development through that power but in Buddhism there's definitely this emphasis on self-development so you have in a shamanic practice you do have an excellent set of vehicles in terms of healing which provide the movement of power from one place to another to help people heal and that those processes are processes like the soul retrieval or power retrieval but in Buddhism you don't have a lot of catalytic process it's it is in Tantra you do but not in the more devotional areas of practice where people tend to focus in Buddhism so you have if you bring those two together if you bring the discipline the emphasis on integrity if you bring the catalytic power of the shamanic practice if you bring those together you can have a very powerful process of self transformation that depth hypnosis actually seeks to capture and there's a very important aspect of depth hypnosis along these lines that is important to understand which is the the use of the shamanic journey within the processes of depth hypnosis again in traditional shamanic practice shamanic the shamanic journey is used to gather power by the practitioner the development of a relationship with this with the guide or the teacher that emerges in the shamanic journey in the form of nature is is a relationship that is used primarily again to focus power into the community members it's not necessarily used as a vehicle of self transformation the way that it's used in depth hypnosis and the processes of self transformation are the ones that you usually find in the deeper practices of meditation moving into the deeper levels of Shama to practice and moving into the deeper levels of the possum a'practice so in the posada you have this this is sometimes called Insight Meditation because it's a meditation process that helps bring insight into the aspects of the self which are not necessarily accessed without the meditative focus so when you're working with the catalytic processes of the journey and you're working with the self transformation processes of the the positive process and you bring those together in depth hypnosis you have pretty much an unstoppable vehicle for enlightenment actually and the transformation of karmic patterns the relief of suffering the deepening of understanding of where one's suffering comes from and the ability to actually transform that suffering in a very quick and catalytic way and for those of you that have had any kind of contact with depth at gnosis you have probably discovered that things do move rather quickly and I really think it's because of this unique way of working with the journey that we work with in depth hypnosis and in applied shamanism where we are working with the journey in the way that Buddhists work with a pasta and meditation to create a development of the self that is disciplined focused and ever-deepening so that's my my lecture for this evening I'd really appreciate it if you have any questions if you have any comments I'd really be interested to if you need any clarifications this is a very quick lecture again I haven't gone deeply into any of these aspects I'm just kind of making a very broad brush here and I apologize if I've made any kind of too broad brush a stroke and use too much of a generalization or a stereotype I certainly didn't mean to do that I'm just trying to capture capture broad points so that we have a basis of comparison and understanding of these two very powerful wisdom systems that we are so lucky to have access to in this time and this time and space you know that they're both on the planet that we can both study them both in the same place and learn from both of them and be able to weave their power into a process that supports all of us so if anyone has any questions please let me know seems to me that shamanism can lead to a destructive path where the practitioner itself wants to gain more and more power which can be corrupting so in having Buddhism in the that forms a container of same morality or something I which counteracts the corruption of power which can you expand a little bit more on that well so so for instance and in Buddhism the study of power you know and I was talking about elements and light and sound being something that is held in common the study of those three things being in common with shamanism those the study of those three things are really held in Tantra or Vadra Yanna practice and those practices are outgrowth of Mahayana Buddhism which is more common in well the Vajra jana and the tantrayana practices are more common in the Himalayan regions and in that process in those schools there is a very deliberate set of initiations that one has to go through in order to be able to access the information and you even have beings called Dharma protectors that are these sort of ferocious men of manifestations of compassion that are designed to face down any kind of negative intention arising from within the practitioner in terms of a desire for power that might be out of alignment and you know there are processes for working with those Dharma protectors to transform any kind of imbalance and one's intentionality toward power and these these practices are very much prescribed now in traditional shamanic settings you also have processes of initiation but there's not the emphasis on developing a kind of morality or integrity around power the idea is to be able to just hold more power like to be able to initiation is designed to help you be able to hold greater and greater amounts of power have greater and greater contact with teachers and guides that would make you more powerful diviner a more powerful doctor you know that sort of thing and one