«Дар освобождения», курс 2 «Прорыв к высшей реальности», занятие 7

[Говорящий 2] (0:02 - 4:26)
OK, we'll meditate. Watch your breath. Come to that room with the golden sunlight pouring in.

See the blue sky out the window. The upper half of the room. See the mountains across the valley.

See your teacher sitting in front of you. Look at their face.

[Говорящий 1] (4:30 - 4:42)
Into their eyes. Feel the love. Stay there.

Happy, contented. That's enough for the next five minutes. You don't need to go anywhere else.

You have nothing else to do.

[Говорящий 2] (8:02 - 8:17)
Come back to this room. And slowly open your eyes. OK, so...

We were...

[Говорящий 1] (8:19 - 18:57)
We were at 11, I think. We finished the... The Objects of the Senses, which might distract your mind.

And we're on our way to achieving... At 13. It's called len de jopa.

Say len de jopa. Len de jopa. Lenpa means a patch.

Like if you sewed a patch... If you ripped your coat and you sewed a patch on it, that's a len. And len de jopa means...

You have constant continuity in the object, but there are patches where you don't have... where you're not on the object, OK? So most of the time you're on the object, and then there are patches where you're not on the object.

So the name is a little... What do you call it? Deceptive.

Patch-like meditation would seem to mean meditation which comes in patches. So some people have misunderstood the name. What it means is the patch is the time off the object.

So most of the time you hold coat, you're on the object, and then there's a little patch where you're not on the object. OK? Len de jopa.

So you go from sem jopa, fly on the... fly on the cow pie, to gyu de jopa, where you have some continuity, but mostly off the object, and then len de jopa, which means you're almost always on the object, and then there are spots where you're not on the object. OK?

So the name is deceptive. We call it patch-like meditation. That's 13, actually.

Yeah. Len de jopa is 13. 11 was the sense object.

12... 12 says jem de topso. Say jem de.

Jem de topso. Jem de topso means the power of pulling the mind back to the object. Literally, jemba means to recollect or to remember something, but it means to bring the mind back to the object.

Jem de topso. So that's the power which is active during the third state of mind, which is where you're rarely off the object. OK?

Only patches off the object. And then jemba draws you back. So jemba is getting strong by the time you get to level 3.

Jemba is getting strong. It pulls you back quickly, and you're more on the object than you're off the object. At levels 1 and 2, you were more off than on.

At level 3, you're more on than off. I believe this is where most of us spend our time, between level 1 and level 3. I mean, if you're honest, I spend most of my time between 1 and 3, probably.

So the goal of this chart, the reason to go through this chart, is that you get some benchmark of where you are. You have to go to level 9 to see emptiness directly. And most of us are hanging out around 2 or 3.

I think 3 is a good day for me. 2 is a typical day. 1 when I didn't get any sleep.

Something like that. So we're mostly hanging out around 1, 2, and 3. 3 if you're lucky.

Then number 14 says, cingwa dharmau yi ne cingwa chala mangrasim 14 means, cingwa dharmau means subtle dullness. And this is the most important thing you can talk about in meditation. Of all the things you can talk about, subtle dullness is the most important thing.

Why is it important to talk about subtle dullness? You have ne ca. You're on the object.

You have sel ca. Your mind is fairly fresh. But you don't have...

Say ngar. N-G-A-R Don't move your tongue, just close your throat. Ngar.

Yeah, ngar. Ngar means intensity. Intensity.

It's a word in Tibetan which is used to describe also... Normally it's used to describe the temper on a piece of steel, on a blade of steel, the temper. So if you temper a blade, it's difficult to dull it.

I don't know what you do exactly. I think you heat it and then you cool it again. You heat it and cool it again.

You might layer it. You might cut coffee. You might layer it.

And then it gets ngar. So ngar is intensity of the steel. An added hardness of the steel.

In meditation, you got to get a feeling for what ngar is. And if you do, then I think we did a good job this week. So we have to talk about what's ngar.

Ngar means... What's intensity really mean? So gross dullness, you lose the object and you're almost falling asleep.

You can... What do you call it? Bring on a state of gross dullness consciously.

What's the word for that? You can replicate gross dullness consciously. You can consciously create a state of gross dullness.

If you want to see what it's like, just eat a lot of heavy food and then try to meditate right after that. Then you can experience gross dullness. I mean, sometimes it's useful to do that kind of thing.

Just eat a big meal and then try to meditate and see how bad it is. Or you can stay up too late and then try to meditate. And then you just...

You cannot. Like I was... I remember I was in one particularly deep meditation and I kept hitting a block, you know?

I kept hitting this... What do you call? Upper limit thing.

And I couldn't get past it. And I was like... I was examining my whole mind and I was like going to this corner of the mind and that corner of the mind and I was like, where's this subtle block, you know?

And then suddenly, this big realization came in my mind. You didn't get enough sleep last night. And no matter what you do, you're not going to go past this limit.

