Bok Jinpa 5

PLEASE ONLY READ THESE NOTES OR LISTEN TO THESE RECORDINGS IF YOU HAVE ASKED PERMISSION FROM LAMA SARAHNI TO ATTEND THIS COURSE OR OTHERWISE LISTEN TO THIS COURSE

Vocabulary

LAM DRIMA MEPA NGULDAM DAKPAY KOR The Pristine Path within an Egg of Silver (Nickname Silver Egg)

Pa Dampa Sangye (1100’s AD) Author of the Silver Egg

Milarepa famous Mahasiddi

DUKNGEL SHIGYE practice called putting your torment to rest

Machik Labdrong Yogini

CHÖD cutting practice

SAMAYA

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA (mantra of the Heart Sutra)

DO Sutra

KYE RIM Creation stage

DZOK RIM Completion stage

Mahamudra

Nagarjuna Garbha

Sherab Sangpo (sk. Prajna Bhadra)

Dharmakirti

TING NGE DZIN GYI TSOK Recipe for Deep Meditation 

(sk. Samadhi Sambhara Parivarta)

Lopon Jangchub Sangpo author of the Recipe (Indian)

(sk. Acharya Bodhibhadra 200 AD)

Welcome back, we are Bok Jinpa Course 5, formally. It's June 24th, 2026, where I am. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Opening

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you, gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way, feel how much you would like to be able to help them, recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever.

Deep down, we know this is possible, studying emptiness, independent origination, we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention and that intention into a determination.

And then we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to do yet, what we need to learn yet, to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way, just as our precious holy being can help us in that way. And so we ask them, please, please, please keep showing me, keep helping me, keep inspiring me, help me become like you. 

And they are so happy that we've asked, of course, they agree, our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise.

Here is the great earth, 

filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers. 

The great mountain, four lands, 

wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. 

In my mind, I make them a paradise of a Buddha

and offer it all to you. 

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

Idaṁ guru ratnamandalakaṁ niryatāmiyāmi.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, 

may we realize Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. 

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. 

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, 

may we realize Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. 

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, 

may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. 

Meditation 1: The Goodness That Brought Us Here

So sink your body down into a meditation posture and then bring your [attention to your] breath.

Fine-tune the focus, fine-tune the clarity, fine-tune the intensity.

Now intentionally shift your focus of that attention to my words and their instruction.

Through your life, find what you recall as the impulse that started you searching in this lifetime.

Recall what it was and the reaction at the time and those various circumstances that was your search for answers.

Scroll through those experiences of this life that has brought you to here now with your level of conviction to your personal path.

Recognize how it's helped you so far and think of how amazing it is that we are here now. Is it luck? Is it something other than luck? Is it from things we've done in this life?

Have we done enough goodness in this life to sustain receiving increasingly profound instruction from our holy guides?

We have extraordinary goodness to be here. How much more is in our pocket? Can we know?

How we respond to our studies influences the extent to which we are using up our goodness and replanting or not. We are riding an inexorable force that was put in motion by some past you. It's a force that we can use to cultivate our depth of meditation, our depth of study to the necessary levels to experience emptiness directly.

Having that experience with the heart imbued with bodhichitta makes us self-sufficient and unstoppable. And so let your mind stretch out big enough to encompass all the effort we've made in this life to pursue our path and then stretch it beyond this life into the past lives in which we were also planting seeds for our spiritual life. Letting all those experiences be recognized as all part of what make you up.

Now stretch that mind bigger to include what seems like into the future, into your destiny. A mind so vast, a being so vast, that it's standing on those billion planets. Being what all the beings on those planets need to take up and to give up effortlessly, pleasurably being that love, that compassion, that wisdom. 

Let's sit with that for just one minute. Past you’s, present you’s, future you's and dedicate these few moments of effort to that specific result–standing on those billion planets, shining your light like their sun.

And then return your awareness to the appearance of this body in this room, here in this class.

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. 

Pa Dampa Sangye’s History

Okay, so we're starting a new text of study still within the course series called Setting Our Practice on Fire offered to us by Lama Christie McNally. This course was offered to us in January / February of 2006. That seems like not so long ago, but oh my goodness, 20 years. Used to seem like a really long time and now it's like scary how fast.

[broken internet connection]

It's good now? Okay, so let's go back to share. Testing, testing. We're here. We're back. Okay, I don't know what I said. We're studying two texts by Lama Christie in her intention to push us in our meditative ability / effort and to help us understand emptiness and dependent origination better at the same time. And so she chose these two texts to study in order to accomplish that task. One of them is called The Pristine Path Within an Egg of Pure Silver. And the other one is called Recipe for Deep Meditation. And I don't know what her reasoning was for those two particular texts, but we see how sweetly they come together, even though their authors are from different time frames and have very different personalities. It becomes a sweet merging to help us.

So this class is learning about the main author we're studying from, from the Silver Egg, and about the title of the text, etc. And at the end, we'll just touch into Recipe for Deep Meditation, but we won't go into it until next week. And then each class will have some of each, mostly.

So The Pristine Path Within an Egg of Pure Silver in Tibetan is this LAM DRIMA MEPA NGULDAM DAKPAY KOR. I won't be referring to it as that anymore. It'll be Pristine Path, although its common nickname is a Silver Egg.

LAM DRIMA MEPA NGULDAM DAKPAY KOR

So LAM DRIMA means this pure path.

NGULDAM DAKPAY KOR is the within an egg of pure silver.

The NGULDAM is silver. I'm not sure what egg means, if it's KOR. But this text is called The Pristine Path well, paths, plural, Within an Egg of Pure Silver.

It was written by someone named Pa Dampa Sangye. We don't know his specific dates. He was in that period of Indian Buddhism of the 1100s AD. He is an Indian pundit who was invited to teach in China and invited to teach in Tibet. And that's why we're studying it is because his teachings in Tibet became very popular and useful. The information that Lama Christie shares with us here, like his biographical information, comes to us from a text called The Blue Annals, which is a big, thick book of the stories of many of the different high Lamas within the Tibetan tradition. And so a lot of people use it as the encyclopedia. Who was that person? Go look it up in Blue Annals.

So the 1100s was also the time of Milarepa. A little bit after the Kadampa's, but they're still going strong. So there is already a powerful surge of Buddhism in Tibet in this period of time, but sort of scattered and needing help, perhaps. So Pa Dampa Sangye, when he does travel to Tibet, he meets Milarepa. And they do some co-teaching and collaborating together. You know, I don't know if Milarepa was, I don't know how famous he became in his time, but he's definitely one of the famous mahasiddhis in this time. But after he went through all his activities with his holy Lama, he did gain this very powerful, positive reputation as a teacher in his own right. And we learn some of our Diamond Way from him as well.

So he keeps good company, Pa Dampa Sangye does, is why I'm telling you that. Okay, so let me just tell you about him. He was born in the south of India. And apparently, miraculous things happened before and at his birth. One of those miraculous happenings was that when he was born, he already had all his teeth, like poor mom, nursing a baby with all those teeth. But presumably, the little guy was kind about it. He was the seventh son, which means mom has had six boys already with no girls in between, and along comes another son. And everybody knows the seventh son in that context, six in a row, and then seven. Not just seventh child being a son, or even not just seventh son when I've got, you know, six boys and seven girls already, I get it. It has to be in a row, six boys in a row, the seventh one, whoa, he's something special. So the parents already are keyed into that and they have a prophecy done. And the prophecy confirms that this boy has these propensities, the auspiciousness for great spiritual powers, and to reach some spiritual greatness. So the parents are cultivating that and see that even as a young child, he's interested in the Dharma, he's interested in learning and studying. And so they facilitate it. And he gets ordained and even initiated into Diamond Way at a very early age.

He goes on to master the Sutra teachings. I don't know what that means to master them. But he learned, he studied, he practiced hard. And he really takes to meditation, apparently. And he decides at some point that he wants to meditate in all these sacred spots. And so they say that he spent seven years meditating in a certain cemetery in India, and that he would then move from there to some other sacred spot and stay there doing meditation practices. Now, whether he was in isolation and staying put or also taking or giving teachings, I don't know. But they say when his students counted up all the years he spent in meditating in sacred places, it came to 50 years or more. So not meaning he did a 50 year retreat and then came out and did all the rest of this stuff. But over the course of his life, 50 years in meditation retreat, that's pretty impressive.