of the things that happens in shamanic practice and it's completely understandable and you see this in multiple cultures it's not just one culture where you see it shamans are often charged with doing the impossible and actually shamans can do things that seem impossible with the intercession of this universal power that they're able to direct if they are in balance with themselves but a lot of times you you know you can't stop the drought you know you can't make the disease go away you can't you can't make the neighboring tribes stop warring with you and so you might try to use the universal power that you have access to with a particular intentionality or a particular attachment outcome that may not be and everyone's highest good right and this is where you know you know you get this idea of spell-casting coming in or this idea of trying to create obstacles for whatever the process is at hand that is perceived at as being threatening to the group like there may be some kind of negative intentions sent toward a negative a negative intention sent toward a neighboring group of people so that they won't harm you you know you're sort of doing the up your best defense is the offense and so you kind of get this kind of warfare that that shamans are known to engage in and on a non-material level happening and you know it starts out probably with a good intention but it ends up being just like other human interactions that are not informed by compassion and kindness but the problem is they've got all this power hand and then you have have this degeneration in practice which is really unfortunate and that's why a lot of shamanic practice has a bad name in the modern times people are afraid of it because of this this thing does happen and one of the things about applied shamanism is that you because we combine it with so much of the Buddhist emphasis on discipline and morality that cannot happen within an applied shamanism so thanks I have a couple of questions about power itself so in its truest form is power simply catalyzed energy and if if not what is it that's one question and then we talk sometimes about negative power and I wonder is does power itself have a negative charge or is it actually neutral and and metabolized by intention yes well I think you know it's it's really important to put definitions and I really appreciate your asking that question when I'm referring to power and referring to universal power and universal power in its essence from you know which all shamanic practitioners will tell you when they access universal power it's compassionate in nature it's wise it's it's generous its tolerant there's this you know this like you know expansion that you find in it and of course this is also the definition of the enlightened state that Buddhism tries the Buddhist practices trying to access right so when we're talking about power we are talking about this universal power and these definitions and what I'm talking about and I'm not sure everyone in the whole world would understand this but what I'm referring to with power is this universal power which is compassionate as a basis right so then in terms of energy I think about energy in terms of a step down of that universal power that goes through different prisms of different types of forms and so you have humans using universal power through their own prisms and that prism can generally move through their intentionality their motivation and their will and again you know out of no fault of I mean ultimately well yeah we'll start out with no fault of their own people are trying to keep themselves safe they're trying to you know make sure that bad things don't happen and so they use Universal power to try to keep themselves safe right and but then they can see then they start seeing other people as threats and then they start using the negative intention toward other people and then pretty much you have the this energy being informed by intention and when you said is negative energy just it's negative intention just a sort of process of moving energy in a particular way yes you know there's this universal power comes into the human form gets processed through the human structures on an energetic level both conceptually emotionally spiritually and physically and we start setting intention with that energy on a mental level and an emotional level and we start working with that energy and we have these energy exchanges that then begin to form all the kinds of relationships that we have with other people right so so I think I answered your question that answer your question yeah okay thank you so much for this talk he said I want to go back to something you said earlier about the catalytic power available in shamanism from the natural environment and I was just curious on the path to enlightenment if you think about that path and Buddhism and the process of Vipassana meditation and so on I'm just curious if the reason why that process may not be as catalytic say as using a shamanic process to perhaps work through similar karmic patterns working towards enlightenment is the difference perhaps that as humans with all of our karmic baggage perhaps that were not as able to access universal power or the ground of manasa t because we have these sort of filters on ourselves in the Vipassana meditation process or can you say a little bit more about that distinction between the two well definitely one of the reasons why we don't perceive the ground luminosity within us which in Buddhism is often called Buddha nature you know it's this aspect of our selves that is connected with the ground luminosity in a kind of unbroken way and one of the