You can't. If you didn't have enough sleep the night before, you can't. So there's two things you can do right away to stop dullness.

Don't eat too much, especially before you meditate. And you've got to make decisions, right? I mean, you look at a plate of food and that's a choice.

You have a choice. Am I going to meditate well in the next three hours or not? And sometimes you choose the food.

Sometimes you say, oh, what the heck? I'm just going to have a big meal and I'll be mindful. But you've got to at least...

What do you call it? In a football game, you... What do you call it?

What do you call it when you surrender a goal or something? There's a word for it. You surrender the first 10 yards so that they don't throw a long pass.

What do you call it? I don't know. Like there's three minutes left in the game.

It's third down. You surrender the first 10, 15 yards because it doesn't matter if they make a short pass. You're just trying to catch the long pass.

There's a word in English. Anyway. Guys obviously aren't football players.

There's some word for it. Anyway, when you're looking at the food and you can surrender the next three hours, you can say, okay, I'm not going to see emptiness in the next three hours. And then eat it.

And that's a decision that you make. You say, eating is more important for me right now than possibly seeing emptiness. I don't want to put a guilt trip on you.

But that's always the choice. You look at a big plate of food. It's too much food.

It's going to conk you out. And then you make a call. And you decide.

You can live comfortably off of about a quarter of what they put on an American plate of food. It's just a choice. You can live comfortably.

Eat a quarter, stop. You won't feel hungry until the next meal. It's okay.

The rest is just, what do you call it? Desire. So, just see.

Try. You make a decision. You make a call.

Then sleeping, it's your responsibility as a yogi to sleep enough. If you want to help other people, if you want to serve the world, you have to get enough sleep. And that's all.

And you have to figure out what it is you need. For me, it's eight hours. It's seven hours.

You can sometimes consciously get less because you have some important spiritual thing to do. But know that you are risking a lot more. You won't be good the next day.

You'll be cranky. You'll collect a lot of bad karma. You won't be able to meditate.

You are... What do you call that?

[Говорящий 2] (18:59 - 19:01)
Sacrifice. Huh? Isn't that a sacrifice?

[Говорящий 1] (19:01 - 19:19)
It's not a sacrifice. You are surrendering or something. No, it's like you give up that area of the playing field because it's not important anymore.

So anyway, you are you're giving up...

[Говорящий 2] (19:22 - 19:30)
Anyway. Okay, anyway.

[Говорящий 1] (19:31 - 19:45)
It's probably in the text somewhere. So you you can decide not to get enough sleep if it's a conscious decision. You know, I have a virtuous activity.

I have to build somebody a cabin. Tomorrow's the 30th.

[Говорящий 2] (19:48 - 19:49)
I'm going to stay up all night.

[Говорящий 1] (19:50 - 24:19)
There's times when that's appropriate. But mostly it's not appropriate. Even for a virtuous thing.

Because you're forfeiting whatever it's called. You're surrendering the next day's virtue. You will be cranky.

You will be useless. You won't be able to meditate. You won't have a good practice.

You might break your practice. You might break the habit of practice. Generally it's a bad idea to break it for anything.

Okay? Generally it's a bad idea to forfeit, surrender your practice for anything. Because it just doesn't...

It's illogical. You know? You give one night and then you lose two days.

Or something like that. It's generally not a good idea. If you don't get enough sleep you cannot avoid dullness.

It's not possible. Okay? That's all.

You are forfeiting the next couple of days. Hing, you're so rude. You're so rude.

Anyway. Okay. I'll think about it.

So that's gross dullness and that's not such a difficult thing to recognize, right? I had a cool gross dullness on 6th Street once in New York. We had a little temple there.

And I fell asleep meditating. And I fell over and I hit my head on the closet door. And that's gross dullness.

Okay? I had this big bump on my head. Okay?

That's gross dullness. But subtle dullness is very, very important. And if you don't learn anything else this week you should learn what subtle dullness is.

Subtle dullness is you are not turned on by the meditation. You're not feeling turned on by the meditation. People like you and me, dak chak rang re, we don't even have, we are rarely turned on by meditation anyway.

But, but a sign that you have subtle dullness, subtle dullness should be our object that we're talking about this week, okay? At least I'm talking. You don't get to talk.

And it's that you're not turned on. You're in meditation. You're on the object.

The mind is fairly fresh. And you're not excited. And you're not engrossed.

You're not having a fine time. And you've got to learn to distinguish between those two states of mind. A good meditation and a great meditation.

Because a good meditation is where you have subtle dullness. I don't know if you'd call it good actually. But you're not turned on.

Sometimes it's because the object doesn't turn you on so you should find an object that turns you on. So, again, selection of your meditation object is crucial. If it's not an object which excites you then find some other object.

Alright? And then you will. You can find one.

Personally, for me, it's my teacher. But it could be, I don't know, whether it could be emptiness meditation or whatever for you. But find...

