The Way of Shamatha Retreat with Alan Wallace (24/26)

good morning good morning class so this morning in the indie session that will begin in a few minutes we will venture into simply a variation or almost like the cherry on the cake of the practice of shaman without a science of the arresting in awareness called merging the mind with space and we actually kind of got to that at the very final phase of the shaman tour without a sign as taught by partner samatha you'll bring your awareness the locus of awareness to your heart and then kind of supernova just merge your mind with space and so that's what we'll be doing now it's called merging the mind with space and I could spend the whole morning on this because it goes very deep very fast and it's addressing questions they were we've always been asking religious not religious even all animals all sentient beings may have been asking if they're smart enough and that is well of course we don't want to suffer intelligent people ask why and not looking just for things that may catalyze suffering but what makes us vulnerable to suffering why are we fundamentally capable of suffering it's not so clear in terms of evolutionary biology if there's no good answer to that there's no Sun we would when it's a program program biological organism without pain would be the problem with that but there it is evolutionary biology is brilliant and completely incomplete so the question we're already asking is why are we vulnerable suffering and can we do anything about it and come back to the second noble truth as beautiful as action perspective what is the origin of suffering this to immediately format now as reminder as we're coming towards the end of the retreat we are vulnerable to suffering we're prone to suffering because we identify with that which is not neither I nor mine in reality just not at all as being I or mine and that makes us vulnerable that's the first half of the equation and I give the second half right now and we failed to recognize who we really are and so we use this term the sentient beings and you being a lot in English it's a very good translation an essential being is a conscious being who's in samsara prone to suffering and the cause of suffering and perpetuating that vulnerability perpetuating the cycle of birth aging sickness and death and continuing to accrue more causes to keep that cycle running so there is such a thing as a perpetual perpetual motion machine you know it's the issue in physics has to do with but it's a third law of thermodynamics I think but yeah there is such a thing as a perpetual perpetual motion machine it's called samsara because there's nothing for it to rub into later get slowed down and so then it just perpetuates itself and indefinitely so sorrow some child will never poop out it'll never just get exhausted no I'm tired I'll just give you I'm just so tired if you'll just give it you give you Nirvana never happens and so but to terms I think very useful I know I'm taking a bit of valuable time here but I think I'm filling it with things that at least I know to be valuable one of the synonyms for sentient being in Tibetan is Luce you change means a body haver you're a body ever and a body hammer is that we're identifying here we are if this body we're identifying with this body for which no part of the body actually believes it belongs to anyone not even seeking out the frontal cortex not the pineal gland not any part of the body actually but it belongs to anyone if you think it does show me the landlord show me the landlady that you know owns the body and I think you can look for something that can never be found in fact you can find that it is not to be found but nevertheless even though the body doesn't belong to anyone and it's certainly not a person no part of the body is person out of the collective not all of the collected parts of the body are person nevertheless how often do we look into the mirror and think we're looking at ourselves how often do somebody insults are formed do we feel upset you're fat you're skinny or this that or you're very attractive and then we feel happy about as if we are a body well nobody is a body and this is one other thing I have an axe to grind against materialism because it encourages to believe this delusional and terribly destructive thought that you are your body that's really awful relatively few people have really physically attractive bodies and if they do it won't be for long and so to identify something that identify with this is me that's not nice if it's true then you just you know bite the bullet deal with it but it's not true to tell people something is not true is true they'll only make them suffer it's really a bad message so materialism remember about Bob Newhart stop it we are Lu Chen we are sentient beings we are perpetuating our own suffering because we're identifying with the body and taking it really seriously and we're reapplying the body as existing something as something in and of itself that's gonna keep you in samsara indefinitely it will never stop as long as you cling to identify with and then reapply your body you're stuck indefinitely and there's no way out not a bullet not poisoning not dying of old age somehow it doesn't just stop you can stop breathing I wish it did I'd be very nice but that's wishful thinking without any basis in in empirical evidence or reasoning there's one word and the other one and I've told you before sim Jin is the word that we translate as sentient being and it means a mind haver and is the same thing we collapse down our awareness to the size of our individual human mind I am a man I'm a woman I'm this I'm that I'm old I'm young we collapse down we collapse it down to this tiny little human mind there's a rising in dependence upon the brain and think this is really mine and yet if you check out you really scrutinize the whole bandwidth of mind what you do and they've a passion a practice of the close application of mind to the mind close the application of mindfulness to the mind you see there's nothing there that belongs to anybody there's no person that's generating so individual person ego this generating of the thoughts they are there are natural phenomena thoughts desires motivations are all natural phenomena that arise independence upon prior condition none of which is an inherently existent autonomous self and so identifying with the mind as being really mine as a mistake let alone identifying deeply with any activity of the mind I am mad I am happy I am I am complete fusion I didn't identity with any aspect of the mind is it's claustrophobic it's claustrophobic so then back to Bob Newhart if you can just stop it can you stop it that rather than be really tricky and fancy and doing all kinds of esoteric practices if you can just stop Busta just stop identifying with the body start identifying with the mind and as we find in the practice of Tamil in giving and saying just give them away like that give away your body Shunta ever really elaborates on that point now I'm giving my body away it's very for other people to use I'm I mean everybody's serving I'm giving this body away doesn't belong to me anymore and then he give away your mind your creativity your intelligence or whatever skills you have giving them all the way and what are you left with and this is a real question what are you left with if you completely release any sense of I or mine pertaining to body anything the body does your mind anything the mind does if you're completely what's left