The biography says at some point he reaches the highest state of meditation, which Lamas say is code for seeing emptiness directly. Somewhere in all this process of his training, he starts ordaining people and initiating people. He's still in India all this time. And then he gets invited to go to China to teach. And he goes and he stays there 12 years. And then he's invited to Tibet and he goes between Tibet and India. And I'm not so clear how many times, but back to China. And part of that auspiciousness of seventh child is having these power siddhis that we know of as being the result of deep concentration, we will attain these different powers. And they seem like miraculous powers, but they simply have to do with the ability to concentrate and the understanding of the true nature of things. So apparently his particular special powers was this ability to disappear. And the ability to, they call it travel fast. But I don't think it meant that people would see him, he'd be going [running quickly], but they would say, you know, he was here in the town and I took a teaching from him and then all of a sudden he's not here anymore. And I don't know, we get a message. How long does it take to get a message from China to Tibet? I don't know. We get a message he's been in China for the last month or so. And it's like, wait, he was here two months ago. How can he… it takes weeks to get to China. Do you see? And so it wasn't like people saw him do this [move]. But when they put two and two together, it's, oh my gosh, he just disappears here and shows up over there. Cool, wouldn’t it? Oh my gosh, how much time and expense that would save.

His other gift was knowing his disciples' minds, meaning he knew like when they have a problem, he knows the problem, the ins and outs of it, and he knows the karmic cause and he knows the specific purification that's necessary. And so when somebody would come to him for help, like they wouldn't even necessarily have to tell him the whole story of this is what's going on with me. He'd go, “yeah, yeah. Okay. This is what you're experiencing. This is why. And this is what you have to do”. So the most famous story in this regard is around the woman named Machik Labdröng. She is the, probably the most famous lady Lama, Tibetan lady Lama. But before she was famous in that way, she is a practitioner. She has a Lama who is her spiritual partner and that Lama dies and she gets terribly, terribly afflicted. And she starts having all these awful calamities about her body, about her mind, about her situation. And she hears about this guy, Pa Dampa Sangye, that seems to be gifted in helping people know how to purify stuff. So she searches him out and just is saying, you know, I've come for your help, I'm having problems. And he goes, okay, I know, I know. And he tells her like the very issues that she's having, she's didn't even tell him. He goes, you're having this because of that and this is what you need to do. He says, the bottom line is every problem you're having right now has to do with your broken pledges to your root Lama. So he says, you know, that white discharge, vaginal discharge, that you're having, that's from having taken tantric students without expressed permission. He says, your body all covered with those sores was from taking food offerings and associating with people who had broken their vows. The fact that your state of well-being is gone is from being jealous of your Lama's other students. And in particular [broken internet  connection] and that's from breaking your samaya. There goes my internet.

[broken internet connection]

Okay, I'm going to try again. Must be important. Whoops. Must be important class, eh? Hello. Are we back? Can you hear me?

[Coco: We're back in all forms.]

That's a scary thought. 

[Rachana: Can I mention the last thing we heard was, I can't remember what the manifestation was, but she was jealous of other students. And that's the last thing we heard.]

Okay. She was jealous of other students, particularly the Lama's consort. And then even animals refuse her offerings and that is because of breaking her samaya. Samaya means pledge. So these pledges that we get, if we don't keep them well, the result will be, for her anyway, even animals wouldn't eat the offerings that she put out. He said, your failed fire pujas were from sitting on your Lama's seat, probably without permission. A failed fire puja means a fire puja where the fire keeps going out. He said, your being overwhelmed by base desires comes from not having made an offering to your Lama when he gave you initiation. And then the fact that the dakinis refuse to invite you to their parties is because of your improper partaking of tsok offerings.

So he says, here's what you need to do to purify all of this. You need to go find a king's mat. I don't know what that means. A king's mat and offer it to me, Pa Dampa Sange. And then offer the mat to yourself as the consort of your Lama. Number one.

Number two, find a relic of the Buddha and circumambulate it.

Number three, do a ritual bathing.

Number four, find a footprint of your root Lama and offer seven dakinis to it.

Eight, place an egg in your vagina and leave it there.

And nine, get a leg of lamb and a glass of wine and offer it to the assembly. Meaning the monk sangha. 

So she somehow gets a king's mat and she makes the offering. She finds the relic. She manages to do all of these things, including getting this one small leg of lamb and one glass of wine. And she goes before the sangha of monks and it is like, this isn't going to be nearly enough. And yet it was. And there were even leftovers.

So she goes to him and says, I've done all of this. And he says, well, do you remember the temple you built in Lhasa? And she's like, I built a temple in Lhasa? And he goes, Oh, so the dakini is a liar. And he hauls off and slaps her so hard that she passes out. And when she comes to, she can remember her past lives. “Oh, yeah, I guess I did build a temple in Lhasa”, some past life. And he goes, okay, take that egg out. And she removes the thing. And it's all awful with black gooey awful stuff. And he says, done. All that black goo is all those impurities fixed. And she says to stay pure, keep making offerings to your Lama, and take care of his students well. So she's cured of all those things that were distressing her. And she goes on to spread this lineage of practices that he was teaching, which is the lineage called DUKNGEL SHIGYE. DUKNGEL SHIGYE means putting your torment to rest. So he's teaching this practice. She also is teaching this practice. And he also taught her the CHÖD practice, the cutting practice, which became her specialty. And that's really what she's known for in the Tibetan arena is this practice of CHÖD. It's like CH, umlaut O, D, you don't hear the D. It's just that short CHÖD, CHÖD, CHÖD. And it means like cut, cut. But I don't, I don't have any, I don't know what that practice is. It has to do with cutting off mental afflictions, cutting off, right? Cutting, cutting away. I don't know anything more about it than that, however.

So this putting our torment to rest lineage of practices, DUKNGEL SHIGYE, it's actually based upon the Heart Sutra. And in particular, based upon the mantra of the Heart Sutra. 

The GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

And what that mantra means and entails and cultivates as we use it, right? We understand “gone, gone, gone across, gone all the way across, Buddhahood, so there, may it be so.” But when we dig deeper into the meaning of that, it just keeps unfolding itself, doesn't it? So it's like through that understanding of the Heart Sutra, he developed this practice of just, DUKNGEL SHIGYE is like, okay, I've had enough of it, just I'm washing my hands of my ignorance, it's done. Like I've tried, it doesn't work for me, but apparently… not because it can't work.

Our Text–The Pristine Path Within an Egg of Pure Silver

So one of the things that he did was write this book called The Pristine Path Within an Egg of Pure Silver. And this book is like single verses that are a synopsis of what certain teachers taught him. And it's 55 different teachers who’ve taught him something. And it's presented as these are his 55 teachers that he had in life. But when we see who the teachers are, it's like, wait, it spans a couple hundred years. And, you know, so I don't know if he's like Arya Nagarjuna, his life really did span a couple hundred years. Or if he's saying, my Lama was this, meaning I studied from this person's writings. And then you can develop this relationship with the author of that text through our meditation practice, such that in our own mind, our own experience, we really do know them, we really do interact with them. Somebody on the outside would say, oh, it's all in your imagination. And it's like, you know, you're welcome to think that; for me, it's very real.

So he had these different groups of Lamas that he's like making himself a cheat sheet - This is what this Lama taught me, this is what that one taught me. And they're very beautiful when we see the whole pattern. And they come to us in sets of 11. I don't know why, but it's my number that gives me a message.

1. So he quotes from 11 sutra Lamas when he's learning his open teachings, his open practices. 

2. And then he gives us the teachings that he received from 11 KYE RIM and DZOK RIM Lamas, meaning Diamond Way. KYE RIM is the creation stage. DZOK RIM is the completion stage. Sometimes you see DZOK RIM spelled with a G instead of a K. It's just meant to make the word short, DZOK. So we get 11 different teachings about these two practices.

3. Then his third section is 11 Lamas teaching him what's called deep practice. Deep practice means using the practice of bliss as a path. And we'll get to what that means later.

4. The fourth section is 11 Lamas that are describing the paths he himself followed in his life, in which he spent a lot of time investigating his own nature of his own mind, Mahamudra. 

5. Then his fifth part, the last 11, are all Lady Lamas, which is interesting because it's not like at the end of his life, his last 11 teachings that he got were by women. It's not like that. These aren't sequential, but he's taken them by category and put them all together. And when we see the names of the Tibetan teachers, you apparently really can't tell the difference between a male name and a female's name. So you maybe wouldn't know that such and such a teacher was a woman versus a man, unless there was something in the teaching itself that revealed that. And not every dharma teacher's biography has been written and put into The Blue Annals. So there are some even authors of texts that we don't really even know who they are necessarily. But at some point, Lama Christie suggests that because he lists specifically, These are my lady Lamas, that he wants to show that somewhere along the way of a practitioner's practice, the need for the feminine aspect, the feminine contact comes up. And we'll see how that plays out to a certain extent in this course. And then a little more specifically in Bok Jinpa course 6. 

However, this course, Bok Jinpa 5, Lama Christie was given permission to teach this to those in the Diamond Way and those still on the shared path. So meaning this Bok Jinpa 5 can be taught openly, even though there's parts in it that is like, should this really be being said? It's because those who will be attracted to this teaching are properly prepared. And of course, the task of the teacher in sharing a class like this is to at least know enough about the student to know that they are properly prepared in order to protect them from misunderstanding and then slowing down their path later. But then when course 6 and actually 8 comes along, Lama Christie said, only Tantrikas, so sorry. So I'm going to do the same thing. So we'll only cover part of Pa Dampa Sange. We'll end up covering all of Deep Recipe for Meditation somehow. But there are certain of these Bok Jinpa courses that I can't share unless you are also my tantric students. So sorry about that.