Your job is to find a meditation object that interests you so much that you will daydream about it. And that you will feel passionate about it. And if you don't have anything like that you'll never have enough.

So you have to find an object which is... Which is extremely... What do you call it?

Pleasant, okay? For you. And meaningful for you.

And you enjoy... You enjoy daydreaming about that thing. Real norm feels like being on the edge of your seat in a Harry Potter movie.

Okay? And you're like, Oh my God, you know, what's going to happen next? You know, and people are offering you popcorn and you're like...

You're like, you don't even eat the popcorn. Which means it's the... It's a really good part of the movie.

You know, you're like... You know? Or you're in a...

You're reading a book and someone calls your name and you don't hear them. Okay? That's...

That's nga. Somebody says, dinner's ready. And you hear something but it doesn't...

What do you call it? Register. That's nga.

Okay? Or for me, if I'm listening to certain kinds of music, like good music, like Jimi Hendrix or Neil Young, because they haven't written good music since then.

[Говорящий 2] (24:20 - 24:20)
But...

[Говорящий 1] (24:22 - 25:38)
But it... I just... Engrossed in it, or what do you call it?

Lost in it. And that's nga. Okay?

So... Don't be satisfied with less than that. If your meditation is less than that, you're not going to keep it up.

You will quit after a while. Okay? You'll get tired of it.

If it's not really exciting to you, if you don't feel passionate about it, if it's not like totally sexy to you, then choose another object. Okay? Because if you don't, you'll just quit after a while.

You'll get tired of it. You'll do it because you feel obligated to. And that's a lousy reason to meditate.

Okay? It should be like you can't help yourself. You know, like...

Nobody told you to... What do you call it? Nobody has to tell you coffee tastes good.

You know, nobody has to sit there and try to convince you that coffee tastes good. You know? You want coffee.

Or chocolate. Or whatever it is. You know?

Nobody's like shaking you, Nick, you know, you've got to eat chocolate, it tastes really good. You know? Like, you just want it.

You know? Because it does taste good. Or you're addicted to coffee and you've got to have a coffee.

You know? And... If the meditation is not like that, you won't keep it up.

You'll quit sooner or later. You'll just fizzle out.

[Говорящий 2] (25:39 - 25:39)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (25:39 - 27:22)
So find an object which turns you on. Okay? And then you'll have ngara.

And you've got to get to ngara or you're not... You'll just never be a good meditator. It's got to be engrossed in this thing, turned on by this thing.

That's ngara. If you don't have that and you're just hanging out on the object, that's subtle dullness. The three-year retreat a couple of days ago, was it?

They asked me, give us final advice, Geshe-la. You know what the final advice Ken Rinpoche gave me? It was...

Keep your mind in the yurt. You know? We went up and we...

We had a three-hour time slot. You know? And we went up.

I said, Ken Rinpoche, what's your final word? He said, keep your mind in the yurt. And then we said, okay, what else?

And he said, that's it. Go away. You know?

And... I didn't do so good. But...

They asked me what advice, what's your final advice? I said, watch subtle dullness. Because you can spend a thousand days meditating in subtle dullness and you don't get anywhere.

You won't get anywhere. And then Pabongka Rinpoche has a very beautiful section, very, very beautiful section that I think you might want to think about. He says, if you're having trouble detecting subtle dullness during your meditation, which shouldn't be so hard, okay?

Are you turned on or not? If you're not turned on, you have subtle dullness. Okay?

If you're not totally turned on by the subject, so that if someone... You shouldn't be looking at the clock for when is it going to ring. You should be worrying about the ring is going to disturb your...

this sexy meditation you're having.

[Говорящий 2] (27:22 - 27:24)
You got the difference, right?

[Говорящий 1] (27:28 - 34:20)
So in the meditation, the judgment call of whether you're having subtle dullness or not is are you turned on during the meditation? Okay? But what Pabongka Rinpoche says is something very interesting, and I think it might be really helpful for all of us, okay?

I propose it as one of the most useful meditation advices I ever got. He says, after you come out of the meditation, examine your behavior for one or two hours. Are you spacey?

Are you spacey? And I was most of the street retreat. You get out of the meditation and you're like moving around in your...

You know? And you're like, what was I going to do next? It's like you feel kind of forgetful or something.

And I like to call it accent-minded professor. You're like, what was I... I was going to...

What was I supposed to do next after this meditation? Or you feel just sort of out of it? It could be a pleasant feeling.

It's kind of like you're stoned or something. And you're just like, wow. You know?

And then the opposite of that, the other extreme is what do you call it? Gross agitation. And that's where you...

The alarm goes off, you open your eyes and you say, I got an email, Joe. You know? And all your meditation partners are going, yeah, so what were you meditating about?

You know? Two seconds after the alarm rings, they're like, I got an email, Joe. They actually get up and say, I got an email, Joe.

And you're like, yeah, well I know what you were meditating about. Okay? So that's...