do you become non-existent what's left when you give away your body and mind with no longer no residual sense that is in any way mine let alone inherently real just what's left when you give away your human mind with your personal history and gender and cultural conditioning and so forth when you give away that mind what lingers is the substrate consciousness that was there before you were before you were conceived and it will be after you dead after you're dead that will continue on so if you give away the whole of your human body human mind that's what left is just a substrate consciousness looks like a very direct route to achieving so matter but the substrate consciousness is still individuated one such separate consciousness for every sense of being so it's still it's not as collapse it's not claustrophobic in space and time as identifying with this old chunk of meat it just gets shrivel e'er and shrivel here and so forth he's getting older and weaker and smellier and and then finally just dies and the mind just goes I'm gone but if you're still identifying with the substrate consciousness well it's not it's not smelly and it's not really isn't that borders so it's not claustrophobic but it is the only it's yours only as an individual to individual district individuated stream and if you look at that stream carefully and this is Vipassana on the nature of their substrate consciousness which goes very deep very fast you see the substrate consciousness doesn't belong to anyone and the substrate consciousness is not human it's not a person is not an an ego it's just a substrate consciousness and it's not you and it's not really yours if you think it's really yours good show me you show me the landlord once again and so if you can cut through that cut through the identification with the substrate consciousness and really this is where the rubber hits the road when you're resting in schemata you're resting in the substrate consciousness after having achieved Shama to remember in what is the Iliad or the Odyssey the sirens si REM that come here they're coming here and they just capture you but you really want to go there you know what the three sirens of the substrate consciousness are once you've achieved ometer you do bliss luminosity I will fulfill your every desire come and stay come a state a business about liberation enlightenment you don't need that other sentient beings they'll get by don't worry about them come come just come to my arms I have three arms bliss luminosity the nine kept silent and I will fulfill your every desire and every time you come I will satisfy you I'm really bad looking trying to imagine himself a really beautiful young woman it's hard isn't it but they are there something is indispensable to get there if you want to venture out on the path and if you get stuck there you have not taken moved one hair's breadth towards the path so if you imagine how difficult this would be so prepare yourself some of you might achieve and shall not end this lifetime so you want to prep yourself for that because when you achieve it you're gonna have these three assignments coming to you say all that other stuff Allen talked about you don't need that aren't you happy I might not am I not making you happy is there something missing what more can I do for you want more bliss I got more luminosity and I can just stay with me if you can not identify with not prefer not cling to not be attached to this bliss which is with the Bliss you always wanted the luminosity the intensity you always wanted the sense of serenity stillness peace security safety stillness you always wanted if you cannot prefer that but just be present with it and not reified as existing any one of those three as exist in and of themselves if you can bring to these young these meditative experiences of bliss luminosity none conceptuality if you can bring that same stillness of awareness to them and simply witness them without identifying with them or reifying them then you just may go into freefall beyond the substrate not cleaning - identifying with the substrate and go into freefall like a sky diver that just goes out backwards out of an airplane into into sky but never hits imagine you've all seen skydivers going backwards out of the airplane out of the back of the airplane imagine going like that but you never hit you never strike anything solid going to freefall beyond the substrate consciousness and you freefall and you cut through too pristine awareness primordial consciousness and that's when you come to know who you've always been so stop identifying with that what you are not and recognize who you are and your mind is dharmakaya your mind is but a mind you don't have a button you don't have a button nature you are a Buddha nature but you won't know that as long as you still keep on identifying with something you're not collapsing down this vast open spacious nough space beyond time a pristine awareness transcendent divine sacred ultimate ground of being we collapse this down out of ignorance and delusion not knowing who we are we mistakenly think that this body is I this - I this substrate consciousness as I and we take that spaciousness which is of the nature of immutable bliss and we turn our backs on it and collapse to the shriveling little stream of consciousness the substrate consciousness or even smaller in space and time this tiny little mind this only gets me around for a few decades in this tiny little body it's amazing we don't die of claustrophobia because we just made two magnets for suffering soon as identified with this body and reify it ready to suffer as soon as identify with his mind and reified ready to suffer and we did it to ourselves so when you give away your mind and implicitly you release your body all of your experiences of body release it into space or at least your mind into space with no with no fishing line to reel it back in again then all the remains is that which was already there timelessly pristine awareness it's called more cutta cutta primordial purity primordial purity that's one of the synonyms of this mind of clear light christine awareness put a nature and so in order to come to know who we are and we are our own minds are at root at ground ultimately they are pristine awareness which is beyond all conceptual constructs it's mine the same as yours or is identical yours does not compute you can't put it in those boxes it a one or many does it arise or pass does it exist or not exist does it come or does it go beyond all conceptual categories but as long as we're identifying with Kathak conceptual categories getting locked in then we slam the door own vases and seal off who we actually are and so ultimately in sochi in practice the direct route to realizing who we are is to completely from our own perspective completely deactivate our physical bodies as iron mine doing things and completely deactivate one speech and completely deactivate the mind in other words ultimately right down to the ultimate ground several your body speech and mind in the natural state so they're utterly deactivated in other words there's nothing there to identify with because they're just completely deactivated and in that ultimate stillness in that total stillness of not even identifying conventionally relatively or nominally not even nominally thinking I am human being I am sanjit being I am body hammer not even conventionally in that release totally in that utter stillness then you know that your mind is dharmakaya and so that would be the