Opening of the Book

So let me change share. So at the end of our course, some of our co-students had created a little spiral bound book of these 55 verses of Pa Dampa Sangye.

And it's so very nice to have it in hard copy for me in this sweet format. So Lama Sumati scanned it for me so that we have it. And then actually Rachana went ahead and also has developed the file for publishing it so it could be available in hard copy. Because we looked for the original one, and the people who made it, I guess, don't have access to it anymore. So thank you Rachana for doing that. See where that can go.

So if you read Tibetan, here is Pristine Path on the Egg of Pure Silver. Seems like there's an extra word here [in Tibetan], I don't know what it means. But we can see the LAM DRIME. Anyway, I'm going to leave it, that's not my forte… by Master Pa Dampa Sangye.

He says, this book is 

the personal advices of fifty-five accomplished yogis and yoginis, which were granted by that highest protector of suffering beings, that prince among men, the one who gave birth to the great stream of wisdom - the supreme path of seeing.

These advices have been organized into five different groups of teachings and passed down by him to Lama Bodhisattva Ananda.

So he has started out by saying, I bow down to my holy Lamas. All of these different beings.

So this is the format. You have the Tibetan and Lama Christie's translation. And then at the bottom, who that advice came from.

So he starts his book so beautifully. ‘Once you are certain’. Oh, wait, it's time for a break. Let's take a break.

[break]

Verse 1–The advice of Nagarjuna Garbha

Okay, so verse number one.

[1]

Once you are certain that

In essence

All known things comprise two truths

The mind which grasps

To things as two 

Is lost within itself

And then you know

That no existing thing

Exists in truth–

This is 

The advice of

Nagarjuna Garbha.

So the first Lama he quotes from is… or not quotes from, he summarizes what he learned from them, is Arya Nagarjuna. I like this guy. He's talking my language here. And the verse is so rich. So we know, what's the two truths? Deceptive truth and ultimate truth.

What do we mean by deceptive truth? Things look like their identities, their qualities, are in them so it looks like things are coming at me from outside me. That's deceptive reality. Ultimately, they're not existing like that, they are existing as not having those natures in-them from-them. 

Then we can say, well, then really the two truths, you know, they're not truths at all, because one of them is not true. Seems like it is because that's how we experience it, but things don't exist like that. Not like they used to and now they don't, but they never did. so I can see why they call it deceptive reality. But as we understand even more about what we're talking about, the concept we're talking about in the two truths, it's not just that the thing appears with a self-nature but doesn't have a self-nature, it's the appearingness at all comprises one side of experience. And the fact that it appears at all the way it does to me is proof that it has no nature of its own. And it's like, wait, how's that proof? And we need to work our way through that every single time. 

The very appearance of something can only appear if our mind seeds are ripening its appearance. And by appearing the way I experience it, that reveals that it has no nature of its own, because it depended on mind seeds ripening to make it be there. So we start out with, oh, things are appearing, but not self-existently. But our mind says, well, come on, they're still there in some way.  And they are. But as we are working with this simple, very first verse, it's like, well, we can go deeper in what's meant by the two truths. And at different deeper levels, we are like shrinking that gap between an appearing thing and its emptiness as being these two separate aspects, and reaching the point where to see one is to know the other. And that's when the mind that grasps to things as two is lost within itself is starting to pop up. 

You're getting to the point where, at least in meditation, we can recognize that, no, there's no such thing as two separate things, appearance and emptiness. There's both happening at the same time.

Then you know that no existing thing exists in truth. No existing thing exists at all? No, that's not what it's saying. No existing thing exists that's not this appearance pushed by my karmic seeds ripening and nothing but that – those two together. So it's like that is an extraordinary synopsis of what Arya Nagarjuna taught in his root text Wisdom. If you had to boil it all down to one verse, this would be it. 

And then apparently in the Tibetan, between these series of verses, he's using words that have multiple meanings in the Tibetan, that just isn't translatable into the English. And because we don't know the Tibetan, we miss these nuances of what the Tibetan can reveal if we know how to follow that path. Some of it is poking fun, some of it is like puns. But mostly it's these very nuanced concepts like the taking the two truths from deceptive reality and ultimate reality to just appearances and their no self-nature to what even gets more subtle than that that's kind of not able to verbalize, in order to reach this state of recognizing emptiness in appearances and appearances in emptiness. Because you can't have the emptiness of something without a thing that is empty of self-nature, right?

Okay, they say when you reach this subject and object not having this distinction anymore, it's dissolving into non-duality. But then we misunderstand the word non-duality and think, oh, everything becomes one. And when we learn how to investigate whether everything can become one, we recognize, no, we're misunderstanding that because that's impossible for there to be one without some other to perceive it as one. And then, whoops, it's not one anymore.

So amazing Nagarjuna showing us there's no subject without an object, there's no object without a subject, if we bother to investigate that verse.

Verse 2–The advice of Prajna Bhadra

[2]

When you can

Unify the taste 

Of myriad objects

The state of mind 

Which grasps to two 

Is devoured by itself

And then you'll know 

These many things 

Are but a single song–

This is

The advice of

Prajna Bhadra.

Prajna Bhadra’s Tibetan name is Sherab Sangpo. And that didn't mean anything to me for a long time. But now I recognize that Sherab Sangpo is in one of the lists of lineage Lamas in one of my practices so all of a sudden, it's like, wait, maybe I could know who this is if I took the time.

So Lama Christie pointed out that this middle verse in both of these verses, the first one said, the mistaken mind gets lost within itself. The mind becomes lost within itself. And then this one says, the mind is devoured by itself. And then the third one's going to say, the mind frees itself. And again, in the Tibetan words, there's more meaning in that than maybe in the English. They're all saying the same thing - when we come to perceive something different than we used to and our perception is valid, then our mind changes in some way. But he's making the point that for the mind to be lost within itself, for the mind to be devoured by itself, and the mind that frees itself, have all different nuances of meaning of how our mind gets changed by the realization that he's talking about in these verses.

So when we unify the taste of myriad objects means when we come to recognize that no matter what object is appearing to us, it is appearing in the way that it is because it's the process of my seeds ripening to see it the way that I see it, and it has no nature other than that. There isn't any experience we can have that isn't experienced by way of that process. So everything we experience has the same taste, the same flavor, of seeming like it comes from its own side, but in fact, can only be ripening results of our own past behavior. Nothing that's not like that.

When we are grasping this fact that nothing we can experience is experienced in any other way than any other thing that we experience, by way of seeds and nothing else, that's the state of mind grasping to two that devours itself.

What's the two that it's not grasping to anymore? The self-existent object and the self-existent me, or the self-existent object and the self-existent response reaction I have to the object? It's really not just two, but it's this two of a thing and its emptiness, and the two of other and me, those two get devoured.

How? Just because I know every existing thing is ripening out of my seeds, how does that devour my belief in objects and subjects? Well, because I'm experiencing me, I'm one of those myriad objects. And that means I arise in this from the same process of everything else. And that's a hard one to devour. “No, no, I'm the one who's throwing the karma. I'm the one who's ripening the karma. I'm the one…” And then as we say that to ourselves, we're pretty convinced that we're outside the system. We're beyond the karma ripening because we're doing the ripening. We are the projector. But that's not possible, is it? And it's like Pac-Man [eating everything] and devours the belief in this me as separate from the process happening.

And then we know these many things are but a single song. So I don't know what's the difference between being of the same taste and being of a single song? That would be what one explores as one uses this verse as a meditation object to see.

So somebody apparently says, look, how can the mind devour itself? Like if our mind is deceived, how can we use a deceived mind to look at things and ever come up with something accurate? A knife can't cut itself. A faulty equipment can't make the thing it's supposed to make accurately because it's faulty. And the answer he gives is, no, you've got the wrong metaphor. That rather this is like taking a twig or a little branch, cutting it in two, and then rubbing it against each other until it lights on fire and then it burns it up. So somehow that metaphor explains what this verse is saying. And we end up with knowing these many things are but a single song. So have fun with that.

Verse 3–The advice of Dharmakirti

[3]

Use logic 

To establish

Existing things.

Then cancel 

The distinctions made 

By holding things as valid

And you will meet 

A mistaken state of mind 

That frees itself–

This is 

The advice of 

Dharmakirti.

Who's Dharmakirti? Master of logic, right? Of valid perception. What did we learn, some of us are studying Course 13 right now. What do we know about existing things? How do we establish existing things? That which is perceived by valid perception makes a thing exist.