If you are moving fast out of the meditation, observe your behavior for ten minutes out of the meditation. If you're moving fast, if you're doing several tasks, it's that you line them up during the meditation. Okay?

Okay? So you can objectively judge the state of your meditation period after, in the ten minutes afterwards. And see how...

If you're jumping up and doing four different things quickly, it's because you were meditating on that. And then you had agitation. And you were off on...

Planning is agitation, right? Because it's things you want to do. So those are two tests for the two extremes.

Subtle dullness, if you feel somewhat out of it or spaced out or stoned when you come out of the meditation. And you see, that's dangerous because some people think that's calmness. They say the meditation works because I'm...

I'm calm. But they're really just spaced out. So try to distinguish the difference between calm and spaced out.

Spaced out is not calm. How do you know? Call the person stupid during the spaced out period and they react immediately.

The mind is not calm. The mind is spaced out. They'll get angry.

They'll respond quickly. They'll react quickly. Spaced out is an unstable state of mind and an unhealthy state of mind.

Calm, real calm, you know, is different. So that's not... Try to distinguish between calm and spaced out.

Smoking a dope or taking some wine and then feeling buzzed or peaceful is not peaceful. It's a bad habit. And the mind gets weaker.

And then it takes more wine to get to that place. And then you have to do it two times a day. And then you have to do it three times a day.

And you can't... That's not peace. That's spaced out.

It's different. That's stoned. So then, what does it feel like if you come out of a good meditation?

You can try to judge the quality of your meditation from how you act in the ten minutes after. Ten minutes after you get up slowly. You get up calmly.

You're sharp. You're focused. You have tasks to do.

You prioritize them carefully. And you move through them effectively and successfully and clearly. Even if it's like you're going to cook dinner for somebody.

You get up out of your meditation. Your mind comes to the dinner then. It wasn't on the dinner during the meditation.

You get up out of the meditation. Your mind is calm, clear. You think about what you have to do today after the meditation.

And then you think, I have to cook someone a meal today. And then you're like, you open the fridge, you know, I need potato, I need this, I need that. And you're just clear.

And all your movements are, what do you call it, economical and efficient and well-considered and well-prioritized. And your mind is clear. And your mind is healthy and strong.

And that's how you'll know. You'll be a very effective person. And you'll be a very successful person.

And you'll feel calm while you're doing, you know, you're preparing dinner and, you know, the water's going off and the potatoes are boiling and you're supposed to be mashing the chilies. And you're moving, you're dancing through the kitchen. And you're like calm and you're into it, you know.

And you're effective. And that means you had a good meditation. So if you get out of meditation and you're like, you know, what was I supposed to do today?

You know, and that means you had subtle dullness. I'm just trying to get you into this mood of judge the quality of meditation by the quality of your state of mind in the hour or so immediately following the meditation. Okay?

Then you can retroactively decide whether you had subtle dullness. If you can't detect it during. Okay?

So check that out. Even here. Okay?

Even here. How do you feel when you get up? Do you feel a little spacey after meditation?

Or do you feel a little sharper? Or do you feel nervous and you have to do three things? Because that means you had agitation.

All right. Pabongka Rinpoche describes lende jogpa. Okay?

Here. So. Sorry.

So 14 was subtle dullness. Okay? And that's a.

Where's the rabbit now? On the. On the elephant's back.

You see him? At 14 he's added a rabbit. He doesn't say it in the text but I guess that's subtle dullness.

[Говорящий 2] (34:20 - 34:20)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (34:21 - 35:44)
Because the elephant was gross dullness. Okay? And the elephant's head is already mostly white.

Okay? Meaning the gross dullness is going away. Starting to lose your gross dullness but you're going and you've got dullness left and that's now subtle dullness.

And he's. I think he's depicted it as a. As a rabbit.

Let's see if he says anything more. Then we'll go to 15. 15.

The monkey looking back represents. We're on 15. The monkey looking back represents the ability to tell when your mind is wandering.

And to refocus it upon the object of meditation. Which brings you to 16, which is niru jopa. Say niru jopa.

[Говорящий 2] (35:45 - 35:45)
Niru jopa.

[Говорящий 1] (35:46 - 38:50)
Level number four. Okay, it's a little hot, you think? No, do you feel hot?

Okay. Say again. 15 is niru jopa.

Sorry, no. 15 was, and what it means is you are reaching a very sophisticated ability to bring your mind back to the object. And it is so, the recollection, the recollective ability, the trembo, is so well developed by now that you can never again from here on lose the object completely.

You'll never be completely off the object again after level four. And I dare say, in my own case, I rarely get to level four. I can't say that I spend the whole five minutes or 10 minutes without thinking of anything else.

Because that's what niru jopa would be, okay? So that's a little scary. I'm like, you don't get to level four.

It's difficult to get to level four. You cannot, during level four, you can't lose the object completely anymore. But, Pabongkha Rinpoche says, you can have very strong ching wa and gupa.

Meaning what? Dullness and agitation, okay? You cannot lose the object, but the quality of the meditation is bad, okay?