Buddhist interpretation of a very short phrase and I'll have to add that youngjae's it Psalms be still and know that I am God Psalms be still and know that I am God I have no doubt that the Jews and Christians have no an interpretation I would not debate that it's their scripture but this was to be a Buddhist interpretation be still completely deactivate your human body human mind your sentient being his body and mind completely deactivate totally cease any identification with it be absolutely still and what's left is you are the primordial Buddha and you always have been but you've been dreaming that you're essentially being and so therefore the Buddha said I am NOT a human being I'm awake I caught your attention didn't so let's try releasing the mind and as oh it's a beautiful phrase it's right towards the beginning maybe even the first chapter of sundered Ava well I compare faces I wish I could quote it directly but I can't but he says in fact giving everything giving everything away at once not only your body and mind but your possessions your loved ones any anything out there you think is mine my family my country my ethnic group my anything that you think this is mine and just releasing everything that you identify with totally all at once is that giving everything away at once that's nirvana and he says and my mind seeks mana so take the sting out of death before death can come to you go to death keep her body healthy please have a long life you know what I mean though death will take everything from you except to your substrate consciousness and your pristine awareness and I've can't reach that far but death can't take your substrate conscious in a way but it can sure as heck take your body and mind away and that for people who are in so far as were identifying with the body in mind my my body my mind cherishing clinging to it my body you have to take care of it a lord of death is gonna snatch it and leave you with nobody and I'd take your mind and you're gonna have no mind just a substrate consciousness which is primal so beat him to the punch there's a lord of death before you can take it away I'm going to give it away so when you come I'm gonna go friend of mine was trained for six years in Thailand in a monastery and there was an old monk old monk very virtuous monk very very decent very well meditator very pure ethics and so forth the fine monk and this old monk turned to my friend and he was clearly dying he's clearly dying and the old monk told this young monk about my age of this a long time ago he said the lord of death is looking for me but he can't find me and my friend thought he was kind of basically in denial like I'm gonna make I can make it through this the guys on his deathbed and so my friend said Oh bunt a teacher a load of death is going to find you you wanted kind of give my reality check you are gonna die old man and then the old monk looked at him and just smiled the lord of death is looking for me but it can't find me let's practice and trust yourself to the ultimate object or objects of refuge from your own perspective giving that existential sense of joyful surrender joyful ease fearlessness because you have taken refuge in that which can provide refuge grant you what you seek and as for motivation bring forth you the most sublime motivation you can imagine do you view the practice with the greatest possible meaning and the most sublime I can imagine is to aspire for utterly dedicate oneself to with all of one's hard ones might one's mind to perfect awakening the perfect unveiling I once owned Buddha nature pristine awareness for the sake of all sentient beings to lead each one from suffering and its causes to their own protection arouse bodhichitta if you know and then as we turn once again in a way ever so familiar by now of settling body speech and mind in the natural state it may become increasingly clear to you that the release the balance for each of three spit three phases is the ground for all of your practice it permeates the path to your own liberation your own Awakening and it's at its deepest at its perfection you find it at the culmination there it is in the fruition the perfection of sessioning your body speech and mind in a natural state and realizing your mind is donek higher your speech Assam oka Chi your body has no Monica let's do so now setting out on this path and as you release all grasping to the best of your ability releasing all grasping or identification with the body or any activities of the body or grasping to the speech whether your verbal public speech or the inner speech of the mind releasing all grasping to the activities of the mind this states of mind the human mind the more fully and deeply you can release all grasping to this sentient beings body and mind then you awareness naturally settles effortlessly settles in stillness a stillness beyond the relativity of stillness and motion their stillness beyond those two parameters a primordial stillness the relative stillness of the stillness of Shama to the ultimate stillness is a stillness a pristine awareness that transcends space altogether approximate that now where this resting in its own stillness holding its own ground and in that stillness free of grass being the natural luminosity of awareness effortlessly shines forth transcending your mind and ultimately transcending your own substrate consciousness rest there make your home there and when you have found your rest there Europe your awareness has descended by releasing all grasping descended to its own place and there without grasping it holds its own ground still motionless let your eyes be softly open without focusing your mental awareness and in on any visual form or object just create this spaciousness no suggestion that you're inside your head the spaciousness of which you are aware now is not confined by the walls of this room we're not speaking of physical space it is that open infinite expanse to which we directed our attention up to the right left and down the space of awareness with no borders no center or periphery rest your awareness in that space unimpeded in all directions saturated by the luminosity of awareness itself the activities of amount of your mind will of course continue to arise but they may arise without an owner they may arise without being reified without grasping on to them is existing in and of themselves the mind will continue to run but you don't need to run with it in fact you can release it since you have identified to it held closely to it what you have done you may undo you may stop doing so I shall just once utter a short sharp soda and when you hear that sound it's just a sound in that instant cut your mind loose cut the cord release your mind into space all of it release your mind into space merge it with space let it disappear evaporate without trace into the open infinite expanse of the space of awareness I'll recite this little just once meaning release and thereafter will continue sitting quietly and of course more activities images thoughts desires of course moral will continue to arise and whatever arises for the duration of the session release it into space as if there's a strong wind blowing from behind you and these thoughts images and so forth are dry leaves and the thought comes up and it's blown away it dissolves into space release your mind continue with a moment by moment and rest in what remains once you've released your mind and merged it with space so we begin with a syllable and continue in silence - very