and you know from a joke Jen practice idea which joke Jen is a further practice in the NEMA and the Byrne tradition you have them very well-developed where it's understood that at the heart of everything that is manifest around us is this ground luminosity and the task in that practice is to be aware of that ground luminosity at the same time that you're aware of all of the forms that are kind of cocooning it and hiding it all right unless you perceive it right and most of us do not perceive that ground luminosity or we're not aware of our own Buddha nature particularly because of not only our own Karma but the the processes of karma creation of the culture which you know in this culture there's although we're quite secular in nature there is this strong idea from some of the spiritual traditions that inform the culture that we are born and sin that we are sinners that we are somehow fundamentally flawed right and in Buddhism this completely different idea that we are fundamentally full of light we are fundamentally connected to the divine in an unbroken way and the only reason that we can't see it is because of the karmic patterns the ideas the in ways that we've cycled emotion away from Buddha nature a way in an effort to try to again protect ourselves you know gain power over others you know in a number of intentionality x' that are not geared toward the common good right so the more you circulate energy with your thoughts and with your emotions in these places where you are not moving toward the nature of Buddha nature compassion generosity and wisdom the more obscured the Buddha nature becomes right so in terms of the Posada the possum and meditation again is this process of going inward and it's generally this you know there's generally a first set of meditative practices that you have to practice in order to be able to effectively use your mind in faux pas sana which are the meditative practices of schemata which is the practice of focusing your attention in a one pointed way over time so that you develop one pointed focus and your mind is not distracted and generally that is you that is done by helping you focus on your breath you can focus on a flame you can focus on a picture you can focus on a set of words but that will help your mind come to an even place and then you can use the tremendous intelligence that is held in the in the in the conscious mind to go deeply into the self to begin to look at different obscurations or obstacles that are thrown up by the karmic patterns and to begin to open them with again that focused attention and allowing them to reveal allowing the buddha nature to that's at the heart of the obstacle to reveal itself now all of that takes a ton of discipline practice focus and you need a good teacher and good teachers are not that easy to come by actually you know in that process but again the pasta is wonderful because the point of a pasta is self transformation and when you dedicate the power of the journey and the catalytic power of shamanic healing to that process of self transformation you really do have a vehicle that is unstoppable I mean you cannot stop it I mean those of you that have taken depth in noses you can't stop it right it doesn't stop you wish it would like sometimes I wish I could just like go to the ball can't do it you know like we gotta go to the mall and then we sell this thing that's happening over there and then what's that present I don't know if anybody else has that problem but I definitely do yeah I answer your question yeah okay I have a question might have been answered a little bit when you talked about first thing that the West has a lot of self-loathing and then you talked about some of the Christian teachings that we were born in sin is that part of ourselves little thing is that different than that and how does that relate to many Westerners now going to use the plants is that a way to get rid of this self-loathing you know because there's such an increase in people wanting to use Westerners the healing plants yes so let me there's a couple of different questions in there let me kind of take it level by level so is this idea that we're born in sin the reason for the self-loathing that's only one part of it I think the other part of it is you know I you know I have one of my first degree was in cultural anthropology so I've been studying cultures for a long time and studying our culture in particular because it's so weird but there's something in this particular Western culture where there's this drive to succeed you have to you know you have to do it especially in America you have to like be independent you have to manifest destiny you have to make it and there's a lot especially in the you know since the rise of media you know where people are companies are trying to sell their products if you don't have our product you're not good enough and people are buying that so there's all this and if you have our product it will be good enough and then they have their product and they still don't feel good enough right so there's this this this kind of layering of I'm not good enough right like I'm not like I'm not independent I haven't I haven't made it I don't have the material things I should have and if I do I don't feel good with them so you know I'm just not good enough and you know there's this intense competitive edge in this culture and everyone's always comparing themselves to everyone else and you can find anybody you compare badly to any time right and you and but you don't realize that they're probably comparing themselves to you and comparing them to finding themselves coming up short right and everybody's