You can't lose the object completely, but you're still subject to severe attacks of thinking about lunch under the object. What's the other one? Oh, getting sleepy.

But still holding on to the object, weekly. Got it? You don't lose the object, but the quality's not very good.

These two levels, patch-like meditation, which should be called patch-like distraction, right? Be better, right? And then what we call niru jopa, maintaining the mind tightly on the object.

These two are achieved through the power of jamba, which means that was what was in the monk's left hand, the ching, right? These two are achieved through the ability to pull the object back, to hold the object back. So let's meditate some more.

What I wanna do, generally, strategically here, is you're gonna learn all nine levels, all six powers, all four states of mind, all five problems, all eight antidotes. And then we're gonna try to identify them during our meditation, because that's the big deal. First, you learn them, and then you identify them during your meditation.

[Говорящий 2] (38:55 - 38:56)
Watch your breath.

[Говорящий 1] (38:58 - 39:26)
Just before you go into the breaths, you might check the condition of your forehead, the corners of your mouth. And the tops of your eyelids. And that's where tension manifests.

If you can consciously release the tops of your eyelids, your forehead, and the corners of your mouth, if you can consciously release any tension there, it will help you meditate.

[Говорящий 2] (39:28 - 40:40)
Then go to your breath. Come to the golden root.

[Говорящий 1] (40:45 - 40:57)
Relax. Feel peace of mind to be in that room. Let that room evoke in you feelings of peace and contemporary.

[Говорящий 2] (41:41 - 41:42)
Look at the blue sky.

[Говорящий 1] (41:44 - 41:54)
The radiance of the golden light and the radiance of the blue sky are traditional methods of preventing subtle dullness.

[Говорящий 2] (42:15 - 42:17)
Look across the valley to the mountains.

[Говорящий 1] (42:18 - 42:28)
Looking at a wide landscape, a spacious landscape, is also a traditional method of loosening an overly tight focus.

[Говорящий 2] (43:40 - 43:45)
Invite your lama. Ask your lama if they would grace you with their presence.

[Говорящий 1] (44:05 - 44:12)
I would like you to take as your meditation object the feeling of presence, the feeling that they are present in the room.

[Говорящий 2] (44:13 - 45:32)
Just that. Stay on their presence.

[Говорящий 1] (46:00 - 46:45)
Now I would like to ask you to try to stay especially aware of what kind of problems are close to happening in your meditation or already happened. Did you think about dinner? Or are you feeling sleepy?

Does your cold bother you? I'm gonna ask people after the meditation to tell us what are the problems what kind of problem was coming up for you that affected the quality of your meditation. So go back to the presence of your teacher and then try to observe when you come off and what's your most typical problem.

[Говорящий 2] (46:57 - 47:00)
It might be lack of being turned on, lack of love.

[Говорящий 1] (49:23 - 50:31)
Examine what distractions you've had. Examine if you've had any loss of freshness of the mind. Examine if you feel turned on by the other.

See if you can bring up a sense of contentment with sitting in the room with your teacher or a sense of relief or comfort that you could actually feed off of. And that's ting-yön-dzin-kyi-se. That's concentrative sustenance.

[Говорящий 2] (50:32 - 51:35)
A feeling of well-being. And then in a sense of well-being, come back to this one. And then slowly open your eyes.

There was a thing in ballet.

[Говорящий 1] (51:35 - 53:17)
Like I worked on ballet for a while and one of my teachers would say, I had trouble with pirouettes, right? In a certain direction. And then they would say, observe if you fall to the right or to the left.

And then I did. And it was always to the right. And then they'd say, observe which in the compass, is it to the west?

What's the degree of the fall? What's the axis of the fall? And then I found out it was interesting because it was always the same direction.

And it was always in the same place. And then they said, well just put a little counterweight the other way. And then everything was fine.

You see? So I think what you'll find in your meditation is similar. The problem you have will be typical to you.

And you'll keep having the same kind of problem. So try to mark the fall. Which way does the mind fall out?

Does it fall out to thinking about dinner? Or does it fall out to feeling sleepy? Or do you not feel like, do you not feel very excited about the meditation?

You see what I mean? Then you'll learn what your typical problem is. And then you can counterbalance a little bit to the opposite way.

Like get more sleep. Or worry less about dinner. Or try to pick an object which is a little bit more compelling for you.

So I'd like to ask if anybody has any typical problem that they caught themselves. Like typical fall. Yeah, Peter.

[Говорящий 2] (53:18 - 53:20)
I get a lot of pressure.

[Говорящий 1] (53:26 - 1:02:57)
He said during the meditation, just during meditation? No. In general.

I'm talking about the beginning of meditation. That's the most common thing to get. Oh, so it distracts you.

Yeah, the mind goes to that. I'm going to take the opportunity to bring up a totally different thing, and then I'll come back to your problem. No, I mean, I was thinking about it, and I thought I wanted to say it while you're still talking.