But then cancel the distinctions made by holding things as valid. Wait a minute, right? We're using something as valid to prove something exists. And then we would then explore, well, what really means ‘valid’? Valid given the information we're getting? Yes. But the information I'm getting believes what I'm getting has its identity in it. So yes, it's valid to see the mice run across in front of my car and so I slam on the brake. And then the car stops and I look and it's like, oh, it was a leaf. Now it's validly a leaf. It was validly a mouse before. And our mind goes, oh, phew, it wasn't really a mouse because it's really a leaf. But is it really a leaf?

No. It's validly a leaf, but it's not really either a mouse or a leaf or a horse or a bicycle, right? It's correctly my seeds ripening whatever I'm perceiving at the moment.

So just because we're having valid perceptions proving that things exist does not mean we are experiencing those things true to the way that they do exist. Because the way they do exist is as seed ripening identities / indications forced by our karmic seeds to perceive them that way. Valid perception does not include that, necessarily. So we can have valid perceptions that are incorrect. Not can, we do. We can have invalid perceptions that are also incorrect. Like double incorrect, because they're incorrect because they're not valid and they're incorrect because we're still thinking of them as in-them from-them, and they're not that either. We're not having a correct state of mind until we're perceiving emptiness directly, they say.

But we can't recognize that things don't have the nature of their own that we think they do until we can establish what it is there that we think is there. So we do need to establish the things as existing that we're going to look to see if they exist in the way that we believe. Use logic to establish existing things. Then use logic to recognize that that validity isn't correct. And so in that process, we will meet a mistaken state of mind. Our belief that the thing's validity makes it real. And that very mistaken mind will go, “well, that's silly” for whatever logical reason you've got. Because somebody else perceives it differently from me, that right there is enough. But we all have the one liner that is our trigger that says, oh, yeah, can't be the way I think. Logic helps us do that. Apparently, Pa Dampa Sangye learned logic too. Hooray.

So Lama Christie said, well, we read these together the first time and we get an idea of what they mean. And then if you take them onto your cushion and work with them, they'll start revealing stuff. But probably not in a short week of working with three of them in a week. But if you decide at some point to either go in retreat or to settle on something that you really want to work on deeply, then you would take one of these verses and chew on it, contemplating wise, and sit with your aha and work with one verse until you got something out of it. Whether that was a few days or a few weeks or a few months. Any one of them can trigger a whole cascade of understanding. That's the beauty of all of these.

Meditation 2: Deceptive and Ultimate Reality

Okay, so let's do a second sit.

Settle your body.

Once your body is settled, bring your mind to your breath.

Now bring to mind what you know about the two truths.

What does deceptive mean? What does ultimate reality mean?

How is it that those two make up every experience?

What, in your immediate perception, belongs to each category? First find your immediate perceptions. Exactly what are you experiencing now?

Which reality are those perceptions?

Every instant of experience is deceptive reality, isn't it?

And we call it deceptive because every instant of experience is actually ripening results of past behavior. 

Our own past behavior, our past experiences.

So experiencing an object as separate from me is not true. That division, me and the object of my experience is false.

Me and my experience is all simply moments of ripenings. And so we experience self and things in the way that we do. But that is not the way that they are.

There's no such thing as a thing out there. There are only moments of experience ‘Me experiencing a thing out there’ seeds ripening that experience.

Zero in on one repeatedly experiencing sensation / perception, and try to find how it is there independent of your awareness of it there.

Can you catch recognizing it can't be there in the way I think. It can't be there as the thing I think it is. 

And sit in that conclusion with nothing more. Try. We'll stay two more minutes.

Check.

Nice.

Now dedicate this small effort to gaining the realizations through which you'll help someone else reach CHU CHOK, the perceiving the seeds ripening into the image someday.

And then bring your attention back to your body in the room, and in this class.

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

So our instruction was to use these three verses as our object of meditation for our daily practice between that class and the next one, which for our group was four or five days depending on where we were. And we get a whole week. So even if you aren't, you know, having a one-hour meditation practice, give yourself time to contemplate these three deeply, meaning undistracted by other things, think them through carefully. Chew on them. Talk to yourself about them. Come to some deeper conclusion about what you understand about them. Please try. We are planting unstoppable seeds, says Geshe Michael. And then we can leave them there as the kind of seeds that take hundreds of lifetimes before they go off, or we can add to them a little bit every day and they'll grow faster for us, is the promise. Okay.

Recipe for Deep Meditation

So the second text that we will be studying is a text called TING NGE DZIN GYI TSOK.

We know the word TING NGE DZIN, don't we? Single-pointed concentration. Stage what in the one to nine stage? I think it's eight, actually, maybe it's nine. Where we say, Mind, think of tennis ball. And the mind goes, Okay, tennis ball. And in order to get off tennis ball, you have to go, Okay, enough of tennis ball, go to racket? And it goes [immediately there], and it sits there. Like, how refreshing to have a mind that does that because we've said, do it. Mine doesn't. Unless whatever the thing it's on is interesting. Then, yeah. But we should be able to do that regardless of the interestingness of the object–that's reaching shamatha.

Anyway, TING NGE DZIN GYI TSOK. TSOK means to gather together. To gather together what we need to reach single-pointed concentration, technically, is what this text is about. Lama Christie liked Recipe for Deep Meditation because a recipe tells you what to gather together and gives you instructions on how to do it in order to come up with the thing that you want. So, this text is like that.

In Sanskrit, it's Samadhi Sambhara Parivarta. So that also somehow means what to gather together to reach deep meditation.

It was written by someone they call Lopon Jangchub Sangpo.

LOPON means master. JANGCHUB SANGPO means Buddha… What is Sangpo? Sorry, I'm not finding it. I don't know what Sangpo means. But in his Sanskrit name, Acharya (Master) Bodhibhadra. We've studied Bodhibhadra, I think. I don't remember the context other than here. Bodhibhadra. His dates - 200 AD. So, he's an Indian guy. Because in 200 AD, Tibet is not Buddhist yet. But when they study him, they give him a Tibetan name. They don't always do that and I don't know the reason why.

So, in your first reading, we just have the introduction to this text where the author pledges to write the book. And he divides the book into nine parts. These nine ingredients. They aren't the usual nine that we're familiar with, but knowing the nine will recognize how his nine are related to moving through the other nine. They're just not direct correlations.

He's really practical and down to earth about how to clear out obstacles to a conducive state of meditation and how to cultivate the state of meditation. It really is like, I don't know, nowadays, you go to look up a recipe on the internet and the person who's offering the recipe, they tell you everything about themselves and their dog and how they developed the recipe before you get the recipe. And he's a little bit like that. You know, friendly, homey, personal, showing us that he knows what he's talking about. As opposed to Pa Dampa Sangye, who's this crazy yogi Lama. He just says, this is what Nagarjuna taught me. You know, I probably studied Nagarjuna for 20 years, but this is the pith of it. So he's just this, Do this, do this, do this. Put an egg in your vagina if you want to clear out that crap. That doesn't mean every lady, that's.. But he just like, do this, do that. No nonsense kind of guy. And this other guy is like, no, no, here, I'll help you understand better. It's kind of sweet to have both in this class study.

In his text, he goes into things like demons, and obstacle-ers, and all these weird things that our Western mind goes, oh, that's just Tibetan superstition. But when we understand how to interpret and then use those words that they use, it's like, oh, I get why they call them demons instead of just plain old mental afflictions. And then when we gather this different relationship with our mental afflictions, that we have a method, a tool, for managing them in a more direct and personal way than keeping them at this arm's length. “This is my anger. This is my jealousy.” But rather, it's like, Egads, that looks like an ugly guy coming at me right now and it's like, I’ve got to do something with them. And that's a more direct way to work with our anger once we catch on how and why it works. So I hope I can convey that to you.

So in your reading, you'll also see that a fourth verse from Pa Dampa Sangye, but she did not cover it. And we covered it, but not for another class or so. Not because it's any harder than the others, but just in terms of its context for where we are. So you're welcome to read it, but recognize we didn't talk about it, which is why when you read it, you go, “she didn't say anything about that one”. It is true. I didn't.

So this is the end of this class. I don't think many classes will end early, but it's okay for the first one to do so.

Are there any questions, comments, anything you want to share about how your meditation practice has been going so far? No, that's okay. So in that case,

Dedication

Remember that person we wanted to be able to help by coming to this class.

We learned stuff that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way and that's an extraordinary goodness. So please be happy with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands.

Recall your own precious holy guide. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your devotion to them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, help you, inspire you.

And then offer them this gemstone of goodness.

See them accept it and bless it, and then carry it with them right back into our hearts.

See them there. Feel them there–their love, their compassion, their wisdom.

It feels so good we want to keep it forever, and so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person,

to share it with everyone you love,

to share it with every existing being everywhere.

See them all filled with love and kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so.

Okay, thank you again for the opportunity. Helps me to review these courses. Okay, see you next week. Bye-bye.

Welcome back. We are Bok Jinpa Course 5, Class 2. It's July 1, 2026, where I am. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Usual opening]

Meditation: Single-pointed Focus on Breath

[7:38] So let's do a short sit together to practice our shift from ordinary mind, non-meditating mind, to single-pointed focus mind. And so start with whatever steps you use to settle your body.