briefly link this session here with the conversation the dialogue that even I had last night dokyun and there's auction few one could say original sin occurs in every instant that we fail to recognize who we are it's a matter Vadra buddha primordial buddha we fail to recognize who we are and then out of that we mistake who we are we mistake this person as being really me this body is really mind his mind is really mind and that didn't occur eight thousand years ago it didn't occur 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang samsara begins in every instant every instant that we become mind averse every answer we become body hammers every incident we fail to recognize who we actually are fail to recognize non duly our own awareness as pristine awareness which is originally pure clutter it's originally pure so it's originally pure and we engage in original sin by failing to recognize them we see appearances as other than ourselves whereas if we viewed reality from the perspective a pristine awareness which is the view of the great perfection we would see from that perspective that all appearances are displays of the great perfection that it's all good absolutely primordial II good from that perspective not from the perspective of Sencha beings it's an ocean of suffering permeated by the unsatisfying nature of all phenomena that we cling to that we real high so every instant that we fail to view appearances from the perspective of pristine awareness we fall into sin sorrow that's when samsara begins whereas if we view appearances from the perspective of pristine awareness we see all appearances without exception all appearances of of samsara and Nirvana all appearances as being spontaneous displays effulgence 'as creative expressions of our own pristine awareness and so all appearances are divine sacred primordial II pure and that's what reality looks like from the perspective of pristine awareness so again to use Western terminology that's what reality looks like if you have a God's eye view but God is not somebody else so we don't have many rituals in this retreat I generally don't not because they're not useful but I don't want to have to explain too much in terms of ritual and symbols but we have this you know that is that's just entirely for the sake of the teacher we've been through that one so that's the simple meaning of life I did it very consciously this morning yep that's true cool then I can relax if I'm gonna be dead soon they're making more like you know whatever people think of me don't think of me whatever do your bed my motto is do your best and die pretty much sums up things for me you know and be ready to go bags packed pay off your debts ready to go at a moment's notice but the other rich will of course this this this and in Asia that's just a greeting hello namaste namaste but most of us here are not Asian I'm certainly not but I picked this up really from the Zen tradition I've taught him it's a couple of science centers monasteries and this I think it's called gosh Oh his name is Joshua and they do this all the time there's a lot of doing this the the Roshi does it the students the students do it to the Roshi the rush students do it to the students there oh she does it the students there to the gosh oh all over the way they're just gushing with cashew and so then we can say well yeah but what's it's about I mean looks like you're bowing it looks like you're showing reverence or respect and I can tell you that the Roshi gosh owes to the students is much complete equally as the students are showed to the Roshi and to each other because what we're buying to is not the quality of the sentient being in front of us we're not bowing to that sense of being substrate consciousness it's nothing to bow to just it's your primal flow that your ground of samsara there's nothing to bow to there what you're bowing to of course is the Buddha nature in every sense of being so you can bounty crickets cockroaches sparrows slugs fish reptiles alligators crocodiles next time you see a crocodile gosh oh but from a distance so I really like it I really like doing it I'm an American and we have a brace in a democracy and the notion of equality is kind of I hope we hold on to it it's really valuable the notion that all human beings are fundamentally equal and if you're a Buddhist in America all sentient beings are created equal so that's what this is about it's bowing to the original purity pristine awareness of every sense of being and symbolically in a practice we'll do later on symbolically we can imagine this pristine awareness is Buddha nation as incandescent radiant pearl of light an orb of light at the heart chakra it's nice simple and it's corresponds to where the very subtle energies converge when you manifest when you're explicitly aware of in a non dual fashion your own indwelling mind of clear light another synonym for pristine awareness and the energies all converged there in what's called the indestructible drop Michigan tick lay in the heart that's it's kind of subtle sort of physiological correlate and it's at the heart so from the heart to heart it's nice so those two symbols I embrace so that was a practice of merging mind with space it is the culmination of the culmination if the subtlest of all schemata practice is shammed without sign that's the finishing touch where you're no longer trying to develop anything you're not trying to develop summat you're not trying to improve your mind purifying your mind develop your mind cultivate your mind none of the above yes give it away and rest in what remains so very nice the basis for this I've encountered again in this auction tradition I think we can find a pretty quickly here merging the mind of space on page 15 I'm not gonna read all of this time is short but from a text that I taught this last spring I spent eight weeks teaching this text the enlightened view of samantabhadra is one of the five soaked in text revealed by to Jim lingpa who died in 1904 I believe it was and I'll just mention the context for this briefly I think you can read it and now that we've done it I think you'll find this fairly self-explanatory but he teaches it in this text and then something similar in another text about your essence and there are inductions specifically stated there are people of sharp faculties medium faculties and dull faculties great medium and small and it's just it's it's not that some people are simply intrinsically better but some are bringing more momentum spiritual momentum to this life in terms of their Dharma practice and others so in the past if lifetime after lifetime you were just you trained in music you were these excelled in music you cultivated you had a passionate music you devoted your life to music then you might be born as the kid of mr. and mrs. Mozart and finding oh our child is writing symphonies at the age of eight well he brought in from the Buddhist perspective brought in tremendous momentum and likewise their geniuses of all sorts and there are geniuses without a doubt there are geniuses in Dharma some children which is a displaying profound insight I could go on but that is true and so there are some people with tremendous momentum some people with modern momentum some people a little bit of momentum and that's how we manifest in this lifetime is having great medium or small fire faculties and so it's a placement person like Bahia in the Terra Cotta tradition sharp faculties here one Dharma talk it becomes in our heart well he brought tremendous