looking at each other thinking I'm less than you and you know creating all this negativity and you know you know trying to like you know separate themselves off into this place where they can finally be safe and only but nobody can ever be safe by doing that because any place that they've withdrawn into is a place of either theirs where they're trying to actually get away from themselves and the sense of wrongness right and what the plants do is they bring you into contact with yourself and many people who have the except the thing that I have seen about the way that the plants work and the good news is there are many places now that have many organizations that can legally work with many of the plants the Union divisional one their court case at the Supreme Court that they're allowed to use ayahuasca legally as a sacrament the Native American church has Pyatt peyote that they're allowed to use as a sacrament and of course in other countries people are able to use these plants legally and so you know I I work a lot with people who have been to other countries and have done these plants or have worked with them in these legal situations and I've I've learned a lot by listening to the way that the plants meet people and the plants are very much like the shamanic guides that people meet in journeys and I always say you can't there's nothing you can't do with the plant that you can do with the shamanic journey and that's because the guides meet in the same way the plant meets the individual in the place where they need to be met and I have seen time and again depending on the person a person comes into contact with this field of compassionate energy that the plant presents to them if they're in a particular place on their plant they will resist it and and have a very difficult time if they're an until they break and surrender to the plant and this is where you have the throwing up the diarrhea you know all the all the tough difficult kinds of experiences that people have with the plant other people may be in it but it all of that is needed to break down the resistance to love and to self-love right some people have an immediate experience where that resistance is met and you often find like with ayahuasca she's talking about this serpent you know that many people experience ayahuasca as a snake the spirit of ayahuasca is a snake and I I was listening to one person the other day was describing his experience with self-loathing and ayahuasca and he said that the ayahuasca came to him in the form of a snake and wrapped him itself around him in this warm embrace and then came and looked at him in the face with just all this love radiating into his eyes and he said he could feel all of his self-loathing dropping away you know and being shot out right because because that's the purge of the of the plant so like this like he could he literally feel the self-loathing being pulled out of his cells and going out through his intestines and you know he didn't have the resistance and that was a very quick path to self-love right but now he needs to integrate it how does he hold it how does he bring it into his life on a daily basis you know you don't just go over to the plant and have the plant love you and then come back out here and think oh god I'm a piece of junk I'm never gonna make that job you know I'm not gonna get that interview you know like right you know you have to you have to have a practice how do I how you know and this is where the shamanic journey comes in journey to that snake and go back to that snake daily feel that embrace ask how do i integrate this embrace how do i integrate this love into my life where else do I need to address this self-loathing that I haven't yet where can you know how do i how do I bring this wisdom into every single breath that I take you know this that this is this is what we need to do and you know how good but one of the things that'll happen is people will go do the plant just do it oh I love myself and then they go back into their life and then they do harmful things to themselves right you really need to have an integrative practice and this is why I think applied shamanism and the way we work with the journey is so helpful right does that make sense all right good oh and one more quick question just curious if shamanic practitioners have any idea of our words for the idea of karma no no you don't you never see this with shamanic I've never seen a shamanic practice that has this idea of karma although you do have shamanic practices that do believe in reincarnation but they're this whole study of what impels a soul from incarnation to incarnation and you know the study of the the karmic paths that are taken from incarnation did carnation I have not seen that in shamanic practice one of the big focuses of shamanic practice is to bring balance is to bring wholeness is to connect people with the power of the earth right but again you know that imbalance is not necessarily perceived of as necessarily being karmic in nature or that concept of Karma I haven't found in any shamanic tradition and again I haven't studied with every single shaman and every single tradition and there may be traditions where that's more developed than others but I'm not aware of them okay thanks everyone for coming thank you Issa for [Applause] [Music] Oh [Music]

Channel: Sacred Stream

Views: 20,452

Rating: 4.820467 out of 5

Keywords: menla, tibet house, isa gucciardi, robert thurman, sacred stream, depth hypnosis, buddhism, shamanism, meditation, universal power, compassion

Id: m8qgecqkcoI

Length: 41min 28sec (2488 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2017