Now we're going to focus on our breath, but don't go there yet. What I'd like you to do is, as you turn your meditating mind on and you're turning its focus to those sensations at the nostrils we call breath, watch how that mind goes from its outer mode here in class, how it draws in to come to focus on this single object breath at the nostrils. So when you're ready, do what you do to bring your mind to your breath and watch it happen.

Once you're there, watch what happens.

Notice the effort it takes to keep it there.

Notice that if you work too hard to keep it there, it actually pops off. And so notice the amount of relaxing that helps hold that mind on the object.

And notice how if we relax into it too much, we lose that clarity. We get sleepy and it'll pop off again.

Now being on that object with just enough effort to stay and just enough relaxation to stay can be quite enjoyable. So whether it actually is or isn't enjoyable, turn on enjoying wherever you're at with it right now.

Notice how if you increase the enjoying too much, restlessness, agitation arises.

And if we let the enjoyment slide away, along comes the loss of clarity and then the dullness.

The enjoyment is a quality of our mind, our experience. It's not coming from the object.

Choosing to be single pointedly focused and then being single pointedly focused is what's enjoyable about the experience.

Check the quality of the mind right now, on the object or not. Correct.

If it was on clarity, intensity, make your adjustment and we'll stay one more minute.

Nice. Now dedicate those efforts to growing the ability to focus with clarity and intensity at your discretion such that you can sustain a direct perception of emptiness on behalf of that other person that you want to be able to help.

And then let go of that object. Become aware of yourself and your body in your room. When you're ready, open your eyes. Take a stretch.

Review Verses 1-3

[19:42] All right, so we are studying Pa Dampa Sangye's Pristine Path of an Egg of Pure Silver within or of or in, I'm not sure. This amazing practitioner, Pa Dampa Sangye, who studied from many teachers, meaning the texts of some of those teachers, through his in the flesh teachers, of course. And then he says for his own benefit, he puts together this summary of what I learned from this one, what I learned from that one. And the summaries are really amazing synopsises of the teachings of the ones we at least know about, right? Nagarjuna's, Dharmakirti's, there are a few others that we're familiar with. And then in his couple of verses, it's like, oh, my gosh, that just cut to the quick of it, which then helps me recognize that whoever this other teacher is that he's doing a summary of, I have no idea who they are. It's like, OK, there must be some really juicy stuff in these verses, because I see from the verses of the teacher that I do know more about how rich his writing is. So I find it encouraging when I go through these verses again, to recognize that every time I have a chance to share them with somebody and I'm looking at them in preparation, it's like, oh, my gosh, I see it in another way, right? The meaning goes a little bit deeper. And I remember back, kind of remember back to when we were first learning this the first time, and I thought I was understanding them. And now I realize, phew, you know, just for the most part, it was over my head. So it's so fun to go back and look at them again and again.

So last class, we talked about the first three verses. I'm just going to read them to you again before we go on. And then this class, Lama Christie picks up at verse five, and she keeps saying, we'll get back to verse four, we'll get back to verse four, but it takes a little while to get there. Okay, so here's what Pa Dampa Sangye is saying.

[1]

Once you are certain that

In essence

All known things comprise two truths

The mind which grasps

To things as two 

Is lost within itself

And then you know

That no existing thing

Exists in truth–

I don't know why it always comes to me to say that again, No existing thing exists in truth. Because exactly what we think we mean by that has all these different levels, right?

This is 

The advice of

Nagarjuna Garbha.

..meaning our hero, Arya Nagarjuna.

[2]

When you can

Unify the taste 

Of myriad objects

The state of mind 

Which grasps to two 

Is devoured by itself

And then you'll know 

These many things 

Are but a single song–

This is

The advice of

Prajna Bhadra.

[3]

Use logic 

To establish

Existing things.

Then cancel 

The distinctions made 

By holding things as valid

And you will meet 

A mistaken state of mind 

That frees itself–

This is 

The advice of 

Dharmakirti.

[4]

No reason

To be shrouded by 

The darkness of our actions

When they can be

Transfigured by

The enemy power:

Suppressing

Any lapses in our

Thoughts or words or deeds–

This is

The advice of

Gunaprabha.

Gunaprabha is the Vinaya master, remember. We'll get back to it.

Verse 5–The advice of Ratnakara Shanta

[5]

Accustom yourself

To the state

Of all things

To manifest

The qualities

Of the Buddha

Rise from

The great projection

In a Body of Form–

This is

The advice of

Ratnakara Shanta.

Now it's interesting and intentional, I believe, that there are no punctuation marks in here. And when we work with, like technically all of these, but this one in particular I found, it changes the insight if you put a period.

Accustom yourself to the state of all things. [period] 

To manifest the qualities of a Buddha rise from the great projection in a Body of Form.

Or: 

Accustom yourself to the state of all things to manifest the qualities of a Buddha. [period]

Rise from the great projection in a Body of Form. 

It has different meaning, both useful, right? For my puny mind, probably both not exactly what he's trying to say, but interesting. So Lama Christie was working off the Tibetan, which even after all these years, all I see are squiggles. So I can't quite do it that way. But I can help us unpack the English words. So that when you work with these verses, you have some clue as to how to go. But I don't mean to say this, what I say, what I say, what Lama Christie said, is the way to interpret this verse. She's just showing us how to go about looking at words, thinking about their meanings, applying it to what we already understand about the principles of karma and emptiness and where things come from and where we're trying to go. And investigate, investigate, investigate for ourselves, because each one of us will get a unique meaning out of each one of these verses, and that is really so extraordinary. But there's a sequence to them that she's helping us to recognize.

So here are this one,

Accustom yourself

To the state

Of all things

To manifest

The qualities

Of the Buddha

The accustoming oneself is referring to Lojong, not a specific Lojong, but Lojong in the meaning training our mind, which does not mean training our IQ. It means training to get our intellect and our love compassion side to be in more sync. We can think of it as left brain, right brain being in more sync, but we think of it as mind and heart as being in sync better.

So get used to practice being familiar with the state of all things. And here it's referring to like all existing things, the state of all existing things. Get used to the state of all existing things so that if we see any given thing, because we understand the principles of all existing things and why they are what they are, it applies to any given thing. But we're thinking of it here in terms of this great big picture.

What is the state of all existing things? What is it that we're Lojong-ing, that we're getting used to knowing about all existing things? Because when we get familiar with that for the big category, we can be familiar with it in the specific instances of that big category. So the all existing things really is meaning all the things that we are perceiving at any given moment, all the things that we can ever perceive. And then it also means any given thing we are perceiving at the moment.

And what is it that when we familiarize ourself with that, it will help us go on to manifest the qualities of a Buddha. Like what is it that makes Buddha Buddha perceiving dependent origination and emptiness simultaneously in all three times, that omniscience. So what is the state of all things that we're wanting to get used to? On one level, it's like, wow, there is all existing things. And it can be changing and unchanging. And within the changing, it can be physical or mental or those things that are not quite either. Right? We understand all existing things. But is that what it is to understand all existing things? No, that's worldly all existing things. To understand the state of all existing things, we understand, oh, that's everything's appearances. But is that to understand the state of all things to just recognize that's what's appearing, so that's what it is? No, it's only half the picture, right?

To understand the state of all things is to become more accustomed to an awareness in which for anything I experience, I know it's not just an appearance. It's an appearance forced on me by the ripening results of my past behavior. Oh, is that what it means? No, right? You guys are all on it. It takes something else. So it's not just the appearance. And it's not the awareness that the appearance is forced on me by the ripening of my seeds. But it's also the fact that its appearance reveals the object's lack of self-existence.

Why? Why does an appearance necessarily have to lack its own nature? Because its appearance is unique to me.

No it's not. Everybody sees the blue, whatever those are in my background. They're not unique to me. But of course, when we stop and think about it, yes, they are. And they are unique to you. And it's quite miraculous that we think that we agree that there's some kind of beaded curtain thing there. But even when I say that, every one of us is hearing it in a way unique to each of us. And that reveals the fact then that that object cannot be saying, I am a blue beaded curtain. Because if it's saying, I am a blue beaded curtain, then we would all have to see it, experience it the way it reveals to it.

And to be honest with you, I hear myself say that. And I go, yeah, but it is a blue beaded curtain. Everybody sees it as a blue beaded curtain. Right? My old mind takes over, even as I'm explaining the reason why it reveals to us the fact that it is not a blue beaded curtain from it, because we all see it. Do you see how backwards that seems? No, we all see it. That's why it's a blue beaded curtain. No, honey. Right? You all see it. And that's why it's empty of being a blue beaded curtain from its own side. Because we all see it differently. Right?

Accustom ourselves to the state of all things–appearance. Appearance forced on me by ripening seeds and appearances that reveal their empty nature. Just the things, is that enough to manifest the qualities of a Buddha to know that every pen, every horse, every bicycle lacks its own nature? No, there's two other aspects that are missing, right?

