«Дар освобождения», курс 2 «Прорыв к высшей реальности», занятие 9

[Говорящий 2] (0:01 - 6:55)
Then we'll meditate, watch your breath, and come to the golden room, like liquid gold, spread all over the objects of the world. Look out the window, see the sky, blue sky, endless blue sky. Look at the mountains, valley between you and the mountains.

Ask your teacher to come, sit with you. Then just focus on their presence in the room.

[Говорящий 1] (7:05 - 7:15)
Try to cut through to this feeling of happiness or satisfaction or peace that they're there.

[Говорящий 2] (7:20 - 7:27)
Then that will take you to love, and you skip the agitation and dullness.

[Говорящий 1] (7:59 - 8:08)
It's a kind of contentment or peace that they're there, a feeling that you don't need to do anything else or go anywhere else or think of anything else.

[Говорящий 2] (8:09 - 11:22)
Try to go straight to the Nar. Come back to the Nar, a sense of contentment and well-being in their presence. There's no place else you'd rather be.

Slowly come back to this room. Then open your eyes again. All right.

[Говорящий 1] (11:25 - 19:09)
There's a question here from last night. It's kind of sneaky, but let's just knock it out. If you're looking at the pen and you're seeing it as a...

We call it reasonably as a pen. What's the Sanskrit? You can't say anything.

Sanskrit word for reasonably is pramana. So, you know, correctly, or we should rather say reasonably, you are seeing a pen. And then if you're not in the Arya or higher, some part of your perception is infected by seeing that as though the pen-ness were coming from the pen.

The pen-ness is really coming from you. And the question that the person asked was, how can you be having two perceptions at the same time? What's the classical answer to all such questions?

Yeah, the toggle thing. So the mind is having 65 mini-perceptions per second, and it's toggling between the two. And it's correct that you can't really be having two perceptions at the same millisecond.

It's not possible. So they're not technically mixed like water and milk, are they? That was their point.

Get out your posters and try to crumple as much as you can. Everybody who intends to pass on this lineage should have a poster open in front of them and be making notes. If you're at Sara and Geshe Thutorenchen sees you without an open notebook, you'll get a rosary under him.

He even checks to see what you wrote. So we're going to review. Let's talk about the levels we've gone through so far.

Sam Jogpa was... You can't say anything. Anyway, Sam Jogpa is where the mind...

You're supposed to pretend that you're saying, Oh, the mind... You're just starting on your meditation. And that's achieved through...

He went like that. Learning. Hearing about how to meditate from your teacher.

Then we have... Where is number two? Gyindu Jogpa.

Oh, this was the fly on the cow pie, right? Gyindu Jogpa is the flies having a conversation on the cow pie. Some continuity.

Number three was Lendu Jogpa, which means patches of distraction off the object, as opposed to patches on the object. So when they call it paths like meditation, I think it's a problem. That was thirteen.

And now we could go over to sixteen, which is called Nyerur Jogpa. Pabongka Rinpoche describes it as the mind is tightly on the object. And from this number sixteen, from this point on, you cannot lose the object.

But you can still have very noticeable dullness and agitation. That's sixteen. If you use learning to get to the first one, what do you use to get to the second one?

It would be... Yes, she went like that. Sambitok, which means you start to think about what your teacher said to you at home.

Sambitok. And then the first two levels are achieved through some kind of very conscious effort. It has to be...

You have to sit down and crank your mind down, get it quiet. It takes like a few minutes. You just fight to even get there.

In the first two, as we said, staying on the object is less than off the object. And number three, we're more time on the object than off the object. And during the first four, you are developing your tenpa.

Tenpa means the ability to bring the object back, which is the chain in the monk's left hand. The chain in the left hand of the monk was the ability to bring yourself back to the object quickly. And by the fourth stage, that capacity is developed fully.

They say it's like a full-grown person. Like here, at this point, your ability to bring your mind back is like a child. And here it's like a teenager.

And then here it's like a... By level four, your ability to bring it back is like a full-grown adult. The elephant was your mind.

That color was dullness. The monkey was flying off the object. Not losing, but flying off the object.

And the blackness represented agitation, or going off to a desirable object. So all the monkey is all kinds of going off. The blackness was to a desirable object.

Then the yamaka... And then sheshin. Sheshin you have to develop.

Sheshin is... We call it watchfulness or guard mind or something like that. I think by today we should be in our meditations, we should be thinking about sheshin.

Sheshin means the alarm mind that goes off and says we're off the object. Or things are getting dull in here. Or you're starting to think about ice cream.

Something like that. Today I would suggest that during our meditations you try to get in touch with your sheshin. We all have a sheshin naturally.