We had shinnei kutsu temba. We had five qualities of the place of meditation that we talked about this morning. They were easy to get, honest supplies.

The place has been blessed preferably by some, by a great meditator. The place is healthy and not dangerous. What was the other one?

Good friends, good companions to meditate with. By the way, they could be in the same room or in a different room, or in the same cabin or a different cabin. Let's say you're in retreat with somebody, or you're doing your daily meditation with someone who's hardcore, and you draw strength from them.

And then what was the last one? Good training. You know what the hell you're doing.

Now you're starting getting a sense of how deep this training is, and we're just barely started. So I don't want you to, those are five qualities of what we call tempe yul. Tempe yul temba.

Tempe yul means conducive place for meditation. And that was the first of six different, so I don't want you to confuse the five and the six. But a conducive place for meditation had five different qualities, which we already talked about.

But there are five other prerequisites for a good meditation practice that we didn't talk about yet in this retreat. What, the tempe yul na nepa? The first one was those five.

Then it was depa chungwa, which means what? Don't want a lot of stuff. Okay, don't like be thinking about, I need better food, or I didn't get exactly the kind of oil on the food that I wanted, or it was a little too hot or a little too cold, or the cooks are always putting too much salt, or my place isn't as comfortable as someone else's place.

It's a mental complaining about the state of your life. And it's just a habit. It's just a bad habit.

Other people are going through much worse things and they're happy. And they're not in the habit of complaining about it. Okay, so that's depa chungwa.

Then chok shepa, what's chok shepa? See, yeah, whatever you do get, you feel a deep sense of enjoyment of it. Okay, you know, somebody cooked me a veggie burger today, you know, and somebody drove it from the store, and somebody made it in some factory, you know, with their hands, with their life, which used up an hour of their life.

There's a whole chain of people who have sacrificed hours of their life to get this veggie burger here for me. So it's a little undercooked. Which are you going to think about?

You know, that it's a little undercooked, or that 20 people have sacrificed irreplaceable hours of their life to get that veggie burger in front of you. It's just a choice, right? Both are true, it is undercooked.

But it also used up 20 hours of human people's lives that are irreplaceable to them. So what should you think about? You could think about either one.

You could be constantly unhappy with what you have, or you could be constantly happy with all the work that people did to give it to you, okay? And that's better for meditation, okay? The second state of mind is better for meditation.

So, THOB PA'I YUL LA GNAS PA, GAL PA BYUNG BA CHOG BSHAD PA Then what was the next one? BDUN ZHIG SOGS NAM STOB PA MA Give up busy mind, busy mind. Don't be too busy.

Don't take on too much stuff. Don't have too much stuff on your plate. It hurts your meditation.

Have enough stuff on your plate to keep your mind fresh and, what do they call it? Stimulated, in a healthy way. But don't overdo, which makes you scattered, okay?

It's the difference between stimulated and scattered. Learn to draw the line between stimulated and scattered. A person who's not doing anything at all gets dull.

A person who's doing a good job at a limited number of tasks for them is stimulated. And then, if you're overwhelmed with two things, or 23 things, you should cut down, okay? That's number four, right?

What was number five? No, it's not, because BDUN PA CHOG and CHOG BSHAD PA are two separate ones, okay? Stay in a conducive place.

Don't want too much stuff. Be happy with what you have and enjoy it is number three. Number four was avoid busy, don't be overwhelmed, okay?

Don't try to do too much stuff. But number five is the most important one, and it's the answer to Peter's question. Okay, I'm getting there.

All right, this is a get you thing, you know? Keep your morality, okay? Like, don't hurt other people.

Basically, don't hurt other people, that's all. Don't hurt anybody, okay? Be nice to everybody.

And that's the most important quality. That's the most important prerequisite for meditation. Why did I bring it up in conjunction with Peter's no?

Every distraction you ever have in meditation is a ripening of a past karma, period. Okay, you wanna stop all the problems of your meditation, that's it, you know? It all goes back to how you're treating other people.

If a thought about lunch pops up in your mind during your meditation, it had a cause, and it was that you distracted somebody else. Like you overworked somebody else, or you pressed somebody else, they were busy, they were doing something, you came in uninterrupted them, you know? And then you have the karma of interrupting somebody who's trying to focus or concentrate on something is coming back to you as a distraction in your meditation.

So that right there is the crucial thing. You can't stop the interruption consciously. We've been talking about all these antidotes, they don't work.

They are aspirants. They are aspirants, okay? Go to the source of the interruption, which is hurting other people, disturbing other people, something negative done to another person.

Every distraction you ever got, all the dullness that ever overwhelmed you, the lack of intensity, the lack of love. What's a karma for lack of love? No, you haven't made other people's lives intensely interesting or intensely pleasurable.