The three spheres all need to be accustomed to their state. Which is me–the one perceiving the blue beaded curtain also is an appearance, also forced on me from my seeds. Also, therefore, empty of self-nature. Well, if I don't have my own nature, who the heck is the one seeing the blue beaded curtain? We're going to go looking for that one throughout our Bok Jinpa course.

So then there's also the seeing of the blue beaded curtain, which also has to have these aspects. Appearance, yes. Appearance forced by seeds, yes. Appearance forced by seeds and nothing other than that. The emptiness of it. So accomplish, accustom ourselves to the state of all things. Man, there's a lot inside those three lines.

And then through that, we manifest the qualities of a Buddha. What are the qualities of a Buddha? Knowledge, love, and power. Remember from Uttaratantra years ago? Knowledge, love, and power. How does understanding appearing natures forced by seed natures and nothing but lead to knowledge, love, and power? That's something to think about.

Then rise from the great projection in a body of form. So the term projection here, the Tibetan term is TENDREL, which usually they translate it as dependent origination, which means everything depends on something else. Which if you leave it just in those English words, it's like, you know, we know that. But then as we take it more deeply, we recognize, oh, technically, everything depends on the ripening results of imprints made by how I interacted with others in the past, which is another way of saying karma.

So technically that arise from the great projection is saying, you know, when you come out of that emptiness directly… No, I can't even say that. To manifest the qualities of a Buddha, meaning to become Buddha, you are experiencing all existing things and their emptiness simultaneously. Of all, all, all things in all times. So ordinarily we would think, oh, projections, right? That's what's appearing, what's appearing. But to rise from the great projection, you must be meaning something deeper by the great projection. And yet we say, okay, we will go into and come out of the direct perception of emptiness multiple times before we have the goodness to not actually come out the final time, but stay in the direct perception of emptiness and arise in the appearing nature of everything simultaneously. We arise as omniscient being. So now it's like, wait, wouldn't Buddha go into emptiness one more time and then come out of emptiness as a Buddha? And it's like, no, because he's staying in emptiness because he's perceiving it all the time. She's perceiving it all the time. You will be perceiving it all the time. So you're not going to come out of emptiness again that final time. You're going to be it. So now maybe this idea of the great projection is saying, look, we understand when we're experiencing emptiness directly. It's like water poured into water. There's no distinction between self and other. And you're there in the absence of self nature of all existing things, including yourself. And it seems like for that period of time, there must be no projections happening. Like finally, we've reached clear of appearing things. We've reached emptiness. But do you see how that couldn't be accurate? To experience emptiness directly has to be a ripening, of extraordinary merit seeds but it has to be a ripening. It has to be an appearing thing. It's an appearing thing of an absence. That's where it's like. But the great projection then, maybe, teacher Ratnakara Shanta was pointing out, that even that direct perception of emptiness, which seems like the first time we're not having any projections at all, is in fact, the ultimate projection of all time. The projection, me experiencing emptiness directly, without the words, without the conceptuality, the raw direct yogic experience. And that understanding that even the direct perception of emptiness is a projected experience is somehow crucial to this accustoming our self to the state of all things. It's helping us recognize that as we're learning about dependent origination and emptiness, we're flopping: Think about dependent origination, how appearances are. Then recognize, oh, all those things are empty. Think about what emptiness is empty of. And it feels like there are these two different things. Work on this one, work on that one, work on this one, work on that one. When in fact, to be accustomed to the state of all things is to see or think or know about any existing thing, you automatically know their lack of self existence, their emptiness. And that we can't even think of emptiness without having a something that is empty. That's getting us closer and closer to manifesting the qualities of a Buddha. That deeper subtlety of understanding of what we mean when we say, oh, dependent origination and emptiness. Getting to the point where it's like this [holding hands folded]. Two things, one they say, but that's not right either. Something that has a this side and that side. But this particular, this side and that side, one side's a presence and one side's an absence. That sure seems lopsided, but it's what it takes for anything to be anything.

So we're talking about this big picture thing. Accustom yourself to the state of all things. Put whatever punctuation mark you're going to put in there. To manifest the qualities of a Buddha. Rise from that great projection in the Body of Form. So the body of form for Buddha is called the rainbow body. We were talking about that this morning. I think the body of form is the appearing side of that mind that is now omniscient. And that appearing side, the body of form has the body of form that it perceives itself as. And it has the body of form that others perceive it as. And it has the body of form that it sees its outer world as. That didn't come out right. It also sees an outer world and that knows that outer world's state of all things. So the body of form has the paradise body and the emanation bodies.

And I used to think of those in one way. And now it's like, oh, it's so much more than what it seemed like I learned in ACI… Here's the Buddha in their paradise. They look like this. They have those marks and signs. And then they are sitting there in their garden and they look out and they see Sarahni there in Tucson having elbow pain. And, oh, I'm going to go show up as, I don't know, that little cream that I put on and I'll be cream for Sarahni's elbow. And I know Sarahni can't see me as Buddha, but that's what I do for Sarahni.

But it's not even like that, right? It's the love and compassion and wisdom that's ripening. That Buddha in that Buddha's paradise also ripens as whatever any of us are needing at the moment. And not only that, but anything any of us are experiencing at the moment, whether we know we need it or not, anything we are experiencing is our current ripening, which is exactly what we need at the moment, even though we don't like it most of the time. So, man, cool, that body of form. I am so eager for my emanation being. That just sounds like so much fun. Paradise being all right, you know, have your picnic, pick your flowers, fine. But I want to be paradise being. Tired of this limitation.

All right. Lama Christie gave us just a really brief little meditation related to this. But as I'm looking at it now, it's like, well, this is odd. I wonder why she chose this, but we're going to do it anyway.

Meditation 2: Body

[49:52] So set your body. When you have your body set, bring your attention to your breath. Watch the mind come in. Turn on the focus. Turn on the clarity. Turn on the intensity.

Now the object of this meditation session is your own body. So bring to mind what comes up for you when I say, Think of your own body.

Does a picture image come to mind? Is it more a sensory, tactile, sensory image? You decide. 

Now ask yourself, what is it about this image I have in my mind right now that tells me that's my body? If you have a mental picture as if you're looking at yourself, explore how much of that mental picture does it take for you to be sure the mental picture you're looking at is your body and not something else.

If you're using the tactile sensation, investigate, What information am I actually getting? And is it enough for it to be telling me, This is my body?

Our habitual belief is that our body declares itself to us as our body. Explore your actual experience to see if you can find the fact that your mind is determining your body, not the body determining itself. How can you show yourself that?

The mind is projecting those colors, shapes, my body, or those sensations, my left hand. Which means the ‘my body’ that I thought was there declaring itself is not there.

Can you find a ‘your body’ there independent of your experience of it?

That's impossible, isn't it?

The body that is there is our ripening projections moment by moment by moment. It's presence, it's appearance, changing moment by moment because it's absent of its own nature.

Switch back and forth between what's there and what is absent.

Can those toggles overlap? What's there has the absence.

Nice. Now dedicate those seeds to reaching this accustomed to the state of all things.

Then bring your mind back up to being aware in the body, in your room. When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

Let's take our break.

Verse 6–The Advice of Brahmin Shankara

[1:05:10] In verse number six, Pa Dampa Sangye goes from that big picture, Get used to the state of all things and now he's going to zero in on using a specific example of an existing thing. And he synopses advices from someone called the Brahmin Shankara.

[6]

Get a firm grip

On the sound

And what grasps it

Then slaughter

The mind

That grasps to itself

Expose

The deception

Of that which is truthless–

This is

The advice of

The Brahmin, Shankara. 

I don't know if this is Shankarashita. I don't know if he was Brahmin, where we know Shankarashita, but I don't know if that's who this is. So Lama Christie said that, that first stanza, get a firm grip on the sound and what grasps it. She says, it's very clear in the Tibetan that it was not saying get a firm grip on sound, the concept sound. But rather here he's pointing out, pick a sound, a specific experience of sound and identify the sound and what grasps it, which is the hearer of the sound, which we learn that really it takes three things to be happening. There has to be the sound, the object, and there has to be the door of sense, so that we would say the cells of the ear mechanism through which decibels are detected. Then there has to be the ear consciousness, the hearing. Those three things together are necessary in order for an experience of a sound to happen.

It's like, well, where's the mind in all of that? Is the mind something separate or is the mind that ear consciousness, in which case it's not the eye consciousness because we're focusing on the ear consciousness at that moment. Is there a main mind and then there are all these different consciousnesses within the main mind, or is there only the consciousness of the moment of experience and then the next moment of experience and then the next moment of experience? What would happen if there was no moment of experience? What mind would there be then? But can there ever be a no moment of experience? Like we had that discussion somewhere else. Is non-existence possible? A non-existent thing is possible, but can there ever be a moment when there's not something being ripened?

So anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Get a firm grip on the sound and what grasps it, meaning get a firm grip on this mechanism of the experience, hearing something, not just hearing, not just sound, but a specific thing. So like snap your fingers, you hear the sound and old belief is snapping my fingers makes a sound, vibrations go to my eardrum, eardrum vibrates, those little bones do their thing, goes to the brain, the brain goes, oh, finger snap. And we go, ah, you know, that's old explanation. Now I understand finger snap information, ear consciousness gets presented that information and something about ear consciousness and main mind go, oh, finger snap happening. Technically me hearing finger snap, not just finger snap, because there's the three spheres happening. The hearing, the thing I'm hearing the hearing, the me aware of the hearing is what's ripening. So we're wanting to clarify the way hearing is actually happening versus the way we think the sound is happening, which is something out there that I hear that then I recognize. So we recognize the three spheres of an instant of something that we are hearing: the sound. 

Then it says, it then slaughter the mind that grasps to itself. So I just asked, is it the ear consciousness that determines that that's finger snap happening? Or is there a main mind that has the ear consciousness that has the experience that clarifies it? Like, is there a mind separate from all this happening that then says, oh, I'm hearing finger snap.

Can there be a mind independent of hearing fingers now that's hanging out, hearing something else that then along comes finger snap and the mind goes, oh, finger snap. Is that possible?

Do we think it is? I still do.

That's this slaughter the mind that grasps to itself. So even as we're thinking it through, hearing, what's really happening in hearing decibels, information, consciousness, determining, I'm thinking that all through. I do have a mind that's separate from it happening because it's happening and I'm thinking about it. My mind has to be separate, doesn't it? But that only means we're looking at the wrong object when we're saying my mind is separate from the hearing the fingers snap. Because when I'm saying, no, I have a mind that's separate from it because I can analyze it while I'm listening to it. The mind that's doing the analyzing, it has its own three spheres going on: The thing it's analyzing, the analyzing and the subject side that's involved. So when we go looking for this thing, the mind that we think is the thing that's hearing the sound and we work out the details that no sound isn't heard because the sound imposes it, it's because this threefold process happens. We still are thinking, no, no, but it's the mind that's experiencing that. And then we go and apply that same process of the object, the thing that's grasping the object and the grasping of it for the mind, and we go, Oh, my own mind just showed myself that that mind is also part of the projections happening. And we have therefore exposed the deception of that which is truthless.

What does truthless mean? That's a weird word. That which has no truth, that self-existent mind that is the one doing all of this.

Is there such a mind? No.

Does that mean I have no mind at all? No.

Does that mean the mind I do have is the one that is the dependently originating forced by karmic seeds and nothing other than that mind? Right.

The my own mind doing the projecting, that is truthless. There is no such thing. But I think there is. And that's the deception. So, how do we expose the deception? Go looking for it. Go looking for the hearing the sound, the way we think we hear sound. Only to find, well, that's not how I hear sound after all. But I'm using my mind to figure that out. So, my own mind must have its own nature. Then use the same process to look for that.That's the advice of the Brahmin Shankara. He must have known what he was talking about.

It has to do with the emptiness of the three spheres. Which when I explore the three spheres, I come up with four of them. But nobody seems to agree with me on that in the scriptures. So, I only mention it because if you're finding a bit of a conundrum here, I'm in good company.

I want to do verse seven. Lama Christie gave us another experiential session. But I want to do verse seven first and then we'll come back to it.

Verse 7–The advice of Jnanagarbha

[1:17:20] Verse seven says,

[7]

Kill the mind

That thinks things work

Through your powers of observation,

See the wisdom

Of that object

Free of all elaboration,

Then your perception

Of this cycle

Will be free of the extremes–

This is

The advice of

Jnanagarbha.

So, we've heard these words. The mind frees itself. The mind devours itself. The mind did something else. Lost is lost within itself. And here we have another one. It isn't like the mind itself doing it, but it's like intentionally to get rid of this mind that thinks that things work. How are we going to do that? This guy says, through your powers of observation.

And it's like, wait a minute. My mind believes that turning the key starts the car. Because that's my direct experience. My powers of observation say, my car will not start without turning the key. 

But is that where we leave our powers of observation for these purposes? Jnanagarbha would say, no, you're only partway there. Watch day by day by day. Does turning your key to start the car happen every single time?

Every three years or so, you turn the key on your car and it doesn't start.

Oh, because the battery dies in the desert every three years.

Yeah, but if the turning the key was the cause for starting the car, it must do it every single time no matter what.

So, anything that we think works in the way we think it works, if there is ever a time it doesn't work, even just once out of bazillion, it means the way we believe it works isn't how it works really. It's how it appears to work. Yes, you appear to need a key.

But then I hear myself, oh, it just appears to need a key, which means you don't really need a key, which means I could leave my keys in my purse and just stare at the car and should be able to start it up. And that never works. As opposed to the key only sometimes never works, sometimes doesn't work.

So, he really is saying, yes, ordinary human habit, we look at our powers of observation and we say things work. But when we go looking deeper, we use our own powers of observation to recognize things don't work in the way that we believe they do.

Are we saying keys don't start cars? No, we're not saying that. We're saying that's not the real reason that cars start. That's what we're using our powers of observation to come to kill the mind that believes there's something in turning the key that starts the car.

When we are able to recognize that, well, if the key starting the car works sometimes, but not other times, there must be some other factor involved. And when we find a common denominator to those other factors involved in any circumstance where we thought something worked in the way that I believed it did, and now I see that it doesn't work in that way, the common denominator is always me.

And then what's the common denominator between me and my observation? It's my experience. 

And what have I come to know about my experiences? They have to be results of causes.

How do I put the cause for an experience into my mind by way of what I see myself thinking, doing, saying to others. Like, thank goodness I know the punchline, because that's still not directly obvious to me. Oh, the key only starts the car because my seeds ripen it. The key only starts the car because it's my current experience result of past causes that were similar, so I help somebody else start their car with a key. And it's like, that's only partway there.

So anyway, I'm not going to go there. It would take too long.

We're revealing to ourselves through our own personal observation of things that are supposed to work in a certain way, and they don't always work in that way, to ask, well then, why is it that they do or don't work? What is it that I'm bringing to the party? And the next verse says, see the wisdom of that object free of all elaboration. Elaboration is this word that we'll use again and again in Bok Jinpa. It's referring to the seeds flowing out so quickly that it's making our experience of things and how those things are interacting and changing and moving. So it's like the story that we're putting on that's making our experience, me and my whatever's going on at the time, me in this class. It's my elaboration happening. We do use the word elaborate, meaning I'm telling a story and I embellish it. And that has a little bit of context here because as our experience is happening and we understand that experience is happening by way of these mental seeds ripening, the energetic of it is like this up-bubbling of something that gets more and more complicated as it goes out, more and more rich, more and more detailed, until the seeds for it wear out. And then by the time the seeds for it wear out, it's been followed by other seeds. So it's not really that this goes out and ends and there's a pause before the next one comes up, because there's never a pause. But there's this sense of this elaboration is this outflowing information that is the story of me and my experience moment by moment by moment. And we've been showing ourselves up to this point, anywhere there's an appearance, there also has to be the emptiness of that appearance so it can appear the way it does to me.

So, by killing the mind that thinks things work, not as my seeds ripening and nothing but, grows this wisdom that there isn't any such thing as an object that's not an elaboration, that's not a seed ripening image, story, sound, tactile, and that because there's nothing, not that, everything is possible. The perception of the cycle, meaning the whole cycle of experiences, will be free of the extremes. The one extreme is things have to exist the way they look to me. And if they don't exist like that, then they can't exist at all. And Geshe-la always says you'll only fall off ‘they can't exist at all’ if you have an inaccurate explanation of emptiness. But I feel my own mind when I'm going through that and reaching the conclusion of no, the thing isn't out there the way I think. There is an instant where it's like [flipping over] so it's not there at all. And then fortunately like I know that's coming and so it's like get back up here. It's the way it is because of my elaboration. Elaboration meaning it's my seeds ripening, me seeing what I'm seeing, experiencing what I'm seeing, the thing working in the way it is or isn't at the moment.

When we are free of all elaboration, that can be referring to the direct perception of that emptiness of those functioning things, especially me. Because that is a free of elaboration. Although previous verse said or one of them said that is also a projection. So you could do this whole debate. It's like no, your direct perception of emptiness is not free of elaboration. It is still an appearance. But there's no conceptualization. There's no mental words, even if they're pre-verbal, that the elaboration means this identifying, discriminating between things, feeling, then having mental afflictions about them. All of that is this elaboration. And when we're understanding that we are elaborating and we understand that everything is seeds ripening and nothing but, then we can hold this middle road of no, things are not the way I think they are, the way they appear to be to me because I don't think that anymore. And I know absolutely that things do not not exist at all because they exist exactly the way my seeds are making me see them exist, which is sometimes the key works to start the car and sometimes it doesn't. And when I know that, why am I going to be surprised or upset on the day that the key doesn't work? I would rather be amazed every time it does work. Woohoo! Miracle! Woohoo! Miracle! Like if I could go through life amazed by the seeds that are going off, I don't know, I think I'd be more fun to be around, would say Jnanagarbha. Let's see if that's all that she said.