Everybody has one. Sooner or later you notice that the pot is boiling, over boiling on the stove and stuff is pouring out. Rinpoche used to call me pot burner.

That was my second, or my fifth name. But I can't tell you some of them. Pot burner meant...

I just would be reading a book or something. I was supposed to be the cook, but I was like the worst cook. The thing would just be boiling over and burning and I'd be reading a book.

That's no sheshin. Sheshin should have detected that the water was getting near the top of the pot and then done something about it. I think we're ready to go to number five.

Let's see if there's anything between there.

[Говорящий 2] (19:14 - 19:23)
How about 17? 17, I think he's on the flame.

[Говорящий 1] (19:26 - 27:10)
I think he's referring to the flame. But that happens to represent a very strong, developed sheshin. So we're on the right track.

So 17 is a very strongly... That flame is a strongly developed capacity to catch yourself when you're wandering or getting dull or getting agitated. Then 18, they say, agitation is losing its power.

The monkey's head is becoming white. Going off to other objects that you enjoy, thinking about your plans for the future. Right below the number 18, the monkey's head is getting a little bit white.

Sorry, a rabbit, yeah. No. What was the rabbit?

Is that a bonus? Yeah, no. So I am talking about the monkey.

His head is getting a little bit white, which means agitation is getting better. Then we get up to number 19. Number 19, above, you can see a monkey grabbing a fruit.

Do you see him? He's to the left of number 19 on the chart. He's up in the fruit tree there.

Do you see him? Anybody doesn't see him? The text says he's reaching for a second fruit, which means a special kind of distraction where you are thinking about a virtuous object.

So that guy grabbing for a fruit is a special kind of distraction. Jesse Michael's next project. In other circumstances, that might be a good thing to do, to think of one more virtuous project.

But during a meditation, it's a bad thing to do. I don't know if it's a bad karma. I guess it would be a bad karma.

I don't know. But anyway, around this time you're supposed to be aware that you shouldn't do that, and that there are other kinds of distractions than thinking about lunch or thinking about the person who bugs you. So that's a third kind of distraction.

Section 20. The text says, watchfulness will not let the mind get distracted and uplifting your heart leads you to a state of one point of concentration. So we have to talk about uplifting.

Uplifting the heart. Oh, you can't say. Maybe you should cancel that.

No? During class? No.

It would be a virtuous distraction. Anyway, saṃtattva means... I learned the word because I told people recently when I got to the monastery I wanted to...

I had learned some Tibetan and I wanted to learn to speak well. And then Rinpoche had another student, Arne Engel, who was already speaking extremely fluently. So of course I was jealous.

And then I got there and I'm like, okay Rinpoche, you have to teach me... you have to teach me, you know, Tibetan. I want to talk like Arne, you know.

And then he said, no, no, you're not going to learn Tibetan. You have to speak English. And then I got more jealous.

And then he said, I have to learn English so you're going to be my English teacher. So you're not allowed to speak Tibetan in the house. So I'm okay.

Then when we used to have breakfast together, the three of us, I subscribed to a Tibetan newspaper and I just ignored them. And I just read the newspaper to learn how to speak in my head, you know. So anyway, Sanktipa, I read in the newspaper, was where somebody got an award.

Like the president gave some award to somebody. That was called Sanktipa. That's how I learned the word.

Then in meditation, it means... the tipa part means to praise, right? Like it means to praise somebody and give them an award.

So Sanktipa means you praise yourself. You think of good things about yourself and your life. So when your mind is feeling down, when the level of the mind is down, when you feel some kind of dullness in the mind, then Sanktipa means uplift your mind.

With... And we talked about it. You can say, you know, I'm one in a million person who made it here.

I must have some good karma if I'm here at Friendly Pines praising my arse. And you know, you should think that you're a lucky person, you know. And sometimes here you can do a thankfulness meditation.

That's a very, very powerful meditation for uplifting your mind. So you just start making a list of all the people in your life that you would like to thank. And in that...

Once you start, that list will proliferate. You can't... You can't come to the end of all the people that you need to thank in your life.

You would never finish the list. And it's an extremely pleasant meditation. So you just go through...

It's called a Sargam, right? It's a list meditation. And you just go through and you think of all the people you have to thank in your life.

And at the beginning, it's a stutter of steps. You're like, let me think. And then later, as you do it more and more, they just pile up.

People pile up. The trick is that you cannot be thankful to someone for anything unless it's something good about yourself. You see?

If you think about it, if you say, I thank my high school teachers, it's because you're happy about what they gave you. You wouldn't thank the teacher who didn't teach you anything. So the process of thanking...

You're recognizing something good about yourself. You thank... I don't know.

You thank your parents for giving you life. But you can't do that without thinking your life is somehow precious. So the exercise of thanking other people uplifts the mind.