momentum to that you know hardly anybody here that Dharma talk and achieve any kind of realization let alone become our heart but he brought great momentum to it he was extremely ripe and the Buddha gist and then a hot ship with Enzo Chen similar things have happened that a person might be introduced just to examine your mind examine your mind can you find the origins if you mind really if it's really there can you find the origins of your mind can you might find where your mind really is located where is it really located and then when you fall asleep for example your mind vanishes when you die your mind vanishes where does it go just origin location destination penetrate and some people just by hearing that will realize rick wob' pristine awareness and once you've realized that you just rest in it because there's nothing to improve he can't you can't diminish and you can't augment pristine awareness it's timeless there's nothing to cultivate so some people just hear that just the hero Dharma talk and they just follow it like by here just following a Buddhist instructions achieve a hot ship a very ripe resorption practitioner may hear just those instructions and if she up short faculties they can skip schemata they can skip Vipassana they go directly right into rikta pristine awareness and then they rest there in utter inactivity and then just watch observe passively the spontaneous emergence and actualizations of all the qualities of Buddha mind it's really kind of a Buddhist notion of grace because you're not cultivating this you're not acquiring this you're just and then watching them all arise like open your treasure just watching compassion arise wisdom all right paranormal abilities arise just flowing flowing point your practice becomes radically simple that's called non meditation there's a text as I translated called Buddhahood without meditation and that's once you've arrived there then you don't meditate on anything at all so so that's four sharp faculty medium faculties if you're medium fact list then what padma Sambhav and these pure vision says all right if you want to see whether you're a person of medium faculties then what I suggest is go off into solitude just hold us all there - total simplicity go there go out there into the wilderness total solitude for 20 days in 20 and during that 20 days non-stop as continuously as you possibly can day and night release your mind into space don't identify with your mind at all release it without trace into space and do that continuously for 20 days and if you're a person of middling faculties then in the course of that 20 days you will realize Ripa you'll be able to dwell in Ripa and the qualities of schemata and the passion will arise like cream emerging from milk and you will not need to practice or Vipassana was again you cut through your mind and substrate consciousness you cut through to the primordial purity if your own pristine awareness and you just rest there and that's it you just do that medium faculties but if you become anxious bored mida scatters and so forth and so on then okay then then you're like me person of inferior faculties dull faculties in which case then he said okay that case then now take your impure mind as a path and get giddy up giddy up giddy up hop in your horse and head out on the path and achieve schemata settle your mind is natural state then probe the very ultimate nature of your mind realized the emptiness of all phenomena and once you've done that now you're ready if you want to show a really straight an elaborated path achieve schemata on the mind recognize the relative nature of mind cut through any reification of your mind and awareness itself recognize the emptiness of inherent nature of your own mind I do own awareness itself and then release all grasping and just going to free fall all grasping to bliss luminosity non-conceptual 'ti all grasping a reification in rest in awareness that is beyond the parameters of existence and non-existence and therefore unborn unceasing and then so so you can do that for twenty days that's your placement exam and if you pass that exam please write to me because I would like to receive teachings from you so let's just I'll just read the first one because this is right from Patna Samoa this brilliant text summarizes the entire path to enlightenment in about 80 pages there are two kinds of paths individuals with supreme faculties proceed within themselves by way of the direct crossing over they just rest and pristine awareness and then they immediately go to the culminating phase of joke Chen called the direct crossing over in which you really explicitly manifest all the qualities of Buddha mind Buddha body speech and mind so there's the supreme path of directly crossing over and individuals with middling or inferior faculties proceed gradually in dependence upon the Crown's these are the Bodhisattva Bumi's or ground stages of realization and paths five sequential pass to perfect awakening so to determine which whether you are a person of middling faculties to investigate this first of all merge your mind with empty external space and remain a meditative equipoise for twenty days by so doing the first type of individual will perceive the originally pure essential nature of the primordial ground with the eye of wisdom and they will identify this within themselves in fear the first is between middling or inferior if your middling then that's what you'll realize and then you skip the sequential path of Shama to the passion and so forth you just rest and awareness and you can go directly to the culminating phase so Chen the direct crossing over you'll be a little bit like this kid you may have seen in the news a little nine-year-old belgian kid you see him and when he was five years old presumably kindergarten his teachers recognized that he was pretty bright and by the age of nine he'd finished his undergraduate education in mechanical engineering and he didn't even bother they did get to degree because it's such a waste of time he just directly went for graduate school he's he's looking for a really good ph.d program now at the age of nine so he's going to wreck crossing over he skipped almost all of elementary school all of high school were indirectly to to undergraduate in mechanical engineering I guess he probably did that in six months and I was going for a ph.d program okay so that's a person who brings in great momentum for apparently just his parents were both doctors I think said he just he's just like a sponge just he just sucks in knowledge just absorbs everything that he learns and so that's a prodigy for what he wanted to do with his brilliance is Chemical Engineering good I think it's gonna be hopefully of great service but there are people like that for Dharma and they're generally identified as two coos so if you if you're a person like that then you are too cool but someone who's called the too cool isn't necessarily like that so be careful titles can be misleading so I think in terms of external space you can read from Sanka Kondo said acondo who is a great a great yogini within the du chun lingual lineage she was the consort of jujube named his eldest son she was an accomplished yogini or consort her partner was it accomplished their turn Trevor treasure revealer she was as well why spectacular so I've translated two texts of hers and she's fabulous great great icon great paradigm and so for other other women ed and but anybody anybody who's drawn to Donna she was spectacular so let's leave off