Yeah, she's pointing out here that there's a more subtle piece in this two stanzas. The stanza about using our powers of observation to recognize how things must be seed ripening, they can't be working the way we think. We come to a new conclusion about how functioning things actually function by way of our powers of deduction. So we come to have SHERAB, which is knowledge about something that's more accurate to its true existence than our ignorant knowledge. But then in order to have wisdom, YESHE, we directly experience something that we get to the direct experience of it by way of having used our analysis, our deduction to show ourselves that something isn't what we thought. So that we can grow that direct perception that it isn't what we thought. And then that direct perception gives us a quality of knowing that they use the word YESHE instead of SHERAB. They're both words for wisdom, but the SHERAB is more knowledge, knowing, and YESHE is this wisdom of direct experience, particularly direct experience of the no self nature. Okay. All right.

Mediation 3: Experiencing Sound

So let's go back and do this other experiential session that has to do with the verse about experiencing a sound, not just sound, but a sound. And then after that, I have a little bit more about TING NGE DZIN GYI TSOK.

[1:33:00] So set your body again.

And turn on your focus, clarity, intensity using the object of breath to trigger it.

Now intentionally shift your object of focus from your breath at your nostrils to something that you are hearing. So notice first, if your mental gaze shifts, where it shifts to.

And then recognize any sound that comes up. Maybe there's a sound that's constant. Maybe there are sounds that are shifting, changing.

Be fascinated.

And first step is to intentionally recognize what that sound is. Ordinary belief, our computer fan, traffic…

And then separate that elaboration of the sound's identity from the experience of the sound.

Now there's a more subtle mental picture, a more subtle label. Maybe it doesn't even have a word.

Recognize at whatever level of experiencing sound you are at now is also ripening mental image. Can you get more subtle?

Can you find an actual sound that's presenting itself to you? A sound that is there before your mental image sound happens. Can you find such a thing?

Try this sequence again. The sound out there presenting itself to you.

Then recognize, no, that is an idea.

But the sounds, the decibels, they must be there. No, if I don't know decibels, they couldn't be there either. They have to be coming from me, even as they appear to come at me out there.

So that thing making the sound the way I thought, there is no such ‘that thing’.

And there is a ‘that thing’ making the sound I am experiencing by way of my own mind's images. 

Catch the toggle: the appearing sound and the absence of the one that is appearing to you.

Find the middle road between those two extremes.

I am hearing that sound, but it's not the sound that I think it is. And it is not no sound at all. Because I am hearing sound. I am hearing sound. Hearing sound happening.

Okay, let the sound go. Come back to your awareness in your body, in your room.

Dedicate to that becoming more and more clear, more and more obvious.

The elaborations and free of elaborations coming together, someday soon if they haven't already. 

Is everybody back?

The Work of Demons Interfering With Our Meditation

[1:45:29] So there's a little bit more for this class, which is from our Recipe for Deep Meditation. And last class was its introduction, where is his name, JANGCHUB SANGPO.

He said, I'm going to compose this book for you. And then his first chapter is a chapter on what we need to get rid of in order to just begin to gather all the ingredients that we need to reach deep meditation.

So it's kind of like we're getting ready to bake this fabulous cake. And the first thing we need is to make sure that the bowl that we're going to bake the cake in is cleaned out and available to put our ingredients in. So he says, there's stuff we need to get rid of. And you know, it's like, seems to me there's all kinds of things, my wrong view, my agitated mind, my dullness, etc. But he says what we need to get rid of is the work of demons. Whoa, the work of demons. And that once you've cleared out the work of demons, you've got the foundation for good meditation. 

And it's a little difficult, you know, in my upbringing, there were no such thing as demons. And so it took a bit of a leap of faith getting into this Tibetan tradition where man, demons are apparently all over the place to understand what they're talking about. And again, you know, thank you to our amazing Lamas, because they'll talk about demons and in the same breath, say, and they are all your seeds and your mind and your own past behavior. And they're real, and they're out there and they cause all kinds of trouble. And they can be really nasty, or they can become your friend, they can become your greatest protector.

So it's like, are they real or are they not real? If they're all my projections, they must not be real. Wrong. Because they are my projections, they are very real.

Well, who the heck are these things? Oh, yeah, they're my anger. They're my jealousy. They're my personified in a way that I can then work with them. We are actually going to learn a little bit of them in that way. But there are demons. There are beings, entities, streams of consciousness, for instance, there is one type of demon that is a mind that when it ended its previous life, did so with a mind really, really imbued with attachment and clinging and greediness and pride. And that mind then projected itself into an experience of being a being who just cannot get its wants and needs met. We recognize that as hungry ghost realm. And apparently, there are 36 different kinds of hungry ghosts you could become, you could project yourself as, and only one of them gets this designation as being a demon. And why, I don't know. But this idea of a demon has some connotation that that being has enough sensitivity with the human world that it makes some kind of contact. I don't think it sees itself contacting a human world, but it somehow is having an impact on our world. Our seeds are ripening that there are these beings that we can't see who actually are somehow attracted to us and they don't like whatever it is that we are doing. And their impulse is to interfere, to get in the way, to cause trouble, to keep you from doing that thing that you're about to do. And traditionally or classically, it's when we are doing virtuous things that these particular types of demons especially don't like the virtue. Now, why, I don't understand. But they say these in particular, the ones that are hungry ghost type demons, they'll come in that really, really late part of sleep night, really, really early morning when it's still dark outside and our intellect mind is really not functioning. And so we're very susceptible to other things. They'll come and make bad dreams or they'll make disturbing thoughts when you first wake up. They'll somehow be mischievous in that way. And they say, especially when we're doing something like a retreat, really working hard to deepen our awareness that they go, all right, let's make some trouble here. And it's helpful to know that that can happen because our tendency would be, I'm working so hard in my retreat and I just can't do it and things are going wrong and oh, woe is me. But it's like, no, it's just a demon. Is it your own seeds demon? Yes, but it is a demon. And so we can go, okay, I know how to deal with demons. I'll just deal with the demon and I can get right back into my swing of my retreat.

So there are different kinds of demons with different kinds of specialties apparently. And so then the more we know about these demons and their specialties, the more we're able to recognize them. And when we can recognize them, then we can actually grow the skill to either decide, okay, just a demon, I can ignore this, or we can grow, they say in deep meditation, we can grow the ability to call them forth, recognize them, and enlist them to help us, to turn that demon into a protector or into a friend, which helps them, right? More commonly, the demon interferes in a way that's scary and uncomfortable, and our natural reaction is shoo them away, get rid of them. And that sometimes works, mostly doesn't. And so our tradition teaches, well, what you do is you bribe them, especially when you're first starting a retreat, you make them a torma, right? And you bribe them and say, here, take this torma now and scram, because if you come back, I'm going to split your head open, like really kind. But then when they do come back, you don't split their head open. You teach them about emptiness and karma and you kill them with your love. And they either go away because they can't stand being loved, or they turn into your best friend and helper. 

So in Recipe for Meditation, to understand that because it's such a virtue, to decide I'm going to learn to meditate, the demons will come out in force. So the first thing to do is to rid ourselves of the work of the demons. Otherwise, we'll just keep struggling, struggling, struggling with our meditation.

So Lama Christie said to our group, look, between now and next class, please investigate your own experiences and beliefs about subtle forms, subtle entities. Do we believe there are such a thing? I'm not saying if you don't believe, you have to believe. Not. I'm saying, maybe think back, maybe there have been had experiences that you had, that we've explained in a certain way. And it's like, well, you know, maybe that was some kind of spirit entity, whether it was a bad one or a good one. And maybe I have had contact with these entities. I just didn't have it in my lexicon to interpret it in that way. So I called it, I don't know, some scientific phenomenon or something.

So just consider, could there be conscious entities that I didn't think I was subtle enough to be aware of, but maybe I am after all. And then, are they suffering beings or are they enlightened being emanations? Oh my gosh, now where do we go with that? Possibility.

Do they have to be dangerous? Might they be dangerous? What do I do? How will I work with them?

Just think about it. Don't need to come to any conclusion. And if you get scared, please reach out to me because that's not the point.

All right. So that's our class two.

[Usual Dedication]

Thank you for the opportunity. Okay, thank you. Thank you everyone for the opportunity. My pleasure. 

[Dinara: This word that you used, elaborations. I was trying to translate it in Russian and there are several different translations. Can you give more like so I can understand what's the better word to use in Russian?]

Elaboration means making more out of something than is there. Adding details, making a story out of not enough to have a story. Things appearing and getting more and more detailed. We're not happy. But the implication in this tradition is it's all flowing out of seeds, right? It's the appearing nature of stuff, okay?