And it's a self-award thing. Sanktipa. Okay?

So they're talking...

[Говорящий 2] (27:11 - 27:18)
Where was he? At level 20.

[Говорящий 1] (27:18 - 31:02)
At number 20. We are using Sanktipa more. And the monk is now actively using...

See, down here, well, he's got the gemba. He's pulling back the object quite strongly. The recollection, or the ability to bring the object back, is already well-developed.

Between 20 and 21. And what's he doing with his right hand? Oh, you can't answer.

His sheshin is really hooked in. His watchfulness of his mind is really hooked in, strong. Which brings us to 21, which is called dulwar chepa.

Those of you who know Tibetan, or some Tibetan, dulwar means vinaya. Dulwar means vinaya. Dulwar means to tame a wild thing.

So like when you tame a horse, when you break a horse, it's called dulwar, a wild horse. And the Tibetan word for a disciple, or a spiritual student, is dulja, the thing which is to be broken. All right?

Dulja. And then the monks, the order of monks and nuns, their code is called dulwar, the breaking code for breaking your own pride, breaking your own ignorance, breaking your bad habits. So anyway, they've chosen that word for number 21, which is meditation level number 5.

And it's called, we translate it there as controlling the mind. Controlling the mind. I want you to, we'll make a list of what's going on at that point, and then we'll do another brief meditation.

At this point, they say the mind is overly concentrated within. So the process of meditation is the process of focusing the mind inside. So it's pratyahara.

Normally the mind is radiating out from the core, and thinking and projecting and perceiving, right? And then the process of meditation is to turn the mind within and bring it inside. For example, in yoga, pratyahara means that.

It's one of the ashtanga. What is it? Yama niyama, asana, tanayama, pratyahara, jnana, dharana, samadhi.

Okay, so it's pratyahara means the ability to bring the mind in, focus the mind in. We normally do it automatically during sleep, okay? There's a natural pratyahara going on during sleep.

And the mind is withdrawn from the world. So pratyahara means withdraw the senses from the world and bring the mind in, okay? That's called nangti-dupa, that's the mind.

At number 21, you are overdoing it. Okay? At number 21, you are overdoing bringing the mind into that mind, okay?

[Говорящий 2] (31:12 - 31:14)
Which triggers cingwa-trama, which is what?

[Говорящий 1] (31:15 - 31:21)
Subtle dullness, okay? So, overdoing it triggers subtle dullness.

[Говорящий 2] (31:32 - 31:33)
What would be the fix for that?

[Говорящий 1] (31:33 - 34:49)
That's where they mention sankhyapa, okay? That's uplifting the mind somehow. But what did we just do during our meditation?

To cut over, to cut over dullness and agitation, we went straight to nar, okay? We went straight to the enjoyment factor. You know, like trying to take some pleasure or contentment in the object.

So you can do that, okay? If the mind is overly concentrated and you're feeling, in Tibetan they call it kudopo. Kudopo means the feeling you get when you walk down an alley which is too narrow, okay?

Like, I was in Morocco, in Marrakesh. And, you know, we were thinking maybe we'd get kidnapped if we weren't careful. And then we were going down these kudopo alleys, you know?

And then you feel a little bit, you know, you feel vulnerable in a way of, you're all closed in. You can't get anywhere. You can't escape if you had to escape.

That's kudopo. So, to release that or to let go of that, you can go straight to the pleasurable feeling or some kind of... Try to think about ngar as contentment, okay?

Like, you're willing to sit there because you're enjoying what's going on. And you don't have any... What do you call it?

You're not fidgeting. The fidgeting goes away because you're having a good time. And you're enjoying what's going on.

Okay, so combat fidgeting with some kind of feeling of contentment or well-being, okay? And then you go straight to ngar, okay? And that will release the kudopo of the mind.

That will release the narrow alleyway feeling of the mind, okay? And you'll feel more expansive. There's a big, big thing in meditation of trying to feel more expansive.

That's why we're doing the sky and the valley and all that. We'll have to do an exercise before we finish the week. And maybe you can work on it at home, okay?

But classically when they teach the nine levels to a student, they'll quiz the student, and they'll say, what distinguishes number two from number one? What's the difference? What has changed between number two and number one?

What has changed between number three and number two? So I'll give that to you as an assignment, okay? Try to think.

Try to be able to answer quickly. What's the difference between... For example, the difference between number two and number one is that you're still off the object most of the time, but less often, okay?

So I gave you the first one. And then you're going to have to go through all the other ones. In this case, I'll just give you the one for number five, and then we'll do some meditation.

But what differentiates number five from number four is that there is no longer any great... Sorry. There's no longer any gross, dullness, or agitation, okay?