with that that said if no it's just for a little while and now let's go to page 20 so now in this last morning of the retreat it's time to finally what what is they let the shoe fall or something like that drop let's get get get to it this has been a summer to retreat so then we've used this with so many times and you know that it comes after you've evolved through all of the nine stages that we've now covered conceptually and then there will come a day and it's gonna be a day it's gonna be an afternoon something a very distinct point in your life where you have achieved gradually gradual actually have achieved all the way up to the ninth stage your Samadhi is superb but your Samadhi is still in the desire realm you've not fully achieved schemata even though going for four hours or longer effortlessly I mean it was very good Samadhi but you still haven't achieved Shama - and so what's it like then what's it like to actually achieve schemata I give this a lot of notes here and I think you can read them that you read them further south and I think the translations are pretty good so the Buddha himself describes this and he describes as especially one's whole body and mind being filled with joy or bliss and well-being with this joy and well-being born of a detachment detached from all of the alors all the attractions of the desire realm everything this world has to offer sensual Fame power wealth you name it don't attachment with this joy and well-being born of detachment the join well being emerging from you demonically emerging from your purified mind stream emerging from that substrate consciousness that mind that is not the mind the mind the manifest nature of which is clear light from that one so suffuses drenches fills in a radiates one's body that there is no spot in one's entire body that is untouched by this joy and well-being born of detachment again this we see this in the next one listen in this Sanskrit Sutra that this joy and well-being arising from solitude the solitude not just being in a solitary place but this solitude of removing all the tentacles of desire of yearning of hope that something out there and the desire room is going to prove satisfying and knowing it will never will and then retrieving like an octopus or like this tentacles reach we're releasing them all and saying I know you'll never be satisfying so I'm not gonna place my hope in you any longer and withdrawing of all into your awareness and they're discovering this join well-being arising from solitude which manifestly moistens thoroughly moisten totally satisfies and totally permeates the body there's nowhere in his entire body there's not permeated or pervaded by the joint well-being arising from Solitude not even the slightest bit and so I want really measure myself how to how much to linger here we go physical is Tara bata classic the path of purification I think you can read you can you can read it for yourself the distinction painting access to the first jhana which is achieving schemata as opposed to fully achieving the first jhana and in both of them you've crossed the threshold over into the form realm deeper dimension underlying dimension of reality and the only real distinction pragmatically speaking is that in both access to the first jhana which is sha Mata the full achievement of Jannah that in in both cases you're equally free of the five obscurations the ionic fixation and all of those fine and ill-will and so forth in both your equally free but if you fully achieve the first jhana then the five Gianna factors single pointed concentration and so forth they're robust they're stronger than in access but in excess you still have them and so he oh yes and then the Bhuvana here's a very nice reference to the bur manga the difference between the two kinds of concentration is this the factors are not strong in access simply crossing the threshold into the first jhana it is because they're not strong that when access has arisen the mind now makes the sign this is the counterpart sign that archetypal sign that emerges from the form realm it makes that sign its object it gets but then it can't sustain at the is archetypal sign for example at the air element which is what you access by way of mindfulness of breathing it's so subtle a hundred a thousand times more subtle than any mental image that could occur in the desire realm that is it lucid and you engage with it and then you you can't quite sustain it and you fall back you fall back into the bolphunga and so now makes the scientists object now re-enters the bolphunga just as when a young child is lifted up and stood on its feet it revered it repeatedly falls down on the ground a little baby a toddler falling back on his bum it's like that you fall back into the bolphunga I read this and I really have drawn the conclusion that the bolphunga is the same as the substrate the substrate not substrate consciousness but substrate but the factors are strong and absorption fully achieving the first jhana and it is because they are strong when an absorption concentration has risen in the mind once having under it uninterrupted the fluid above Angga rising is from the bong and engaging with this very subtle archetypal sign or form in the form realm carries on with a stream of wholesome wholesome impulsion for a whole day and a whole night all night and whole day just as a healthy man after rising from his seat could stand for a whole day now this is definitive it's a gold standard and it's almost universally ignored nowadays and there it is in plain English so many people nowadays I think they're sincere and they're deluded and that is I hear a lot of accounts and each time I get my hopes up I'm talking about the Terra Madre tradition both Asians and well as Westerners and I've searched how many claims I've achieved the first John IP a fourth jhana and and yet if they claim to achieve the first honey can you do that he just said if you've achieved fully achieve the first jhana you can go into meditation total absorption completely oblivious of the surrounding world and you can remain an unbroken effortless flow of Samadhi for 24 hours straight that's just it that's the gold standard it's a gold standard in the Tibetan tradition in tradition tera vaada tradition and so people can do that then I just want about fantastic fantastic whether you're Burmese or tying or Australian or anything else fantastic but that's something you can demonstrate so I feel anybody who claims I've achieved the first jhana I'd want to say first of all I'm very happy for you if that's true but if you're going to claim that why don't you back it up anybody can claim I've achieved the first time I'm a parrot can say that anybody can say that and gullible people will believe anybody but if you're claiming that then good then show it show it sit down for 24 hours without flinching a muscle and if somebody takes cymbals and crashes them right next to your ear we'll know that you won't flinch so I'm delighted for you if it's true but if it's not true if you can't do that then you're passing counterfeit currency and if you want to ruin the economy of the country inundated with counterfeit money you'll ruin the economy because people won't know it's just paper and what actually is paper with something behind it if you want to ruin the Dharma you want to ruin the Dharma take away all credibility of the Dharma just fill it with counterfeit claims about John about realising Ripa about being an advanced Padre on a practitioner realising zouk