You've been satisfied to let the people around you be or feel, you don't try to make them feel inspired or deeply interested or passionate. It's okay with you if they're just dull all day and you don't make any attempt to brighten up their life or make their life more interesting or challenge them or inspire them or get them turned on and then you're overcome by this lack of being turned on. Okay, turn on other people, you will be turned on.

And it's fun, right? So consciously, if you want to have nine, you have to turn on other people's lives. Make people's lives interesting to them.

Do what you can to brighten up another person's day. We went by the gas truck guy. He was putting his chains on his truck.

We sat and talked with him. He seemed to be happy that someone was interested in him. And it was like a 10-second interchange.

And then you'll have some gnar three days later in your meditation and you don't know where it came from. Okay, so number five. So why did I get to that?

You got to help somebody who has a nose problem. You know, like find somebody who has some kind of pain and help them. And then that meditation obstacle will go away.

So I did get to his question, right? But we might as well do number six while we're here. Which was?

Yeah. Yeah. DUSO NAMDOG PONG.

[Говорящий 2] (1:02:58 - 1:02:58)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (1:02:59 - 1:03:01)
Which means, DU CHAGSO NAMDOG PONG. Which means what?

[Говорящий 2] (1:03:02 - 1:03:06)
Getting rid of useless thoughts.

[Говорящий 1] (1:03:07 - 1:04:42)
Yeah, I would say random thoughts. The example that's given in scripture is DU CHAGS, which has lots of meanings, but I would almost take it as, you could take it as thoughts about sex or something. You can read it that way.

But it's not just sex. It's just random thoughts about stuff you want. Or it's more like fixations or, what do you call those?

Obsessions like that. You know, some people got to think about cigarettes or some people got to think about girls or some people got to think about certain songs or, you know, NAMDOG means useless thought. Useless random thought that passes through your mind regularly.

That's the definition of NAMDOG. KALPANA in Sanskrit. Or VIKALPA.

Useless random obsessive thoughts. Which is normally sex or food, okay? Or fame.

Say again? You could say that also. You could say, the study of useless things.

Yeah, distracting pursuits. Okay, who else had, are we supposed to stop? Yeah, technically we're supposed to stop.

I want to hear, can we do mine? I want to hear a few more people's typical distractions.

[Говорящий 2] (1:04:43 - 1:04:45)
They're all going to be the same. Isn't the answer to everything going to be the same?

[Говорящий 1] (1:04:46 - 1:04:52)
The answer to everything is the same. You're right.

[Говорящий 2] (1:04:52 - 1:04:55)
No, you're right. Let's prove it.

[Говорящий 1] (1:04:56 - 1:06:34)
Go ahead. My attention starts strongly and tapers off until the point where I start wanting to fall asleep. And I go, oh, I'll pick up and I'm still like.

Yeah. Okay, I'll give you a very cool thing. She said, she starts out with a strong attention and then it degrades.

And then there's, until it gets to almost sleepy. Try to conceive of the gradual degrading of your attention as the attenuation of a karmic seed. Okay, so the seed broke open when you started the meditation and then its effects started to dwindle.

And then it stopped, like in the way that a tree dies over the course of 30, 40 years. But with you, it's happening in three minutes. You see what I mean?

No, seriously, because it's a thought. It's an attention span. The reason attention spans diminish is because a karmic seed is wearing out.

In the moment, you're watching attention go like that and there's a parallel lessening of the power of the seed which opened over here. The seed opened at the beginning of the meditation. It gave its effect and by giving its effect, it died.

So that's natural with all composed things, right? All produced things. The Buddha said that, right?

So what would you do about it?

[Говорящий 2] (1:06:36 - 1:06:39)
Other seeds should like that.

[Говорящий 1] (1:06:39 - 1:07:43)
Yeah, you'd like to have other seeds come up, be there to, it'd be nice if a seed went off for attention. The attention started to degrade and within a millisecond, another seed went off and kind of, what do you call it? Propped it up and seeds kept going off to prop it up.

You would have to collect multiple seeds for attention which again, in my mind, one example of that seed would be not interrupting others who are trying to focus. And that could be at the store, you know? Like the teller is taking care of somebody else and you want to know where the popcorn is, which shelf is the popcorn on and this person is trying to focus on the cash register and you're like bugging them about popcorn and there's somebody else waiting for them and then you've disturbed someone else's attention.

So think about that. Maybe one more, yeah, Nancy? Because of the magical quality of the light, all of a sudden I thought of The Little Prince.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (1:07:43 - 1:07:46)
And I was like, was off the entire time.

[Говорящий 1] (1:07:46 - 1:11:10)
Yeah, good. You have Little Prince movie going on. So she said because the light was so magical then she started to think of Little Prince.

I started to think of Christmas trees and gifts under the tree and then the last gift I opened and then it was pretty cool. So I want to raise one more suggestion for meditation. When you get good at meditating and you get to a certain stage of meditation, it becomes a very productive pursuit to trace back a distraction to its source.

So I'm on opening my Christmas gift. Why? Because I was thinking of gifts under the tree.