[Говорящий 2] (34:50 - 34:57)
The elephant is half white. The monkey is mostly white.

[Говорящий 1] (34:59 - 35:28)
Even the rabbit is half white, okay? So no gross agitation or dullness after that, okay? He said gross, right?

Which is why there's still some black on those critters. Okay, let's do some meditation. I don't know if you noticed, but we're up to 10 or 15 minutes of high quality, and you didn't notice that the time increased.

[Говорящий 2] (35:41 - 37:04)
Watch your breath. There's nothing in the world except your breath. Come to the golden room.

[Говорящий 1] (37:43 - 37:53)
Try to jump to that enjoyment of the color of the room. The feeling, the warm feeling in the color of the room. If you have enjoyment, you won't be distracted.

[Говорящий 2] (37:54 - 41:19)
You won't feel dull. Look out the window at the sky, blue sky, expansive blue sky. Look at the mountains, the valley, and come back to the golden room and ask your teacher to please sit in front of you.

[Говорящий 1] (41:28 - 41:34)
Feel their eyes on your eyes, and feel the love between you in the gaze.

[Говорящий 2] (41:37 - 42:06)
Stay on their eyes. Try to get in touch with your session.

[Говорящий 1] (42:07 - 42:24)
Try to get in touch with the corner of your mind, which is watching whether the scene is getting dull or whether you're thinking about lunch, or even subtle agitation, which means the feeling of being about to think about lunch.

[Говорящий 2] (43:11 - 43:32)
Try to get in touch with your session. Session is just detecting whether something's going wrong.

[Говорящий 1] (44:00 - 44:32)
Try now to observe the difference between session and jenpa, your watchfulness, which is detecting that something has gone wrong, and then your jenpa, or the capacity to pull yourself back to the object. Try to actually observe those two working in your own mind. Detecting that the mind has left the object, and then the conscious effort to bring the mind back to the object.

See if you can distinguish between those two states of mind within your own mind.

[Говорящий 2] (44:44 - 44:45)
They are almost instantaneous.

[Говорящий 1] (44:46 - 44:52)
It takes a lot of observation to locate them, to observe them.

[Говорящий 2] (45:57 - 47:18)
Now see if you can isolate the mental state of mind. See if you can isolate a sense of contentment or enjoyment on the object. Get to know these three friends.

Watchfulness, pulling the mind back, and a deep sense of contentment that would allow you to just stay there. Okay, good job. Feels really good.

Come back to this room and relax.

[Говорящий 1] (47:23 - 50:43)
It feels really, really good in the room. I haven't had a room like that for many years, I think. I think you're doing really well, so keep it up, okay?

I think the silence helps, but I think you're getting into this groove of being able to observe your own mind, the subtle moving of your own mind while you're in meditation. In meditation, it's this thing of a lot of people never observe their own mind during meditation, and then you want to get to where you can isolate those three guys. Oh, there went my sheshin.

My watchfulness just went off. And then, oh, I think the denpa is the fastest one, hopefully. But it just, the sheshin says, oh, we're off the object, and then suddenly you're on the object.

So try to catch the interim. Try to catch the mind going between the two, detecting that the mind is off and coming back, because it's so fast coming back that you can miss it. So try to detect the part of the mind that detects that you're off.

Try to detect the part of the mind that pulls you back. And then I think it's a pleasure to isolate the feeling of contentment or satisfaction. And I really encourage you to work on that one, okay?

Because that's nara, right? That brings intensity on the object. And it's so easy.

It's such a pleasant place to be. And then it cuts through the struggles not to be dull or agitated. It just cuts through them like, there's no struggle with dullness and agitation.

You don't start feeling sleepy, and you don't start thinking about lunch, because you're just having a good time where you are. So try to get in touch with the good time where you are state of mind, okay? And then I think your meditation will get really powerful.

And I think you've seen or you've felt, when you get home, it'll be better to start with tiny little meditation, five, six, seven minutes. And then slowly, with the nara, it will just get longer without struggle, you know? You won't have to say, oh, I have to stay for 23 minutes today or something like that.

You will come out of it, and the clock will be over there. And you're like, you know, you think you're seeing it wrong. And like a half hour has passed, and you weren't aware of anything.

It should be like that. It shouldn't be that you get home, and you say, I'm going to be a great meditator. I'm going to start with an hour.

And then you're just struggling, and your knees are hurting, and you're thinking about a thousand different things, and you're not happy at all. And you feel obligatory. You feel like, oh, Lama's told me I had to meditate.

I have to do it. It's not very fun, you know, like that. Okay?

Do it this way, small periods. Go straight to the nara, which means pick an object at the beginning that you like, that you would like to hang out with. Okay, we'll stop there.