gender so just fill it in and date the market with false claims usually I think not out of how do you say dishonest motivations just could people don't know what they're talking about I think that's it I don't think by and large the claims that are made are made by people consciously wishing to deceive other people but really how hard was this to find it's right there in English there's a free download for heaven's sakes you're not pirating they want to offer it for free and their right is if you've she's the first Johnny can go to Samadhi for 24 hours straight and yet the weight the contortions that people will go through to say oh but he didn't really mean that you know Oh give me a break so there it is there it is I won't elaborate we move right on and then in case there was any doubt let's go to 21 the first bullet ina man 21 but when he enters upon meditation after first complete purifying his mind of states that obstruct concentration namely the five obscurations that happens with the treatment of the first jhana then he remains in the attainment even for a whole day like a bee that has gone into a completely purified hive like a king has gone into a perfectly clean Park so it's completely clear we move into the Mahayana territory of what are the signs what are the indicators you've actually fully achieved schemata and here just access to the first jhana in this classic sutra once again buddha speaking to the bodhisattva maitreya in the santa anna mochila sutra Lord when a bodhisattva directs his attention inwards with a mind focused upon the mind as long as physical pliancy and mental pliancy are not achieved what is that mental activity called and their better responds Maitreya this is not schemata it is said to be associated with an aspiration that is effects simile of shaman he just referred to the ninth stage where that pliancy the buoyancy that lightness and somebody just just told me another good at acute but I think you get the idea of both body and mind what takes place on that day to achieve schemata is a fundamental state shift it's rather like going from 1.0 to 2.0 an operating system of your body on an energetic level and your mind the operating system has just gotten upgraded in a really cool way because now there's this pliancy and this means the flow of energy the prana bit it's just free flow we're not speaking of anything to bind or transcend it here it's just your body is now fit whether you're older young overweight or underweight whatever you are that's just flesh and bone we're talking about the subtle body and the promise just flow unimpeded li streaming streaming and your whole body as stated by the buddha the both whole body is filled a sense of bliss and well-being and it's a supple it's as supple as a gymnast performing in midair who can float and your mind has the mind that arises in dependence upon this body and the suffer mind arising in dependence upon the subtle energies the mind also just a mind of grace mind of supplements lightness buoyancy malleability able to perform whatever tasks you put to it so it's physiological a fundamental physiological shift takes place and you should be able to remain there it's this new operating system for the rest of your unless you suffer severe physical damage and since that is shifted the mind that's operating on the basis of that subtle energy system is also going to maintain those qualities for life and if you've not achieved that if not achieve Ginetta and if you have having first achieved the first nine stages then you have achieved shamaton so there's a long section here from a Sangha and I'm just in this is cited by Tonka bond and I'm gonna paraphrase it based on the oral traditions that I have received is from number a number of teachers they're homogenous and this is gold this is gold standard so that day let's say it's a Tuesday and let's say it's 3 o'clock 3 o'clock on a Tuesday I just I would just want to show the specificity of it in time it's not I think it happened last month or probably last weekend know it started at 3 o'clock on Tuesday and I think of analogy isn't really bad and that is a woman who spent nine months getting you know nine months being pregnant and then the water breaks okay the show has begun right I've seen in the movies I'm sure it happens but the water breaks this means okay you are now about to give birth well it turns out well the water breaks after developing through nine stages of Shama - the water breaks when you're in meditation and you will feel a pressure on the top of your head and many many obese have experienced this some I mean I know and it's a pressure on your head as if you had a bald head and somebody is placing a warm hand on top of your on top of your head so it's a pressure but it's not unpleasant but it's just like that and when you feel that but bare mine you have to finish the first nine stages so just don't feel oh I think I'm feeling some pressure there no the first nine stages actually are prerequisite so if you're having done so the nine stages you can't you know you can't just think I have a couple in my eye maybe I'm gonna give birth just wanted in case there was any doubt about that matter you have to go through the whole nine stages and so your water is broken I'd love to see somebody have their water break and take him right off to an MRI with an eg and see what happens in the brain because they are now about to chiefs ometer the water is broken is now there they're going to achieve some unless they just died suddenly but that's the first indicator okay you're now achieving summit do you come in you're coming down to the homeless finish line is right here you're about to finish this journey so there's that indicator and then then the and wilderness of the mind the rigidity the heaviness of a mind is not really operating like an engine is not well tuned that disappears and there's this supplements this pliancy of the mind that arises you just feel the lightness the buoyancy the the utter serviceability of your mind that manifest you experience your mind like operating system 2.0 like wow the mind is so light so point I can do anything I can visualize I can analyze yeah the five jhana factors Wow and so that pliancy arises mind and then we're seeing one even trigger another the mind has at pliancy and then those rage no reason to point to my head but there I'm pointing there because that's where the first indicator was clearly something dramatic is taking place in the brain and I don't know that anybody knows because as far as I know well nobody's ever achieved ometer in an MRI with EEG I'd like to see that happen something's happening in the brain for sure I mean here what's underneath your hand a lot of brain and so the mental pliancy and that triggers then this radical shift this state shift in your whole energetic system that now you experience this physical pliancy this lightness is buoyancy suppleness malleability of the body just like that and so then it's and it's a suppleness it's stated and this lingers afterwards people who have achieved I feel they say I feel so light I feel I could jump over mountains you can't but you do have that sense of lightness and so there's this physical pliancy saturates the whole body like just like supercharged the whole body and then out of that there arises this just body permeating sense of well-being in bliss your body's just blissed-out it's saturated I said he said there's no part of your body that's not touched by Bliss and the Bliss is the symptom of this