Why? What thought came before that? I thought of a Christmas tree.

Why? I was thinking of the glowy lights on the tree. Why?

Because the sunlight coming into the window was glowy. Okay, so when you get really good at meditation, when you get, I think it's close to sattva. I think it's close to mastery in journal, in the path of preparation, which is a very important state to reach, right?

I think it's close to that, but you start being able, or you start taking an interest in the chain of thoughts that brought you here off your object. Okay, so try that as a, I'm giving you a really important meditation exercise, that you won't find in a book. It's that when you're close to seeing emptiness, you can trace thoughts back quite far.

Weeks, months, okay? It's very interesting, okay? So try that.

Maybe it's a kind of semi-clairvoyance or something, but you can do it grunt work. You know, you don't have to skip to three weeks ago, the thought that brought on today's thought. You can work back grunt work.

You may say, okay, what was the thought just a minute before that? Oh, it was Christmas tree. What came up just before, what triggered the Christmas tree?

Christmas lights. What triggered the Christmas lights? The glow of the sunlight, okay?

And then do that as an exercise sometimes. Grab your distraction and trace it back, and it will strengthen your meditative capacity. It's a very powerful tool.

It's a distraction during meditation. But you can mentally call a stop to the meditation. Honestly, you can do that.

You can say, okay, I'm done with the room, and now I'm going to trace that thought back before I get up, before I open my eyes. That's legal. As long as it's very conscious.

You can use it to get back to the object? You can, yeah. And then you can go back to the object and stay on the object somewhere.

That's a cool trick. That's one of those, what do you call it? Elliptical orbits back to the object, rather than tug of war.

All right. Okay. When you're enjoying Nara and the beauty, like enjoying the ride, is it considered a distraction if we try to find more reasons why we're enjoying it so much?

Yeah.

[Говорящий 2] (1:11:10 - 1:11:11)
To keep it up there?

[Говорящий 1] (1:11:12 - 1:11:13)
Yeah, it is a distraction.

[Говорящий 2] (1:11:15 - 1:11:15)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (1:11:20 - 1:13:48)
But I will say that you can declare it a progression of the meditation. That I'm going to progress now into a state of, when you get to tantra, it would be a state of bliss. So I'm purposely going to crank this up.

What I want you to try to feel, Nara, when I'm saying Nara, try to feel a sense of well-being and contentment that is characterized by the willingness to stay there. Okay? So you feel well-being and you feel contentment and you feel almost a joy in the meditation that inspires you to want to stay there.

And so you're surrendering into the meditation. Because the big problem in meditation is that a new karmic seed opens and you think of something else. So you have to fight those, right?

And again, I repeat something from this afternoon or this morning, was it? A person who has good Nara or meditative contentment to stay in that place with that object will also be able to stay in a room quietly for five, 10, 20 minutes and not be hyper. You know, they don't need to get up and do five things.

And they're not dull either. Okay? They're not like watching TV and they're not lounging around on the couch.

They are sitting straight up in a chair. They are fully aware. They are engaged and they're not doing anything.

You know, they're just content with the place. They're be here now thing, right? I like that.

I wish I had invented that. I mean, it sounds really hippy, but it's really true. You know, just be here now and not this compulsion to do more stuff.

You know? That a person who has that ability to be here now without feeling a compulsion to do more stuff at the moment and just enjoy five minutes. It's okay to eat a cookie, but eat it slowly and enjoy it, you know?

And then that's a sign of a good meditation practice. A person who's meditating well enjoys things more because they take time. Because they're not like all the hyper, they got to move on to something else right away.

[Говорящий 2] (1:13:48 - 1:13:48)
Okay?

[Говорящий 1] (1:13:48 - 1:16:04)
That's a sign that your meditation is pretty good. All right, you got to move on to dinner. By the way, the way we'll conduct these things later is I'll blah, blah.

I'll ask you questions and maybe people will write, they'll write down something and they'll give it to me and we'll go like that, okay? So after dinner, you're going to stop talking. You know, in the three-year retreat, the last three-year retreat, it got kind of out of hand.

I won't say who, okay? It wasn't me. But it was like, it was like this, you know?

And that was supposed to be silence, you know? And then the other person would go. And then they'd say, and then there'd be this, for some reason, whispering in it was okay.

And then, the Phugeshi Michael's problem was that whistling rock and roll songs was technically not talking. So, silence means silence. You can, you know, try to keep real silence.

Try not to, what do they call it? Tauricize it, or Quranicize it, or whatever, Vinaya-cize it? There's these Vinaya rules that, you know, technically I didn't break it because, you know, I was sneezing at the same time.

And... How about we say, when you leave the cafeteria? Because I feel it's fun to bond with people in the cafeteria.

Dinner will end at, you got to be back here at, 7.45. So, let's say when you leave the cafeteria. So, you know, if you're really desperate to talk, you can stand in the cafeteria until 7.44. And... Yeah, I changed it.

I forgot what I said.