pliancy of the body just as unhappiness being ill it is grumpy and so forth are a symptom of a mind that is heavily encumbered by mental afflictions you don't need any help you don't need any stimulation that's genuine unhappiness as a symptom of a mind is afflicted and this is a symptom a mind that is superbly tuned a sense of bliss fills the body and then I think if there's symbolically the Bliss completely fills your body it's kind of like when you have a pot of milk on the stove and then it just overflows it boils over this bliss that fills your mind then boils over and fills your mind and your mind is just filled with this ecstasy is the word we have a good word for that one your mind is just saturated by bliss ecstasy rooted in a sense of well-being so the body is bubbling away the mind now is bubbling away bubbling overflowing saturated by bliss during what you really can't do much of anything else you're just your blissed-out but don't worry it won't last because you would be useless for the rest of your life you just don't worry it's not gonna last but it doesn't just vanish it's really like take that pot of milk that's boiling over and he just turned it down to a simmer and that bliss comes like that saturate your mind and you just rest there and then the ecstasy the the extraordinary bliss then subsides and it's simmers and now there's just a quiet flow of all five jhana factors single-pointed course investigation subtle anomalous well-being and bliss but not teeth chattering bliss and now everything's simmered down when that's simmering down now you've achieved Charlotte that's when you've achieved Charlotte and if you just take good care of your body in mind you'll keep it for the rest of your life will you be able to carry through the Bardo that depends on what you do with it because you achieve this now because now you have the fur perfectly tuned body and mind due to the most meaningful thing that human being can possibly do free yourself free yourself of ignorance free yourself from delusion the Bodhisattva path and achieve or teach it to achieve a pashmina and set out on the path you have now have a mind that really is service first serviceable for the path so just reading through here's a quote from a sangha brilliant tsongkhapa brilliant these are definitive presentations of that day on which you'll receive geometry and you'll remember it you'll remember that day better than your birthday because it's a fundamental discontinuity a shift a radical shift in the whole way you're present in the world and then you can explore on that basis what's it like now that you've chief cha Mita what's it like simply to dwell in geometry to remain in schemata what's that like and then very importantly ever so importantly when you get off the cushion get off the cushion and you're wrong about getting you know having a meal walking around gauging in people what are the trait effects what are the lingering benefits they carry carry through the whole the rest of the day time and percolate over into the night time how does this influence your sleep how does it influence your dreams and you can just find there are no downsides to this at all it's all good you're just so your whole quality of being in the world now is fundamentally shifted and so state affects the trade affects these Queen we can look at after the break but briefly there's a lot of material here but again I wanted to give a lot so you have background material you can read at your leisure but I will guarantee to you that every in every but it's gonna knows what I'm about to say is true anybody who knows the sources I've cited to put it for a terabyte of Buddhism it doesn't get any better than the Buddha and it in terms in terms of commentator there's nothing got more gold than the Buddha go so that's it I just hit the gold standard that's not an opinion that's true and we come over to the monitor tradition there's something in much of the motion of sutras just definitive for schemata it's the absolute gold standard among the great patriarchs of Indian Buddhism there's no one men better for shamaton as Sangha he's just solid gold we caught him twice within the Tibetan tradition no one more brilliant than tsongkhapa that's gold standard and so that's what I wanted to offer you there's a lot of counterfeit money out there there's a lot of copper and silver and metal and dirt but this is gold solid gold so if you want to know what Shama - really would before it gets watered down before people bring it down to their level and this happens a lot people well-meaning but desperately wanted to feel they've achieved something desperately wanted to feel to achieve something then look around if their own experience and then they drag John it down to their level they drank stream entry down to there they dragged realizing pristine awareness down to their level and so forth and they take their own experience as a supreme authority and then anything is differs from that they say but that but that's not to be taken literally no not that not Buddha goes alone that he didn't mean that literally when he said that when you achieve the fourth Johnny or but yours your breathing stops entirely no I didn't really mean that you didn't no no because I want to believe I've achieved a fourth jhana so don't take that literally count on me I'm so tired of it I'd rather not achieve the gold standard but no I haven't achieved it rather than achieve something less and thinking I've achieve gold because the latter is delusion and the first gives you room for growth you know what you haven't achieved yet so good keep going so I say there's quite passionately because there's a lot of counterfeit money out there floating around floating around propagated by the Buddhist media sometimes to to come to commonly and people with big names to commonly one big name you thought you check with his friends Dharma friends after 40 years of practice to see if any of them had actually achieved complete freedom from mental afflictions founded none of them had so then he redefined our hardship saying well our hot is not really being free of mental afflictions it's just getting into point where you're not bothered by them anymore and then he started handing out honorary our hardship that's kind of cheaper drank it down to you if you can't get to its level let's just drag it down to your level maybe nobody will notice except I do not cuz there's anything special about me believe me there isn't but these are goal Sanders and the lamas under whom I've trained both linear tera vaada tradition in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism they're gold I don't think I need to defend the Dalai Lama or the junior to it of the Dalai Lama and the other great masters I've had the tremendous privilege of training it so let's just go for the gold and not mistake anything any don't think that anything that glitters is gold and what glitters is what's popular in the media it may be gold maybe it just glitters so let's take a break is now ten thirty so time is running out see you at ten at ten minutes before the you

Channel: Vajrayana Institute

Views: 2,016

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: mindfulness, buddhist retreat, breath meditation, calm abiding, buddhism, buddhist, tibetan buddhism, retreat, Alan Wallace, meditation, Vajrayana Institute, buddhist meditation, shamatha, breathing meditation, fpmt

Id: -diKJ8fK-0o

Length: 88min 16sec (5296 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 02 2020